A West Indian negro thinks nothing of walking twenty miles with loads such as these.
Many other cases could be mentioned of a chance variety produced as a wild plant, and then propagated non-sexually for long periods, e.g. the New Rochelle Bramble, which was found by the roadside, and which turned out to be exceedingly valuable. It is by crossing or hybridizing that the most extraordinary results have been obtained. Sometimes with plums, the hybrids of the first generation are nearly double the size of their parents. Some of the crosses are between different plants. The Loganberry, for instance, is said to be a cross between a Raspberry and a Bramble. It ripens in July, and is said to be far in advance of either of its parents as regards juiciness and acidity.
In most cases, however, the crosses are between well-established varieties or races of the same species, and both hybridizing and selection are employed to get the desired result.
There are several tropical fruits which, with the possible exception of wheat and oats, are more important to mankind than anything else. The Breadfruit (Artocarpus incisus), which is very common in the South Sea Islands, has a large fruit the size of a melon. When baked in an oven heated by hot stones, it forms a satisfying meal: it is rather like new bread, but has very little flavour. Coarse cloth is made of its bark, and the wood is used as timber. The tree also has a milky juice containing indiarubber, and is employed for caulking the canoes. The most interesting point for botanists about this plant is that the fruit is made up of thousands of little flowers, and the fleshy part is really the stalk. Fossil trees of this genus (of the chalk period) are found in some parts of Europe.
Still more important to mankind is the Banana (Musa paradisiaca). It is wheat, corn, and potatoes all in one, in tropical and sub-tropical countries. It is found all over the world wherever there is a hot, moist climate and shelter from wind. It is a most generous plant as regards the amount which it will produce. It will yield about 19-1/2 tons of dry fruit on a single acre, which is about forty-four times the amount given by potatoes and 133 times that of wheat. Moreover, it differs from almost every other fruit in being both "rice and prunes," that is, it is nutritious and wholesome, and yet at the same time succulent. There are still people who declare that the taste is that of "cotton wool and Windsor soap," but that is a frivolous and unjust remark. It is very difficult to prepare it exactly in the right way for export to Great Britain, and the slightest change in temperature or period of gathering has the most distressing results.
As with many other tropical fruits, the countries where it is most carefully produced and where the trade is most important are just on the borders of the tropics. There Europeans can keep enough vigour and vitality to supervise and watch over the labour of natives. It is in the Canary Islands, Queensland,[112] and Jamaica that the cultivation is most carefully looked after. The yield may be from five hundred to a thousand bunches per acre, and the value of the trade is enormous. A plantation is not very beautiful, because the huge leaves break up into irregular, ragged pieces which look untidy. The flowers are visited by the beautiful little honey-sucking sunbirds and humming-birds. Monkeys also are very fond of the fruit.
In the tropics it grows everywhere, and with extremely little trouble. It is a doubtful blessing to the negroes, for they get their food so easily that they tend to become incorrigibly lazy. Jam, champagne, brandy, and meal can be made from the banana. When this meal can be prepared satisfactorily, it may partly replace wheat in temperate countries. Besides this, the leaves are used for thatching, and the stalks which make the stem contain a valuable fibre which is used for string and rope.
In Egypt and all along the great deserts of Sahara and Asia the graceful stately Date palm gives the favourite food of the people (see Chap. X.).
The Arabs grind up the stones to make food for camels, and sometimes ferment the sap to make toddy. The trees are either male or female. The Arabs knew that it was necessary to pollinate the female flowers with male pollen long before the meaning of the process was realized in Europe.
The Fig, a native of the Persian Gulf, is cultivated all along the Mediterranean and in India, Australia, and California. It is sometimes fifteen to thirty feet high, and reaches a very great age. There is one at Finisterre said to be several centuries old. It yields fruit worth about £14 an acre. The most interesting point about the Fig is the way in which the Fig-wasp carries the pollen (see Chap. V.).