Edible Products. 



THE M AN< (OSTEEN. 



The species included in the genus Garcinia are a comparatively small 

 but valuable group of oriental tropical economic plants. For, not only are the 

 timbers furnished by the Garcinias well adapted for building-construction and 

 furniture, but some of the tamarinds, the gamboge of commerce, as well as the 

 much esteemed mangosteen of Malaya are among the products yielded by tliem. 

 Of all these products, the luscious mangosteen, which, by universal consent, has 

 been admitted to be the most delicious of oriental fruits, is perhaps the best-known 

 to the layman. In the sunny regions of the Malayan sea-board where, for the 

 major portion of the year, sunshine and shower regularly alternate to result in a 

 truly marvellous equability of climate, the Garcinia rnangostana grows to per- 

 fection. Its artificial cultivation in those regions as well as on the friable loains 

 of the evergreen forests that follow the courses of the rivers of the Peninsula has 

 always been attended with considerable success. For, within tne favoured localities 

 of its limited but indigenous distribution, few fruit-crops demand less attention 

 in cultivation ; while, after it survives the early stages of its growth, no operations 

 of a cultural nature, beyond manuring, require to be done for the maintenance 

 of the crop. 



The method of cultivating the species is as follows. When the rounded 

 capsules mature in the rains and their rinds become a deep purple in coloitr, they 

 are carefully plucked off the trees by hand. The largest and most evenly-developed 

 fruits are then selected and set apart to furnish the sowing material. A fruit 

 consists of from six to eight divisions (locules), each of which is filled with a mass 

 of white pulp that may or may not enclose a seed ; for it frequently happens that 

 even among the most perfectly grown mangosteen fruits, few contain more than 

 two fertile seeds each. For purposes of sowing, the seed is best when it is detached 

 from the fruit by hand and sown with the edible pulp adhering. 



If the seeds are sucked prior to sowing them, the warmth of the mouth, 

 as well as the scouring action of the tongue, exert an injurious influence upon their 

 soft membranous seed-coats, which it is essential should be maintained in as unim 

 paired a condition as possible. Moreover, the decay through fermentation of the 

 pulp surrounding the seed sets up a beneficent stimulative action not only upon 

 the seed-coat itself but also upon the germinating embryo. The seeds ordinal ily 

 germinate in a fortnight from sowing, though some have been known to sprout 

 in a week, while others again take a month or even more. They should be sown 

 about a foot apart in nursery beds that are four feet wide and of the most con- 

 venient length. About 175 seedlings could be raised in a bed forty feet long and 

 four feet wide. Throughout the one year during which the seedlings remain in 

 the nursery, the beds should be daily watered as well as occasionally heavily 

 manured with farm-yard manure or vegetable mould. The manure should be 

 carefully raked in between the seedlings, which, by the bye, are extremely sensitive 

 to bending, breakage or other injury. 



Well-grown seedlings would be at least a foot in height at the close of the 

 year and bear from four to six leaves each. At the commencement of the south- 

 west monsoon, the seedlings should be removed from the nursery beds and planted 

 out in pits previously prepared on the plantation. These pits are best excavated 

 at distances of 20 ft. from one another, and should be located in open, well-drained 

 loamy land. They should each be 3 ft. square and 3 ft. deep, and be filled in with 

 surface soil, vegetable mould and cattle droppings worked up to a friable and fine 

 degree of tilth. In planting, care should be taken to see that every transplant 

 occupies the centre of the pit in which it is put out ; for, the species being a surface 

 feeder, the fullest facility should be afforded it for developing its feeding-roots 



