184 Wisconsin State Aoricultural Society. 
trunk of the tree, produces sago; a single tree producing five or six 
hundred pounds. 
The terminal bud of the cabbage palm, boiled and eaten with co- 
coanut oil, is a dish highly prized by the epicure. The ashes from 
some of the fruits produce salt of inferior quality, and the bread 
from the bread tree is both sweet and nutritious. The delicate 
bark of the unopened leaves is twisted and so used for making 
thread, valuable hammocks, cloth, etc. The leaf, after being sub¬ 
mitted to a certain process, makes durable writing paper. A com¬ 
plete enumeration of the uses of the palm would fill a volume; the 
bread palm alone is said to be put to eight hundred different uses^ 
The number of species already described reaches six hundred,, 
and probably when the tropical world is more fully explored, the 
list will exceed a thousand. 
The Bread Palm is a native of the Pacific islands; it grows from 
forty to fifty feet high, rising half-way without a leaf. The fibrous- 
bark is made into cloth in the South Sea Islands, and the fruit sup¬ 
plies the natives with the principal part of their food. This fruit is 
oval, of a rich yellow hue when ripe, and about the size of a child’s 
head. It is gathered for use before it is fully ripe, while the pulp^ 
is white and mealy, and is produced two, and, sometimes, three times 
a year. In preparing it for food the South Sea Islander cuts it in 
three or four parts, takes out the core, digs a hole in the ground,, 
puts in a layer of heated stones, covers them with green leaves, and 
upon this he places a layer of the fruit; then again the stones, 
leaves and fruit alternately, until the pit is nearly filled, when leaves 
and dirt are spread over all. Baked in this way it will keep fresh 
for several weeks. Large pits are frequently made and parties 
join together to “do up the baking,” and the occasion is quite a so¬ 
cial event. 
The Oil Palm is a native of Africa, and grows from sixty ta 
eighty feet high. The stems are thickest in the middle, tapering 
upwards. The flowers smell sweet, like anise. The fruit forms an 
immense head, like a giant pineapple, consisting of a great number 
of orange-colored drupes, having a thin skin, oily pulp, and hard 
stone. The pulp yields, by bruising and boiling, an oil, which, 
when fresh, has the delightful odor of violets, and when removed to 
colder regions, acquires the consistency of butter. When the oil is 
fresh, it is eaten like butter; the unripe nuts make an excellent; 
