BREADFRUIT. Among the more valuable products of the warmer climates and the fertile Islands of the southern Pacific Ocean, is to be ranked the bread-fruit, or Artocarpus incisa of botanists. Nature has favoured the tropical regions, and those countries in their vicinity, with inexhaustible quan tities of the choicest vegetables, while the inhabitants of the north are restricted to shrivelled berries and meagre roots ; and, if they have obtained a supply, always precarious, of some of the finer fruits, it is the result of patience, skill, and industry.
Ever since Europeans frequented the Eastern] world in commercial enterprise, it is probable that they were acquainted with the bread-fruit. How,' indeed, could its properties be unknown to Quires, who visited Otaheite so long ago as the year 1606? Yet the English navigator Dampier seems the first of the Europeans whose notice was particularly di rected towards it, during his circumnavigation in the year 1688 ; and he expresses himself in these words: " The bread-fruit, as we call it, grows on a large tree, as big and high as our largest apple trees. It bath a spreading head, full of branches, and dark leaves. The fruit grows on the boughs like apples ; it is as big as a penny-loaf, when the wheat is at five shil lings the bushel. It is of a round shape, and bath a thick tough rind. When the fruit is ripe, it is yel low and soft, and the taste is .sweet and pleasant. The natives of Guam use it for bread. They gather it, when fall grown, while it is green and hard; then they bake it in an oven, which scorcheth the rind, and makes it black ; but they Scrape off the outside black crust, and there remains a tender thin crust; and the inside is soft, tender, and white, like the crumbs of a penny-loaf. There is neither seed not atone in the inside, but all of a firm substance like bread. It must be eaten new, for if it be kept above twenty-four hours, it becomes dry and eats harsh and choaky; but it is very pleasant before it is too stale. This fruit lasts in season eight months in the year, during which time the natives eat no other sort of food of bread kind. I did never see of this fruit any where but here (Guam). The .natives told us. that there is plenty of this fruit growing on the rest of the Ladrone Islands, and I did never hear of it any where else." The bread-fruit, however, is found in
still greater profusion, and in equal perfection, on many of the groups of islands scattered through out the South Pacific Ocean ; nor is it confined to them exclusively, but their soil and climate seem to correspond more intimately with the conditions of its vegetation.
There are two leading species of this plant, which are characterized by the presence or absence of seeds ; the latter being the preferable kind, and that which is cultivated more carefully for its pro duce. The natives of the South Sea Islands maintain, however, that eight different species, or rather varie ties, may be distinguished, and for which- they have the following names : Patteah, Eroroo, Awanna, Mire, Oree, Powerro, Appeere, Rowdeah. The leaf of the first, fourth, and eighth, differs from that of the rest ; the fourth being more sinuated, and the eighth having a large broad leaf, not at all sinuated. In the first, also, the fruit is rather larger, and of a more oblong form, while in the last it is round, and not above half the size of the others. European ob servers, however, do not seem, in general, disposed - to recognise these as essential distinctions, although they admit other varieties.
As Dampier observes, the bread-fruit is a large tree, growing to the height of forty feet or more. It is thick in the stem, and has a luxuriant foliage. The trunk is upright, the wood soft, smooth, and yellow ish ; and wherever the tree is wounded, a glutinous fluid exudes. The branches form an ample head, al most globular; the leaves are eighteen inches long, and eleven broad, resembling those of the oak, or the fig tree, from their deep sinuosities. The younger leaves, like all the more tender plants of the tree, are glutinous to the touch. The male-flowers are among the upper leaves, and the female flowers at the ends of the twigs. But it is the fruit which constitutes the value of the plant, and this is a very large berry, according to botanists, with a reticulated surface, resembling a cocoa-nut or melon in size and form, nine inches in length. It is filled with a white farinaceous fibrous pulp, which becomes juicy and yellow when the fruit is ripe ; and the edible portion lies between the skin, which is green, and a core in the centre, which is about an inch in diameter.