218 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICLXTURAL SOCIETY. 



The Sapodilla is a striking and interesting tree to the New 

 Englauder, being when full grown, large and of fine shape, 

 something like a well-pruned pear tree, and when loaded with its 

 large, russet-colored, ovate-shaped fruit, is very ornamental. The 

 fruit has a soft, pulp}- flesh with a sweetish taste, described by 

 those who are fond of it as being like sugared honeJ^ 



Of the so-called Cabbage Palms there are several fine types to 

 be seen. This tree receives its name from the use that is made of 

 the young and succulent leaves which form a head and sometimes 

 also of the terminal bud, which are cooked and eaten as a salad. 

 Whether these trees were the Ai-eca olerncea^ a true palm, or the 

 Sahal Palmetto which is a similar tree and used for a similar pur- 

 pose, I was not botanist enough to determine nor did I find anyone 

 who was. However, as the palmetto is a common tree and the 

 Sabal serrulata or Saw Palmetto is universal^ found in the thickets 

 or scrub, as it is called, very probably the so-called palm is merely 

 a palmetto. 



Tune will not permit the enumeration of all of these interesting 

 forms of vegetable life, but I will allude, in passing, to the India 

 rubber tree, the Si'ijhonia Cahuclm of South America, of which 

 there are fine specimens to be seen. It is, of course, an exotic, 

 but thrives and might doubtless be easily propagated. Its kindred 

 tree, the Ficus elastica, which is a source of the elastic gum in the 

 east, is a sort of connecting link between the Cahuchu and the 

 wild fig which is indigenous to the Bahamas, and has the habit 

 peculiar to the oriental Ban3'au tree, Ficus Indica, of throwing 

 down shoots from its branches, which upon reaching the earth 

 take root and form additional supports for its spreading top. A 

 fine specimen of this tree stands near the highway, a short distance 

 to the eastward from the centre of the town, and is commonly 

 called the Banyan tree, although there has alwaj^s been a contro- 

 versy as to its identity with the true East Indian Banyan. 



In order to understand or appreciate the agriculture of these 

 islands one must know something of the peculiar formation, texture, 

 and condition of the soil. The uuderljing rock throughout the 

 Bahama Islands is a coralline limestone. This is formed of the" 

 oomminutcd fragments of coral and shells, torn to pieces and worn 

 by the ceaseless agitation of the ocean, thrown up into ridges 

 twelve and fifteen feet in height and intermingled with enormous 

 masses of alga? torn from the ocean's bed by the tempest ; blown 



