IJO 



The Journal of Heredity 



to enter the Pacific, but contrary winds 

 in that inhospitable region drove him 

 back and forced him to sail for Tahiti 

 by way of the Cape of Good Hope. 

 When the Bounty at last anchored at 

 Tahiti nearly a year had passed since 

 her departure from England. Six 

 months were occupied in loading the 

 vessel with a thousand breadfruit 

 plants. During this time the enchant- 

 ment of the island and its beautiful 

 maidens had so captivated the sailors 

 that a month after sailing away they 

 mutinied, placed Lieutenant Bligh in a 

 life boat with eighteen men who had 

 remained faithful to him and returned 

 with the ship to Tahiti. They induced 

 several Tahitian men and women to 

 join them and again sailed away and 

 finally beached the Bounty on the iso- 

 lated island of Pitcairn, where the colony 

 was discovered some twenty years 

 later by an American sea-captain. 

 Lieutenant Bligh, after journeying more 

 than four thousand miles in the open 

 boat, eventually reached Timor in the 

 Moluccas, the most remarkable cross- 

 ing of the Pacific that has ever been 

 made, and thence found his way 

 back to England. Nothing daunted, 

 the British government again dis- 

 patched him on His Majesty's ship 

 Providence, to repeat the adventure. 

 This ship left England in August, 

 1791, reached Tahiti in April of the 

 following year and arrived in the West 

 Indies in January 1793, with about 700 

 breadfruit plants. 



THE FRUIT 



The breadfruit is a stately tree, 

 occasionally reaching a height of about 

 20 meters, with a handsome top of 

 large, dark green, more or less cleft 

 leaves. The fruit grows singly or in 

 bunches of two or three near the end 

 of the branches, is from one to four 

 kilos in weight, roundish to short- 

 oblong in form, and frequently irregu- 

 lar in outline. The surface of some 

 varieties is covered with short, soft 

 spines, while in others it is compara- 

 tively smooth and reticulate, the 

 spines being reduced to a series of flat, 

 tubercular projections. The imma- 



ture fruit is green with white, spongy 

 and fibrous flesh. It is inedible when 

 raw, but when peeled and sliced may 

 be baked, boiled or roasted, then 

 resembling a sweet potato in texture 

 and flavor and serving as a wholesome, 

 palatable, starchy vegetable food. 



The surface and flesh of the mature 

 fruit are yellow. It exhales a sweet, 

 rich aroma, so strong that a single 

 specimen fills a large room with 

 fragrance. The flesh is soft and sweet. 

 Peeled and cut into thick slices and 

 baked, it is delicious eaten alone or 

 with cream, still retaining to some 

 extent the rich aroma peculiar to its 

 uncooked condition. 



Quiros, the first white traveller to 

 describe the breadfruit declared, "there 

 is no fruit superior to it." 



Wallace, the eminent naturalist, said, 

 "With meat and gravy it is a vegetable 

 superior to anything I know either in 

 temperate or tropical countries. With 

 sugar, milk, butter or treacle, it is a 

 delicious pudding, having a very slight 

 and delicate, but characteristic flavor 

 which, like that of good bread and 

 potatoes, one never gets tired of." 



The following extravaganza by the 

 famous Captain Cook, probably more 

 than anything else was responsible for 

 the dispatch of the Bounty: "Of the 

 many vegetables that have been men- 

 tioned already as serving them (The 

 Tahitians) for food, the principal is the 

 breadfruit, to procure which costs 

 them no more trouble or labor but 

 climbing a tree. The tree which 

 produces it does not indeed shoot up 

 spontaneously but if a man plants 

 ten of them in his life time, which 

 he may do in about an hour, he will 

 as completely fulfill his duty to his 

 own and future generations as the 

 natives of our less temperate climate 

 can do by plowing in the cold of 

 winter and reaping in the summer heat 

 as often as these seasons return; even 

 if, after he has procured bread for his 

 present household, he should convert a 

 surplus into money and lay it up for 

 his children." 



There are no breadfruit orchards 

 anywhere, and accurate statistics as to 



