226 MANUAL OF TROPICAL AND SUBTROPICAL FRUITS 



portance among cultivated fruits which it holds at the present 

 day. Higgins and Holt say of it : " Excepting the banana, 

 there is no fruit grown in the Hawaiian Islands that means 

 more to the people of this territory than the papaya, if measured 

 in terms of the comfort and enjoyment furnished to the people 

 as a whole." 



It may fairly be said, perhaps, that the northern cantaloupe 

 is replaced in Hawaii and other tropical regions by the papaya, 

 a fruit which, in its better varieties, is a worthy rival of the 

 melon. It is adapted to a wide range of territory; it comes 

 into bearing when a few months old ; and it yields most abun- 

 dantly of its handsome fruits. The presence of inferior varie- 

 ties in many regions has detracted from the prestige of the 

 papaya, but its intrinsic merit is beyond dispute. It is the 

 duty of tropical horticulture to encourage the dissemination of 

 the better forms and further to improve them by means of 

 breeding. Considerable attention has already been devoted 

 to this subject, but much remains to be done. The rapidity 

 with which seedlings can be brought to fruiting stage makes 

 papaya-breeding a much less tedious process than is the case 

 with the hard- wooded tree-fruits. 



It has always been a source of wonder to those unfamiliar 

 with the species that a plant so large as a mature papaya could 

 be produced in so short a time. The poet Waller l wrote in 

 1635 with but slight exaggeration of the literal fact : 



"The Palma Christ! and the fair Papaw 

 Now but a seed (preventing Nature's Law) 

 In half the circle of the hasty year, 

 Project a shade, and lovely fruits do wear." 







The papaya, a giant herbaceous plant rather than a tree, 

 grows to a height of 25 feet, and is often likened to a palm in 

 general appearance, although there is no botanical relationship. 



1 Battle of the Summer Islands. 



