Report of Committee on Tropical Fruits. 
THE EAST INDIAN MANGO IN FLORIDA. 
By John B. Beach 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
The East Indian Mango, with its spicy, 
resinous sap and luscious pulp, stands 
pre-eminent the king of all fruits. The 
only reason it has not assumed the posi¬ 
tion that belongs to it centuries ago in 
the markets of Western civilization is the 
fact that it cannot be reproduced true 
from seed. Consequently it has been con¬ 
fined to its home, Hindustan, and ad¬ 
jacent countries to which trees could be 
transported. For the past ten or fifteen 
years, with the aid of fast steamers, the 
fruit has been finding its way into the 
London markets from Bombay via the 
Suez Canal. Its remarkable keeping 
qualities render this long journey possi¬ 
ble, yet the fruit surely cannot develop 
its full flavor when gathered so long be¬ 
fore maturity, as is necessary in this in¬ 
stance. For the past twenty years I have 
made a hobby of the East Indian mango, 
and have ridden it pretty hard at times. I 
rode it into the ground at Melbourne in 
1894. Then I moved to Palm Beach and 
conducted pretty exhaustive experiments 
for five summers in propagation methods, 
assisted by Mr. J. F. Bergin, who is now 
manager of the Tropical Fruit Associa¬ 
tion’s mango plantation at Bayamon, 
Porto Rico. It was our object to ascer¬ 
tain the cheapest and most feasible meth¬ 
od for commercial production of East 
Indian Mango trees. I am informed that 
the results of our work have proven 
the same as those conducted in the green¬ 
houses at Washington. We have fallen 
back on the old East Indian principle, 
though we greatly improve on the method 
of inarching. Under certain conditions 
budding is perfectly feasible, also root¬ 
grafting or root inarching. But when it 
comes to turning out a maximum per¬ 
centage of healthy, vigorous trees, fitted 
for long-distance transportation at a min¬ 
imum cost, inarched pot-grown trees take 
the lead. A half-inch seedling tree can 
be grown in a five-inch pot, a two or 
three-foot vigorous East Indian top can 
be grown on it in six or eight weeks, and 
this tree properly planted and cared for 
will in three years produce several dozen 
fruit. They can be packed very light 
with sphagnum and oiled paper in pine¬ 
apple crates and will readily stand four 
or five weeks’ shipment through the 
tropics in the Spring and Fall. 
U T p to the last few years the only speci¬ 
men of this wonderful fruit that had ever 
been, produced in Florida was a Mulgoba 
tree (and its descendants) which was im¬ 
ported with a number of others by the 
Government. This tree was the only one 
that survived the cold of ’94 and ’95 and 
