I 



Septembee, 1910 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



63 



not flourish if too carefully tended. No 

 fertilizer except a little half-rotted seaweed, 

 and no cultivation except a couple of weed- 

 ings a year, are needed. Heavy crops of 

 fruit are produced almost every summer, 

 often with a light winter crop, and the limes 

 from the Keys are especially cherished be- 

 cause, unlike mainland limes, they will carry 

 long distances without deterioration. 



The lime is thin-skinned, full of juice in 

 proportion to rag, of a delicate inimitable 

 aroma, and once a lime-convert the epicure 

 forever after spurns the lemon. 



There is little trouble in getting them 

 picked in spite of the mosquitoes and their 

 needle-like thorns. 



The lime is in active demand because 

 there is an unquenchable desire — the awful 

 thirst which besets the American people in 

 the summer time. Great pyramids of limes 

 may be seen at almost every soda fountain 

 where limeades are in vogue or at the club 

 where the gin-rickey holds sway. A whole 

 lime for a glass with the thin aromatic rind 

 thrown in is the rule. For that reason big 

 limes are not wanted, and then, limes are 

 usually bought by the barrel and sold by the 

 dozen. 



My crop last year on about four acres of 

 land amounted to two hundred and some 

 barrels. A flour barrel is the standard and 

 holds about one hundred and twenty-five 

 dozen limes. They netted me on the average 

 $3.50 a barrel. They probably retailed at 

 twenty cents a dozen, costing the consumer 

 about twenty-five dollars a barrel — a fair 

 instance of the abysmal gulf between the 

 consumer and producer. 



WAYS OF USING LIMES 



Limejuice has other uses than assuaging 

 thirst. In the form of citric acid it is exten- 

 sively used in manufacturing establishments. 



A little lime juice put in the water in which 



A lime tree on EUiott's Key, Fla., showing the 

 rocky nature of the soil 



Sapodillas growing and fruiting in the "bush" on 

 EUiott's Key, Fla. 



meat is boiled renders it more tender and 

 palatable. 



Added to desserts, other fruits jams, etc., 

 it brings out their peculiar flavors and 

 removes flatness. 



It offsets hardness in water. 



With salt it will clean brass and remove 

 stains from the hands. 



It improves and whitens boiled rice and 

 sago. It is a soothing application to irri- 

 tions caused by insect bites. It is better 

 than vinegar as a salad dressing. It makes a 

 cleansing tooth-wash diluted with water. It 

 is good for the liver, useful in fevers, and 

 they say a little limejuice in the water you 

 drink is sure death to the typhoid bacillus! 



And so I manage my lime plantation — 

 a kind of laissez-faire system — but it pays 

 a good interest. A new-comer would hardly 

 notice it in passing. A colored man called 

 Parson Jones, otherwise known as the Sul- 

 tan of Caesar's Creek, has an eye on it. 

 Every month or so I meet him in town, but 

 his good wife, who picks limes also, has not 

 been away from home for three years. 

 Three or four times a year when we want 

 to bathe in the briny parti-colored waters 

 of the Keys or seek plunder on beach- 

 combing expeditions along the shores, I 

 drop in to look over my plantation and pick 

 some green cocoanuts for the refreshing 

 liquid which they contain. My only concern 

 is in summer, awaiting returns from ship- 

 ments. Sometimes the sales are disap- 

 pointing, especially in the region of New 

 York, if a ship has arrived with a cargo of 

 "sours" each wrapped in brown paper from 

 the island of Santo Domingo. 



WHY PLANT DILLIES? 



My sapochllas were planted because they 

 yield a very sweet fruit and stand firm in the 

 teeth of the gale. The trees are so dense 



and sturdy that they form a wind-shield and 

 storm-break. Good dillies have a local sale 

 of a penny each. Some are smooth light 

 brown with a pink blush on one side, but 

 many resemble a rusty-coat apple. The 

 colored gentry will invest in this luxury 

 even when grits are low in the larder. And 

 the raccoons are so fond of them that ripe 

 dillies on the trees are seldom found. 



But there is a future to the dilly beyond 

 all this. The gum or milky juice of the tree 

 is the basis of chewing-gum, and although 

 the world at large may not be cognizant of 

 this impending calamity, and although even 

 the consen'ation commission has not con- 

 sidered it, we are on the verge of a chewing- 

 gum famine. The price of this gum, called 

 chicle, has risen, the quantity given in a 

 cake of gum has been reduced to the severest 

 minimum, and adulteration has reached its 

 maximum. Still the demand is beyond the 

 supply. 



The man who plants limes, with sapo- 

 dillas for a wind-break, is actually, but 

 perhaps unwittingly and indirectly, furnish- 

 ing important ingredients for two articles 

 not destined to uplift mankind — the gin- 

 rickey and chewing-gum. 



In addition to yielding a sweet fruit and 

 a valuable gum, the wood of the sapodilla 

 tree is probably as near everlasting as wood 

 can be, in fact it outlasts many metals. 

 Lintels of zapote, or sapodilla wood, in the 

 ruins of Mexico are still hard and sound, 

 having endured many centuries, probably 

 3,000 years. 



In a few years, no doubt, there will be 

 many chicle plantations, under the control 

 of companies inducing the unwary to part 

 with their coin on the promise of great future 

 returns, as in the case of rubber. 



Even now chicle figures in American stock 

 reports, and American chicle is bought and 

 sold in Wall Street by the side of stock of 

 other great corporations. 



Fruit of Sapola Zapolilla. In appearance it ] 

 Dies a rusty-coated apple 



