Bread-fruit (Artocarpus incisa), grows upon the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and has also been transplanted to those parts of America which lie in the Torrid Zone. It attains a very great height, and bears fruits weighing from three to four pounds. The latter are cut into slices, and after being dried and roasted are used as food. These fruits, when pounded and mixed with milk of the cocoanut, form a dough, which is either consumed raw or baked into bread. All parts of this tree are useful; its yellow wood is used for the construction of houses, from its fibres articles of clothing are made, and its sap is used for making birdlime. Its large leaves serve as tablecloths and napkins, and its blossoms when dried are an excellent tinder. The bread-fruit tree is therefore much cultivated.
Butternut (Juglans cinerea), a North American species of walnut. Its dark yellow wood takes a fine polish, and is used in cabinet work; the bark yields a brown dye, and the brown-husked, rugged nuts contain oil, and are very pleasant in flavor.
Cacao (Theobroma cacao), a small tree, native to Mexico, Central America and the north of South America, is cultivated also in Brazil, Guiana, Trinidad and Grenada. It has large, oblong, pointed, entire leaves and clusters of flowers with rose-colored calyx and yellowish petals. The fruit is yellow, from six to ten inches long, and from three to five broad, oblong, blunt, with ten longitudinal ridges externally, and five chambers, containing ten or twenty seeds each, internally. The thick, tough rind is almost woody. The seeds are dried, roasted, bruised, and winnowed, so as to remove their testa from the cocoa-nibs or cotyledons. These contain more than fifty per cent of fat or cocoa-butter, part of which is generally removed in the process of “preparing” cocoa. It is used in making chocolate “creams.” Cocoa is also a valuable article of food; contains a gently stimulating alkaloid, theobromine, a fragrant essential oil and a red coloring matter. Sugar and vanilla or other flavoring are added in the preparation of chocolate.
Cherry (Prunus avium), is a stately tree of from twenty-five to forty-five feet in height. It has a pyramidal crown; its smooth bark splits crosswise; its leaves are elliptical, and covered with down on their lower sides; its blossoms are snowy white and its fruits sweet and of different colors. The latter furnish an agreeable nourishment, whether consumed raw, boiled, or preserved. Cherry-brandy is also made from them. The Cherry is cultivated in temperate regions of Europe, Asia, and the United States, and included among the fifteen leading fruits of the world. Ranks about eighth among fruits of the United States. Pennsylvania and California lead in production.
It was grown before the Christian Era in western Asia and southern Europe, and is mentioned in Vergil’s Georgics.
Cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum), is largely grown in Ceylon. The bark is stripped off two-year-old shoots in May and November and dried in the sun, undergoing a slight fermentation. It rolls up into quills, the thinnest being the best. Cinnamon contains a fragrant essential oil and has long been valued as a spice. It has also some medicinal value as a cordial and stomachic. It is also cultivated for bark in Brazil, West Indies, Egypt, and Java, but cultivation is now declining in favor of coffee.
Clove (Eugenia caryophyllata), a small evergreen spice tree, native of the Moluccas. The fruits are imported as mother cloves, and the stalks are used to adulterate the spice when ground. The whole plant is aromatic from the presence of the essential oil of cloves, which occurs to the extent of sixteen to eighteen per cent in the flower-buds. The dried flower buds are the cloves of commerce. Cultivated on many tropical islands and coasts, chiefly in the Moluccas, Sumatra, Java, Mauritius, Zanzibar, Jamaica, and French Guiana. The oil of cloves is widely used in flavoring and perfumery and also in medicine.
Cocoa-nut (Cocos nucifera), a small genus of palms. The cocoa-nut palm is apparently a native of the Indian Archipelago, but has been dispersed throughout the tropics from early times, flourishing especially near the sea. It has a cylindric stem reaching two feet in diameter, and from sixty to one hundred feet in height; a crown of pinnate leaves, each eighteen to twenty feet long, with a sheathing and fibrous base, succeeded by bunches of from ten to twenty fruits. These are about a foot long, six or eight inches across, three-sided, with a stony shell and one seed filling its cavity. The seed contains a fleshy kernel and a milky liquid. No tree of the tropics has so many uses, every part of it being employed, and in southern India furnishing several of the chief necessaries of life. The wood of the outer part of the stem is used, under the name of Porcupine wood, for inlaying; the leaves for thatch, mats, hats, etc.; the fibrous part under the name of coir, for cordage, etc.; the shell for bottles, cups, spoons, and when properly burned, for excellent charcoal and lamp-black. The solid white kernel contains thirty-six per cent of oil known as copra oil, from which, by pressure, the solid stearine used for candles is separated from the liquid lamp-oil. The “milk,” when fresh, is an agreeable drink; and from the sap sugar is obtained, and, by fermentation, toddy, from which vinegar and by distillation, arrack are prepared. It is extensively cultivated on the coasts of India, the East and West India Islands, and Brazil, and recently in Florida.
Coffee Tree (Coffea Arabica), originally a native of Africa attains a height of twenty-five to thirty feet. It is generally, however, kept at a much inferior height, in order to facilitate the collection of the fruit. Its leaves are evergreen; its blossoms white and fragrant. The fruit is a red berry about the size of a cherry, which contains two kernels, lying closely side by side: the coffee beans. These coffee beans are used everywhere for the preparation of that coffee which has become an indispensable beverage for many millions of people. Commercially it is of great importance, being largely grown in Brazil, Mexico, Central America, West Indies, Arabia, Java, Sumatra, Ceylon, India, and Hawaii. Brazil leads with a production of over one-half of the world’s crop. In the United States the consumption greatly exceeds that of tea.
Beginning of its cultivation is uncertain, but not ancient. It was introduced for cultivation in South America by the Dutch in 1718.