A TREATISE ON NUT CULTURE. 31 



Materials for chewing in a siri-box are offered at all ceremonials as rigidly as 

 the pipe of peace was at an Indian pow-wow. If two intimate friends meet, 

 out comes the siri-box, just as the snuff-box was offered not so very long ago. 

 Catechu, one of the best astringents in the materia medica, is obtained from 

 the unripe nut by boiling. 



Jamaica rejoices in the Bread nut, the fruit of a lofty tree. The nut is 

 about an inch in diameter and contains a single seed, which when roasted or 

 boiled is a very acceptable article of food. Fruiterers call the Butternut of 

 Demerara the " Suwarrow" nut, as if the name was a corruption of that of the 

 great Russian general of the end of the last century, who was so much admired 

 by the Empress Catharine. It ought to be " Souari" or " Surahwa." It is the 

 fruit of a forest tree which grows eighty feet high and is worthy of notice, for 

 by persons qualified to judge it is said to be the finest of all the fruits called 

 nuts. Few, however, are imported, and it seems to be a pity, for " the kernel 

 is large, soft and even sweeter than the almond, which it somewhat resembles 

 in taste." 



The nut is about the size of an egg, somewhat kidney-shaped, of a rich 

 reddish -brown color, and covered with large rounded tubercles. My own ex- 

 perience indorses the opinion given above and I have frequently regretted the 

 absence of this delicacy from the market. 



In tropical Aiherica the natives are blessed with a source of butterfat 

 almost equal to that obtained from the cow. It is the Peka nut, obtained from 

 a tree belonging to the genus which supplies the butternut of Demerara. 



From tropical Africa there has been introduced into the West Indies and 

 South America an important nut called the Kola nut. It contains in a very 

 remarkable degree the stimulating principle of tea theine and that of cocoa 

 theo bromine, besides other food constituents. Its value, therefore, to the 

 inhabitants of a country where it grows can be readily imagined, and in Cen- 

 tral Africa it forms quite an important article of commerce. 



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