SAMOAN GROUP. 121 



Many of the trees we have named, as well as other plants, are 

 objects of cultivation; but the ground cleared for this purpose doss 

 not extend far from the coasts, near which all the villages are 

 situated. 



To clear the land, the bark is burnt off the trees, after which they 

 are permitted to stand until they become dry, when they are cut down 

 and used as fuel. 



The cultivated plants and trees are, bread-fruit (of which they have 

 twenty varieties), cocoa-nut, ti (Dracaena), bananas, taro, paper-mul- 

 berry, tacca, from which arrow-root is made, and of which they have 

 several sorts ; sugar-cane, which is not made into sugar, but used only 

 for thatching ; coffee, ava (Piper mythisticum), sweet-potato, pine- 

 apple (Anana), brought by the missionaries from the Society Islands, 

 yams, the papaya, and tobacco in small quantities. The agave has 

 not been introduced ; but in a few years lemons and sweet oranges 

 will be produced in great quantities from trees which have recently 

 been planted. 



To the cultivation of the tacca they pay little attention, yet the 

 quality of the fecula (arrow-root) made from it is said to be superior. 



The missionaries are endeavouring to teach the natives the best 

 mode of cultivating the sugar-cane and manufacturing it, and it is said 

 that a few persons have adopted the new methods. At present they 

 find a substitute for sugar in the root of the ti plant, which is baked 

 in ovens, and yields a large quantity of saccharine juice resembling 

 molasses. 



Great attention is paid to the cultivation of the yam. They are 

 planted in October, and are ripe in February and March. The vines 

 run up the trees, and when they die, the root is known to be ripe. 

 To plant them, they are cut, like the potato, into pieces containing 

 eyes, which are laid in heaps and covered up until the sprout appears. 

 The pieces are then set out at distances of about three feet from each 

 other. 



Hearing that there were some extensive savannas in Upolu, over- 

 grown with the wild sugar-cane, I directed Assistant-Surgeon Whittle 

 and Mr. Couthouy, to proceed to the east end of the island, where 

 they were said to grow. They, however, saw nothing of the kind 

 except a few small patches of that plant. 



There are no traces among these islands of any native quadruped, 

 nor any other of the mammalia, except a species of bat (Pteropus 

 ruficollis), which is very destructive to the bread-fruit. Swine have 

 now become abundant, and the missionaries have introduced cattle, 

 which are rapidly increasing, and will in a few years be in sufficient 



vol. ir. L 16 



