MANUAL OF TROPICAL AND 

 SUBTROPICAL FRUITS 



CHAPTER I 

 THE OUTLOOK FOR TROPICAL FRUITS 



THE thickly peopled countries of the Temperate Zone 

 must look more and more to the tropics to supplement their 

 own food resources, whether by direct supplies, made possible 

 in increasing measure by ever-improving means of trans- 

 portation, or by furnishing plants which may be cultivated in 

 mild-wintered regions such as California and Florida. Both 

 forms of contribution will be largely in the item of fruits. As 

 examples of the first class, the banana, because of its immense 

 yield and quick production, has already been exploited on a 

 large scale, and the coconut, through its product copra, has 

 become an economic factor of prime importance; in the 

 second (or rather, in both) the avocado, still a novelty but of 

 very great possibilities as adaptable to growth in our own 

 country, is on the verge of taking a high place among the food 

 crops contributed by the tropics. 



Many other fruits of the Torrid Zone, not all of them so 

 important, yet all valuable in degree in the dietary of the race, 

 must be grown in ever-increasing quantities, not only to supply 

 northern markets, but also, and even more important, - 

 to enable the native populations of the tropics as well as settlers 

 from the North to obtain abundantly and cheaply this most 

 wholesome source of human energy. 

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