E. T. LOWE — FRUITS AND VEGETABLES OE MADEIRA, ETC. 161 



XXXIII. Some account of the Fruits and Vegetables of Madeira^ 

 the Canaries, and Cape Verdes. By E. T. Lowe, M.A. 



In England, as in tlie greater part of continental Europe, the line 

 between agriculture and horticulture is broadly enough marked. 

 It is not so in the Atlantic islands above indicated — the geniality 

 of climate and uniformity of soil superseding the various special 

 contrivances requisite, at least in Northern Europe, for the cul- 

 ture of most fruits and vegetables, and breaking down most of the 

 distinctions between the garden and the farm. Thus, while in 

 England the turnip, carrot, bean, potatoe, apple, pear, and cherry 

 are almost the only proper vegetables or fruits that can be said to 

 oscillate between the separate provinces of the horticultural and 

 agricultural occupier of the soil, in Madeira may be named, in ad- 

 dition to the latter five, the sweet potatoe (Batata edulis Thunb.), 

 Erench-bean (Fhaseolus vulgaris L.), lupine, onion, inhame {Colo- 

 casia antiqiiorum Schott), several kinds of pumpkin, coffee, sugar- 

 cane, peach, apricot, mulberry, plum, guava, Spanish-chestnut, and, 

 above all, the vine itself as proper field or agricultural produc- 

 tions of the country. In the Canaries it is much the same, though 

 on a smaller scale, the prevalent high and sweeping winds pre- 

 cluding much abundance or success in cultivating fruits or vege- 

 tables ; and in the Cape Verdes, the list must be extended on the 

 one hand, if it lose somewhat on the other, in order to include the 

 mandioc, the physic-nut (Jatropha Curcas L.), the cocoa-nut, two 

 or three kinds of custard-apple, the anana, papaw and banana. 

 Still a residuum in each of these three groups of islands may be 

 fairly held to represent the proper fruit and vegetable inmates of 

 our English gardens ; and of this residuum a list which shall also 

 not exclude any of the esculent or economically useful plants 

 generally cultivated, without professing to include every casual 

 straggler, will best convey a notion of the state of horticulture in 

 the east Atlantic insular superequatorial region. 



List of the Fruits, Vegetables, and other Economic Plants more 

 generally cultivated in the Madeiran, Canarian, and Cape 

 Verde Islands. 



Anonace^:, 



1. Afona Cherimolia L. — Custard-apple or Cherimoya. In 

 Madeira common in gardens in and about Eunchal and fruiting 

 every year from October to January abundantly, but not bearing- 

 good fruit at a higher elevation than 300 or 400 feet above the 



VOL, I. M 



