University of Virginia Library

MARCH 9.

The shaddock contains generally thirty-two seeds, two, of which only will reproduce shaddocks ; and these two it is impossible to distinguish : the rest will yield, some sweet oranges, others bitter ones, others again forbidden fruit, and, in short, all the varieties of the orange ; but until the trees actually are in bearing, no one can guess what the fruit is likely to prove ; and even then, the seeds which produce shaddocks, although taken from a tree remarkable for the excellence of its fruit, will frequently yield only such as are scarcely eatable. So also the varieties of the mango are infinite -the fruit of no two trees resembling each other ; and the seeds of the very finest mango (although sown and cultivated with the utmost care) seldom affording anything at all like the parent stock. The two first mangoes which I tasted were nothing but turpentine and sugar; the third was very delicious and yet I was told that it was by no means of a superior quality. The sweet cassava requires no preparation ; the bitter cassava, unless the juice is carefully pressed out of it, is a deadly poison ; there is a third kind, called the sweet-and-bitter cassava, which is perfectly wholesome till a certain age, when it acquires its deleterious qualities. Many persons have been poisoned by mistaking these various kinds of cassava for each other.

One of the best vegetable productions of the island is esteemed to be the Avogada pear, sometimes called " the vegetable marrow." It was not the proper season for them, and with great dfifficulty I procured a couple, which were said to be by no means in a state of perfection. Such as they were, I could find no great merit in them; they were to be eaten cold with pepper and salt, and seemed to be an insipid kind of melon, with no other resemblance to marrow than their softness.

As soon as the plantain has done bearing, it is cut down ; when four or five suckers spring from each root, which become plants themselves in their turn. Ratoons are suckers of the sugar-cane : they are far preferable to the original plants, where the soil is rich enough to support them ; but they are much better adapted to some estates than to others. Thus, on my estate in St. Thomas's in the East, they can allow of ten ratoons

from the same plant, and only dig cane-holes every eleventh year ; while, at Cornwall, the strength of the cane is exhausted in the fourth ratoon, or the fifth at furthest. The fresh plants are cane-tops ; but those canes which bear flags or feathers at their extremities will not answer the purpose, as dry weatber easily burns up the sligrht arrows to which the flags adhere, and destroys them before they can acquire sufficient vigour to resist the climate.