29 [ 300] 
lodged ; and that the native priests, perceiving that the plants were new, 
carefully attended their growth, (a strong evidence of the great civiliza- 
tion of the Mexican Indians of that period.) The progeny of these oranges 
are now found wild in the woods of almost every State of Mexico. Vhirty- 
seven years ago the first mango stones were brought from Jamaica to Cam- 
hy, and the first tree is still flourishing at a great height in the suburbs 
of Saint Roman. At pre a i a, fine varieties of this delicious fruit 
F 
ins the S derimover, neat above all, the mnilizrostest While ‘some con- 
pyre: the durion to be one of the most ae te Ae see of nature, 
does not exist. Sapotes mameys, &c., compose a genus (Achras) of 
fruit-bearin rieaber these of the forests of rogihal America, which merit 
propagation for ~ value of their wood alone. So the forest trees, valua- 
a) 
(piscidia etythina,) which is freind in Yucatan » fo e dpbulidin: more 
ighly than the live-oak of the United States, or the teak of the East In- 
gardens. Without { canleaphigtay the list of valuable plants which will prop- 
agate pcg or be spread by winds, beasts, and birds, over extensive 
forests, in every tropical territory to which th 1ey eh be carried, by acci- 
dent or on sn, cin has been said to show, that even the natural, un- 
cleared sands and s ge of southern Florida, thay be profitably popu- 
ated with | topical silts. s, however, the species of musa, which yields 
the plantain and banana, are bolt piropactinih ng natives of shady and humid 
si it is in order to add that if, indeed, other species of the same 
genus, or of the family g genera of heliconia, urania, or strelitzia, should also 
yield the fine fibres of which the most delicate muslins of India are pre- 
pared, and the coarse fibres” called Manilla hemp, of which our stron 
I am now satisfied that fine fibres can be prefiiahs y obtained from the nated of the stalks 
of certain species of banana; but am ot ee relative to the precise species called abaca, 
iyiekts the Manilla hemp. teP. v., } 
