THE BREAD-FRUIT.
"So Edie's 'loaves of bread' are green?" said Malcolm, rather teasingly.
"That's because they grow on a tree," replied Clara. "Our loaves of bread are raw dough before they're baked, and they are grains of wheat before they are dough."
"That is quite true, dear," replied her governess, laughing, "and we must teach Malcolm not to be quite so critical.--The bread-fruit is a wonderful tree, and it certainly does bear uncooked loaves of bread, at least, for they require no kneading to be ready for the oven. The fruit is to be found on the tree for eight months of the year--which is very different from any of our fruits--and two or three bread-fruit trees will supply one man with food all the year round."
"Put what does he do when there is no fresh fruit on them?" asked Malcolm. "You told us that it was not good to eat unless it was fresh."
"We should not think it good, but the native makes it into a sour paste called mahé, and the people of the islands eat this during the four months when the fresh fruit is not to be had. The bread-fruit is said to be very nourishing, and it can be prepared in various ways. The timber of this tree, though soft, is found useful in building houses and boats; the flowers, when dried, serve for tinder; the viscid, milky juice answers for birdlime and glue; the leaves, for towels and packing; and the inner bark, beaten together, makes one species of the South-Sea cloth."
"What a very useful tree!" exclaimed Clara.
"It is indeed," replied Miss Harson; "and this is the case with many of the trees found in these warm countries, where the inhabitants know little of the arts and manufactures, and would almost starve rather than exert themselves very greatly. There is another species of bread-fruit, called the jaca, or jack, tree, found on the mainland of Asia, which produces its fruit on different parts of the tree, according to its age. When the tree is young, the fruit grows from the twigs; in middle age it grows from the trunk; and when the tree gets old, it grows from the roots."
There was a picture of the jack tree with fruit growing out of the trunk and great branches like melons, and the children crowded eagerly around to look at it. All agreed that it was the very queerest tree they had yet heard of.