164 Naturalist at Large 



I have tanks in the basement where terrapins and turtles 

 may be kept against the visit of some distinguished visitor. 



David Fairchild has provided innumerable tropical 

 fruits: white sapotes, aegles, canistels, mangoes, and many 

 others, and a grower near Homestead, Florida, who has 

 a particularly fine strain of papayas, has supplied these 

 frequently. 



Thanks to Wilson Popenoe, a disciple of David's now in 

 Guatemala, we have had mangosteens. The Department of 

 Agriculture once put a stop to their importation on the 

 ground that they were hosts of a pernicious fruit fly. I 

 knew that this was obvious nonsense and now, after long 

 argument with the Department and after much experimen- 

 tation, we have permits to import mangosteens and will 

 eat them frequently, I hope, when the war is over. 



I only wish that we could look ahead fifty years and 

 see the mangosteen, queen of all tropical fruit, abundant 

 in the Boston market. The United Fruit Company has a 

 big grove of bearing trees at Lancetilla, in Honduras, and 

 can easily plant more if the demand makes it worth while. 

 The American people, however, as David Fairchild has 

 long ago found out, are slow to change their feeding habits. 

 Any number of excellent fruits and vegetables from all 

 over the world have been brought to America, propagated 

 for a short time, and then allowed to die out. I cite for 

 example the Dasheen, which is much better than any sweet 

 potato, the Udo, and the giant radish of Japan. 



When I became Director of the Agassiz Museum, I was 

 highly dissatisfied with the situation which I found await- 

 ing me. Luckily, at that time I had the means to make 



