1880.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
353 
Mawah Flowers —A New Cattle Food. 
A large tea importing house, Messrs. Billinge & 
Wetmore, of New York, received from their cor¬ 
respondent in Calcutta a consignment so much out 
of the usual way that we were consulted as to the 
disposal of it. The article in question was several 
tons of Mawha, Mahwa or Mahooa flowers, to be 
sold as cattle food. The idea of the “ effete east ” 
mawah floweks (Bassia latifoha). 
sending food to America, and the idea of feeding 
cattle, or anything else, upon flowers, are both 
strange enough to invest the importation with no 
little interest, and however the matter may result 
as 4 commercial enterprise, our readers will no 
doubt be glad to learn what this article is that is 
sent a long ocean voyage to feed and fatten our 
cattle The Mawah Flowers are produced by Bas¬ 
sia latifolia . a tree belonging to the Sapodilla Fam¬ 
ily or Sapotaceae of botanists. The trees of this 
family are found in the tropical parts of both con¬ 
tinents, and are noted for affording a variety of 
useful products. Several tropical fruits are pro¬ 
duced by members of this family, others afford 
oils; the Cow Tree of South America that gives 
milk, and the tree that yields Gutta Pcrcha, are 
placed in this family. But we are now interested 
in one member only, Bassia latifolia, which abounds 
in certain districts in Central India. The tree is 
described by Roxburgh in his “ Plants of the Coast 
of Coromandel ” (1795) as of medium size, with 
horizontal branches, and smooth leaves 4 to 8 
inches long, and half as wide; He figures the flow¬ 
ers as produced in clusters at the ends of the stems, 
each with a rounded tube, and about 14-parted on 
the border. The fruit is an inch and a half long, 
containing one to four seeds, which on expression 
yield a thick oil used for burning. The wood is 
very hard and strong, and used by wheelwrights. 
It is the flowers that have the principal interest for 
us at present, and pretty much all that is known 
abi ut these, outside of India, is contained in a 
communication by Mr. E. Lockwood to the Lin- 
nsean Society, and printed in the 17th volume of 
the Society’s Journal. From this article, Prof. Asa 
Gray has kindly made for us the following abstract 
of what relates to the flowers. These fall from the 
trees in great profusion in March and April. Birds 
and squirrels feed on them among the branches, 
and the villagers collect those that fall to the 
ground in immense abundance. Each tree yields 
two or three hundred weight of 
corollas, and these form a reg¬ 
ular and very nourishing article 
of food for the poorer classes. 
As the crop never fails, it is 
very important in times of fam¬ 
ine. Much of the surplus in 
ordinary seasons is distilled into 
r, strong-smelling spirit. Mr. 
Lockwood closes his account as 
follows : “But not only are the 
Mahwa Flowers good for dis¬ 
tilling spirits, they are still more 
useful for feeding cattle. My 
father, the rector of Kingham, 
has been feeding his pigs on 
the Mahwa w'hieh I brought 
home, and Mahwa pork is be¬ 
ginning to be celebrated in this 
neighborhood.The extraor- 
diuary keeping qualities of 
Mahwa form also a further rec¬ 
ommendation for its introduc¬ 
tion into England. Before leav¬ 
ing India, I had a ton shovelled 
into sacks, and put on board a 
vessel in Calcutta. They were 
'gathered in April, 1876, and 
after having been kept for near¬ 
ly two years, are as good as 
when first dried. No weevil, 
apparently, attacks them as 
they attack grain.”—Another 
account states that so great is 
the value of these flowers to the 
natives, that in the expeditions 
made by the English against 
troublesome tribes, that they 
have only to threaten to cut 
down the Mawah trees to bring 
the rebellious people to terms. 
A sample of the flowers as im¬ 
ported shows a soft, sticky 
mass, with much the appear¬ 
ance of raisins of a poor quali¬ 
ty, such as are packed in casks. 
When soaked in water, the in¬ 
dividual corollas swell out, and assume a flattened, 
globular shape, about as large as an average cran¬ 
berry, and are found to consist of a very fleshy 
cup, within which are a great number of anthers. 
At our suggestion, Messrs. Billinge & Wetmore 
had an analysis made of this interesting product, 
and the report of the chemists, Messrs. Kracko- 
wizer & Harnish, shows that the flowers contain the 
remarkable amount of 63.40 per cent of sugar! 
The other constituents are given as follows : 
Moisture.. 17.50 
Fatty Oil—soluble in Ether. 0-13 
Sugar... 63.40 
Insolubles as Fibre, also Vegetable Fibrine and 
Albumen. 7.54 
Mineral matter. 4.05 
Coloring and Soluble Albuminous matters. 7 38 
100.00 
Without reference to other constituents, this 
enormous percentage of sugar fully accounts for the 
value attached to the flowers in India as an article 
of food, and for their use as a source of spirituous 
liquors. In a scientific point of view, the Mawah 
is a most interesting product. It is rarely that we 
find the flower, the corolla of a plant, to serve any 
more than as a temporary purpose in protecting 
the reproductive organs within. For it to secrete 
more than half its weight of sugar, and thus be¬ 
come an article of economic value, and even of 
commerce, is most remarkable. The future of the 
Mawah as an, article of trade in this country will, 
of course, depend upon its cost, and the commer¬ 
cial aspect of the article remains to be developed. 
Strawberries—New Varieties, 
—— 
As well expect a spring without a new fashion in 
bonnets, or, we should say, hats, as a season with¬ 
out new strawberries. There are those who affect 
to ridicule new varieties, and think that the offering 
of them is a mere t rick of the dealers to make sales. 
While we think that a variety should not be offered 
merely because it is new, but should have some 
point of excellence to commend it, we gladly wel¬ 
come new kinds that present any claim upon our 
attention. It is onlv by the production and testing 
of new varieties that progress is made. If, among 
all the new ones offered each year, there could be 
one worthy of a place on the lie' of the best, it 
would be making a great advance. It was worth 
testing 20 varieties to get the Charles Downing, 
and what if we put aside 19 others, have we not the 
Sharplejis ? There is not, and it is not likely that 
there ever will be one strawberry that everybody, 
everywhere, will grow to the exclusion of all 
others. A few years ago it seemed as if the Wilson 
would be the universal berry, but now we rarely 
see it. With some Monarch of the West is in high 
favov. Our friend Roe says “ it should have a 
place in every home gardenbut though the 
plants come from Roe, and we know them to be 
true, in our “ home garden,” they are as far below 
the surface as a plow could put them, and there 
they may do some service as a fertilizer, which ig 
all the use the Monarch can be to us. Observe, this 
is not a word against the Monarch, for it is a splen¬ 
did variety in other gardens, but is taken to illus¬ 
trate the fact that no one variety does well every¬ 
where, and that we must have several good ones. 
Among the recent novelties are tw r o seedlings 
reared in 1876, by Oscar Felton, well known in 
Philadelphia and vicinity as a successful grower of 
small fruits for market, and also as an experimenter 
in the production of new varieties. The two seed¬ 
lings, the “Orient” and “Satin Gloss,” were first 
brought to our notice in 1878. They were exhibited 
that year at a show held on the Centennial Grounds, 
where their merits were recognized by the judges. 
Knowing the practical character of Mr. Felton’s 
horticulture, he being a producer of fruit and not 
of plants, the fact that he has adopted these two 
varieties as his chief reliance for market fruit is 
stronger testimony as to their quality than anything 
that might be said about them. We give descrip¬ 
tions and engravings of these new varieties in order 
to place them on record. As already stated, Mr. 
Felton is a fruit grower, and he has placed the 
plants of these varieties in the hands of Gibson & 
Bennet, who furnish the following descriptions 
O rioii t .—A seedling of Monarch of the West, 
and is larger, firmer, and of better color; it yields 
NEW STRAWBERRY—THE “ORIENT.” 
more fruit, which ripens up all at once, and stands 
up better than that of its parent, berries of the 
largest size often measuring 6 and 64 inches in 
circumference; form roundish-conical ; size and 
shape quite uniform, sometimes a little uneven; 
