AND AGRICULTURAL CAPABILITIES. 55 



dish pulp, with most agreeable subacid sweetness, and is excellent for 

 quenching thirst; and from the thickness of its rind will keep longer 

 than the fruit of any other of the citrus family. This variety is well 

 worth cultivating for the excellence of its solid vinous pulp, which fur- 

 nishes a substitute for other acid fruits in pies, tarts, jellies, &c. 



Loquat (Eriobotryajaponica) is known in the South as the Japan plum. 

 The tree is an evergreen, and grows 10 to 12 feet high, and is desirable 

 in every Southern garden on account of its hardiness, withstanding a 

 greater degree of cold than any of the semi-tropical fruits. It ripens 

 its fruit in February and March, when most other fruits are gone; is a 

 profuse bearer, and is readily propagated by seeds and cuttings. 



The pine apple (Ananassa sativa) is grown in some of the gardens in 

 the northern portions of the State, but requires protection. South of 

 parallel 28 it is produced in greal excellence and perfection, the pines 

 frequently weighing 9 and 10 pounds each. This fruit is easily propa- 

 gated from suckers and crowns, the former preferable, however, the 

 fruit maturing in three to four months after planting the suckers. 



Papaw (Carica papaya] is sometimes called the bread-fruit tree. It is 

 a native of South Ameria. This remarkable tree, though not much 

 cultivated at the present time in Florida, is worthy of great attention, 

 not only for the excellence of its fruit, but also for its other extraordi- 

 nary properties. The tree attains a growth of 20 feet in height, and 

 yields a large supply of fruit in three years from the seed, and should 

 be in every garden in Florida south of 30 north latitude. It thrives 

 well and bears profusely at Saint Augustine. The fruit is pear shaped, 

 of a light yellow color, varying in size from 3 to 5 inches in length and 

 from 2 to 4 inches in diameter, and is not unlike a very ripe muskmelon 

 in taste and flavor, though sweeter. It may be pared and sliced and 

 eaten raw as a desert fruit, or cut into slices and soaked in water till 

 the milky juice is out, and then boiled 'and served as a sauce, or by the 

 addition of lemon or lime juice, it supplies a most excellent substitute 

 for apple sauce or tart fruit, to which it is scarcely inferior. The juice 

 of the pulp also forms an excellent cosmetic for removing freckles from, 

 the skin, and the leaves are frequently used, in the French West India 

 Islands, instead of soap for cleansing linen. Its remarkable medical 

 properties, however, are most important, as it is the most powerful ver- 

 mifuge known, a single dose of the milky juice of the unripe fruit, or of 

 the powdered seeds of the ripe fruit being sufficient to cure the worst 

 cases, and extirpate every worm from the system of the patient. 



The most extraordinary property of the papaw tree is that related 

 by Dr. Browne, in his Natural History of Jamaica, in which he says 

 that the toughest meat or poultry may be made perfectly tender for 

 cooking, by steeping for eight or ten minutes in the milky juice of this 

 tree. Dr. Holden, who witnessed its effects in the island of Barbadoes, 

 says, in the third volume of the Wernerian Society's Memoirs, that the 

 juice of this tree causes a separation of the muscular fiber in meats that 



