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tion must of course be taken to this statement as applied to pine- 

 apples since Singapore has for a long time been famous for supply- 

 ing the world with the largest quantity and the best quality of 

 preserved pines. It is probable that later we may also preserve in 

 quantity others of our local fruits, in the form of jams or jellies, or 

 in other forms. On this subject I will speak later. 



The number of kinds of fruit more or less good in our region 

 whether native of the East Indies or introduced from other tropical 

 countries is very large. Indeed almost all the really eatable fruits 

 of the world have been at one time cr another introduced into the 

 Straits, of these many have failed to grow, some have grown well 

 but produced no fruit, some highly spoken of by travellers in other 

 parts of the world are found here at least to be either not worth 

 eating or wholly uneatable. Thus the beautiful looking Coco-plum 

 {Chrysobalanus Icaco) a native of Brazil, grows well and fruits 

 abundantly, but its fruit, a pink plum with a line bloom on it, has 

 pithy hardly sweet and often astringent flesh, even fruit-loving 

 animals hardly care for it, and I never found any person care to 

 take a second bite from it. 



Besides tropical fruits most of the European fruit trees have 

 been introduced and tried on the hills and in the plains, but chiefly 

 in the garden half way up Penang hill. There olives, apples and 

 many other trees and shrubs of cooler climates have been tried. 

 The olive? grew well but failed to flower which might be expected 

 as they are natives of the dryer regions cf Southern Europe. 

 Peaches, plums, cherries, and apricots have never produced fruit 

 here. Apples fairly good and of fair size were produced in 

 small quantities on one or two trees, but one cannot at 

 all recommend the cultivation of these fruits, as the expense 

 is out of all proportion to the result. The only pear tree I 

 ever saw that fruited here was a Chinese one in Singapore 

 which produced one of those very woody fruits such as are 

 often sold in our markets. It was considered a great curiosity. 

 Strawberries again have been from time to time cultivated in the 

 Eastern tropics, and have even produced small fruits in Singapore, 

 but they were quite flavourless. But these temperate climate 

 fruits are not worth cultivating except as curiosities. The tropical 

 fruits from both hemispheres aie the ones to which we must devote 

 serious attention. And first it must be noted that the colonist 

 here as a rule has a remarkably limited acquaintance with the 

 fruits of the country. His boy purchases for his table a few 

 second rate bananas, inferior mangosteens, very occasionally a 

 papaya, or rambutans when very cheap, or a field pineapple, and 

 after a course of desserts of this kind, the colonist condemns 

 tropical fruit as quite worthless, and pines for first cla^s English 

 fruit. Cooked fruit for pies or puddings is a thing unknown in 

 very many houses. It is often asked by residents, why fruit trees 

 are not cu'tivated so as to improve the flavour, and develop the 

 fruit as has been done in Europe. To ask this question is to show 

 the profoundest ignorance of the principles of selection by which 

 the fruit of Europe has been developed to its present high pitch of 



