Cuba 93 



ever, sets seeds, and the little plants obtained by inarch- 

 ing or layering are extremely delicate. Thus its introduc- 

 tion into Cuba has proved very difficult because the at- 

 mosphere there is so dry and the rainfall so scant. All in 

 all we have brought sbc or eight plants to the island but 

 none survive today. I remember one really fine, well-grown 

 plant given us at Jamaica when I was on the Utoiua?ia. Mr. 

 Armour agreed to carry it direct to Cienfuegos. We did. 

 A drop of salt water splashed on it while we were taking 

 it ashore to Soledad and withered one of the main branches 

 of the plant in an instant. However, the trunk and other 

 branches were untouched and we found a damp spot for 

 it under a giant Pithecolobium tree. This plant lasted for 

 several years and flowered once, but was ruined with its 

 giant protector by the hurricane of 1934. This was a sad 

 blow. We have never since been able to secure a really 

 well-established specimen. 



Thanks largely to David Fairchild, Florida is beginning 

 to provide us with good mangos, good alligator pears, and 

 many other fruits long since staple articles of food in Cuba. 

 Personally, I look forward to the day when we may have 

 in our market here sapodillas. In the Spanish-speaking coun- 

 tries we call them sapotes or nisperos. They are "dillys" 

 in the English-speaking colonies — fruit unprepossessing 

 in appearance with a brown skin a good deal like a potato, 

 though without eyes, of course. But break it open and 

 the delicious brownish pulp has a delicate flavor of its 

 own and the black polished seeds characteristic of the 

 family to which the fruit belongs are quite artificial-look- 

 ing and decorative. The Mamey Colorado belongs to the 

 same family, but this has never been established in Florida, 



