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OFFERINGS OF THE TROPICS

FRUITS OF THE WEST INDIES.

The juices of these fruits are used to flavor the refreshing drink always offered to callers under the name of "refresco."

THE replenient bounty of the tropics is abundantly seen in the large varieties of fruits of the West Indies, which are ever more abundant and grateful than its flowers. The number of fruits and flowers is too great for transportation and so are not known abroad. There is the "banana," a fruit which is the favorite of the natives of Cuba as their favorite fruit, and although the aromatic delicious pineapples are grown side by side with the melons near Cazapote, the latter is chosen in preference. This little untranslatable "caimito," the "manay," and quite a family of melons, such as the "papaya," are all used as table delicacies, uncooked and also preserved, but quite generally as popular soft drinks and are well known and refreshing. For too long the tropics have been called the "fruit basket" of the world, but it is a fact that the tropical regions is lack in etiquette.

Limes, lemons, the homely tamarind, and the satisfying papaya, are all used as table delicacies, uncooked and also preserved, but quite generally as popular soft drinks and are well known and refreshing. For too long the tropics have been called the "fruit basket" of the world, but it is a fact that the tropical regions is lack in etiquette.

Papaya, salad is one of the most delicious salads I have ever tasted. It is used in a green state for this and is chopped fine together with other ingredients of the salad. The ripe fruit may be eaten with a spoon like a muskmelon is eaten. I think it is not generally liked the first time it is tasted, but after one has acquired a taste for it one can eat it every day as long as the season lasts. It contains a ferment which makes it very digestible.

The papaya has virtues enough without overstating them, as they were overstated in the article referred to. That the ferment when uncooked may have a certain amount of digestive action upon raw lean meat is probably true, but it is not noticeable. I have squeezed out the milk from the green papaya upon carabao meat and left this together with the fruit in contact with the meat for twelve hours, yet after that amount of time I have failed to detect the least softening action upon the meat due to the papaya.

I have eaten green papaya cooked with meat very often. It is the general belief that cooking papaya with meat softens the meat. This is untrue. The softening effect is credited to the ferment in the fruit. Now I am told by doctors and chemists that ferments are destroyed by heat. Therefore the ferment would be destroyed before it could cause any softening effects.

In the tropics the papaya is capable of withstanding most of the tropical storms. While it responds to care and a fertile soil it is often found bearing its load of fruit hugging the trunk on the most barren and rocky soil.

There is a male papaya plant and a female papaya plant, the fruit being borne by the female plant. One cannot tell whether the male plant or which the female plant till the first flowering, which is when the plant is from six months to a year old. Not the remarkable thing about the papaya relates to this matter of sex and seems incredible. If the male papaya plant is cut off smoothly at the surface of the ground as soon as the first flowering, the shock seems entirely to alter its sex, and as soon as the shoot from the stump reaches bearing age, as it quickly does, most of the flowers will be female and produce fruit. I did not believe this until I actually saw the experiment made through the common belief among certain Filipino peoples.-Tf. H. B., University Farm School.