14 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



August, 1910 



so that the enterprising native has but to pull 

 it over with boat or sponge hook, sever it 

 from the stalk with his machete, and walk 

 proudly home with a week's provender for 

 himself and family on his head — a fitting 

 statue of man's mastery over nature. 



Little wonder that the native of the tropics 

 is a lover of leisure; little wonder that he 

 rests content in his palm-thatched hut amid 

 his beloved bananas. 



A good papaw will bear a hundred or 

 more melon-like fruits, a fruit to the axil 

 of each leaf, ripe at the bottom and in all 

 stages of development up to the bloom. 

 The staminate and pistillate flowers are 

 usually on separate plants, and the fruit 

 varies a great deal in quality. 



The fruit contains a large quantity of 

 black, peppery seeds which may be removed 

 en masse, as in the case of the cantaloup. 

 A good papaw, cold and treated with sugar 

 and limejuice, is relished by many people on 

 a par with a muskmelon. The seeds are 

 usually scattered in the midst of rubbish 

 during the rainy season. As soon as the 

 plants begin to bloom, all but one or two 

 staminate plants are destroyed. In the 

 course of a few months one may begin to 

 pick papaws every day or so. 



Of course some people have to learn to 

 like them, but one lady that I know, of good 

 habits, will steal this fruit when buying and 

 begging fail. She has for the papaw the 

 same irresistible longing that the negro has 

 for the watermelon. 



Next in wonder to the prolific nature of 

 this fruit is the marvelous fact that it con- 

 tains a natural food-digester, a ferment now 

 famous the world over as a medicine. Under 

 various patent names it enters into the lists of 

 many drug firms. By means of it men have 

 already accumulated fortunes — not the 

 producer, but the manufacturer and ped- 

 dler who invent appealing names and have 

 them patented. 



I have before me a sample bottle contain- 

 ing one hundred pills for twenty-five cents. 

 It is marked "Physician's sample. Our own 

 preparation of the digestive juice of Carica 

 Papaya with willow charcoal." It is also 

 marked a sure cure for dyspepsia or indiges- 

 tion. I have often wondered where all this 

 juice comes from. I have traveled in many 

 parts of the tropics, but have never seen or 

 heard of anybody collecting it, and the plant 

 will not grow north of the frost line. 



How fortunate the dweller in the tropics! 

 If his meat is tough he can wrap it in papaw 

 leaves over night and it will be tender in the 

 morning. If his meal has disagreed with 

 him, he can step into his back yard and pick 

 and eat a papaw for dessert. 



Both bananas and papaws, however, are 

 picked when full, but still green. This 

 must be done to save them from the rats and 

 birds. The tropical planter has bananas to 

 roast and bananas to fry, sweet bananas and 

 acid bananas, big bananas and little bananas, 

 yellow bananas and red bananas — invf act, 

 varieties galore. 



If his bananas are slow to ripen, he can 

 hurry the process by putting the bunch in 

 a barrel and filling the barrel with warm air 

 and smoke. This is easily done by turning 

 the barrel upside down, hanging the bunch 

 to a nail in the bottom which is now the top, 

 and building a small fire in the hole in the 

 earth under it. 



In a native school in India I have been 

 told the pupils are fed almost exclusively 

 on bananas. Bananas must be had at all 

 times in proper condition. So they have a 

 trench in the earth arranged in such a way 

 that they can fill it with bananas, warm 

 air, and smoke at any time and thus hasten 

 the process of ripening. 



The banana has been in a way the eman- 

 cipator of the tropics. In many instances 

 it has led the native out of thraldom. In 

 many places from which bananas are not 

 shipped he must work in the fields at a small 

 recompense. At banana ports he can 

 usually receive a cash payment for every 

 full bunch. With bananas to eat and 

 bananas to sell, the copper-colored native 

 can rest in his home-made hammock, thump 

 his home-made guitar, and smoke his home- 

 made cigar with only one worry, and that is 

 that he might at any time be forced to serve 

 in the army of either the de facto or de jure 

 government, for the cause of liberty. Even 

 so he knows that the folks at home can live 

 on the bananas and papaws and other fruits 

 and vegetables growing in a semi-wild state 

 around his bungalow. 



Ttese two fruits mean more to the tropics than is usuaUy realized. They grow almost anywhere, without attention; the banana gives food in abundance 



and the papaw is an unexcelled digestive 



