6 
THE PLANT WORLD. 
A SUMMER IN THE TROPICS. 
By Mary’ M. Brackett. 
A year ago it became possible for American botanists to study 
tropical plants under natural conditions, in a laboratory of their 
own. For this purpose, the New York Botanical Garden leased 
from the English Colonial Government a site high up in the 
Blue Mountains of Jamaica. Cinchona, as the place is called, 
was formerly used by the Department of Public Gardens and 
Plantations of Jamaica as an agricultural and horticultural ex¬ 
periment station, where particular attention was paid to> the raising 
of the quinine tree of the Andes. Finally, this project was aban¬ 
doned, and the work carried on here was removed to other places, 
but the buildings and grounds were left in good condition, and 
the directors of the New York Botanical Garden were quick to 
see the advantages of such a spot to students from the north. Of 
these, the party of which I was a member were the pioneers. 
But it was not altogether as strangers in a strange land that 
we arrived in Kingston on the morning of the eighth of July. 
Our steamer had no sooner touched the wharf than a colored 
messenger handed us a letter on the envelope of which was 
printed, “ On His Majesty’s Service.” It was from the Hon. 
William Fawcett, Director of the Public Gardens and Plantations 
of the Island, giving explicit directions regarding our stop in 
Kingston and our trip to Cinchona. Some hours later, while 
waiting for luncheon in the garden of our hotel, we had our first 
lesson in tropical fruits. A bright little “ pickney,” with an eye 
to business rather than to botany, invited us to take his picture 
while he climbed a cocoanut tree. He literally walked up the 
tree on all fours and threw down some of the fruit. Then down 
he came himself, tore off with his teeth the hard outer fiber of 
the cocoanuts, and proceeded to show, with the air of an experi¬ 
enced demonstrator, how we get meat from ripe cocoanuts, and 
milk from green ones. That afternoon we had tea at the Hope 
Botanical Garden with Mr. Fawcett, whom we found a most 
gracious gentleman, and to whom we were afterwards indebted 
