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Edible Products. 



chestnut in flavour, while the flour to which they are reducible, when dry, is not 

 unlike that of the Zingara nut (Trapa bispinosa). A single trutescence of average 

 size is capable of yielding about 2 pounds of the chips as well as one pound of the 

 seed-flour. The average annual yield of the tree may safely be estimated at 20 

 Jacks ; so that an acre stocked with about 50 trees, standing 30 feet apart each way, 

 would produce 50x20 by 3 or 3,000 pounds of the farinaceous material. 



The cultivation of the Jack which has been practised for ages in the hills and 

 plains and gardens of India still admits of much profitable expansion. The vast 

 stretches of waste land that are still available, in the moister regions of the Empire 

 especially, could be easily redeemed from unprofitable jungle and made to efficiently 

 minister to the necessities of agriculture. The cereals that furnish the staple crops of 

 India frequently prove extremely precarious, and the consequent cry for food, when 

 they fail, is usually difficult to adequately appease. The salvation of the situation 

 apparently lies in the direction indicated by the establishment and maintenance of 

 extensive farms raising farinaceous and other products that do not depend, like the 

 majority of the cereals, upon the degree of seasonable moisture in a locality. Trees 

 and plants that develope ligneous tissue can ordinarily withstand with greater 

 impunity the nefarious effects of unfavourable agricultural seasons. Again, the 

 national economic influences that can advantageously be exerted by extensive 

 estates of woody species which, at the same time, produce abundance of food, cannot 

 be too highly extolled in a country which has long since become a prey to periodic 

 famines. The ease with which the jack could be grown upon almost sterile soils is a 

 point of vast practical importance in favour of its extended cultivation in India. 

 It is seemingly indifferent to most soils provided they are well drained and not too 

 hard or stony. It thrives upon laterite, red-earth and sand as well upon a variety 

 of soils that are classifiable as intermediate forms between these. It is capable of 

 withstanding a high summer temperature but does not thrive in extremes of climate. 

 The young crop requires to be watered during the hot weather of the year following 

 its installation, and the plants during that and the succeeding year protected against 

 ravages of cattle and fire. In its third year it will ordinarily attain to a height 

 which will be well beyond the reach of cattle, and will also be sufficiently lignified to 

 withstand the ravages of fire with considerable impunity. 



The species bears fruits for the first time after the fifth or sixth year of its 

 age ; but does not, in most localities attain to profitable frutescence until the comple- 

 tion of its tenth year. It thereafter bears, in increasing qualities, until the limit of 

 its innate vigour is attained after which the yield begins to decline. Jack trees in 

 Malabar have been known to yield, year after year, without symptoms of decline for 

 periods of fifty years or more ; while it is difficult to estimate with any degree of 

 accuracy the age, doubtless great, of individuals of the species that sporadically 

 occur in the forests of the Western Ghats. — Capital. 



THE AVOCADO: A SALAD FRUIT PROM THE TROPICS. 



Introduction. 



As our contact with the Tropics becomes more and more intimate, and 

 transportation facilities are improved, the number of fresh food products received 

 from tropical countries is rapidly increasing. Among the most promising of such 

 articles is the avocado, still little known, but rapidly increasing in favour. The 

 avocado, though technically a fruit and usually referred to as such, is from 

 the culinary standpoint no more a fruit than the cucumber. It is more accurately 

 described by the term " salad fruit," and may be said to stand alone as the only 

 fruit that when ripe is eaten almost exclusively as a salad. The nearest approach 

 to this is perhaps the olive, which is eaten more as a relish. This unexpected role 



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