During a considerable portion of the year, the bread-fruit affords the chief sustenance of the Socie ty Islanders. It is prepared after different fashions, and its taste depends in a great measure on the mode of preparation. It is insipid, slightly sweet, some what resembling wheaten bread mixed with Jerusa lem artichokes, and some compare it to a cake made of flour, egg, sugar, milk, and butter. In general, it is cut into several pieces, and roasted or baked in a hole made in the ground, which is paved round with large smooth stones ; and then it resembles a boiled potatoe, not being so farinaceous as a good one, but more so than those of ordinary quality. The stones are previously heated by a fire, kindled in the excavation, and the bread-fruit, being wrapped in a banana leaf, is laid upon them, and covered with leaves and hot. stones. In Otabeite, end in the West Indian Islands, several dishes are made of it ; either by thus baking it in an oven entire, when it is considered to equal or surpass any kind of bread ; by adding water, or the milk of the cocoa nut, by boiling it, or forming it into a paste. This last is accomplished by taking the fruit before attaining complete maturity, and laying it in heaps, closely covered up with leaves, where it undergoes fermen tation, and becomes disagreeably sweet. The core being then drawn out, the fruit or pulp is thrown into a paved excavation, and the whole covered up with leaves, whereon heavy stones are laid : it un dergoes a second fermentation, and becomes sour, after which it will suffer no change for a long time.
A leaven may be thus formed of it, which is baked as occasion requires. In the Island of Nukahiwa, an agreeable beverage can be obtained from it, and' in the West Indies it can be baked like biscuit, and will keep nearly as long. The fruit is in greatest perfection about a week before beginning to ripen, which is easily recognised by the skin changing to a brownish cast, and from small granulations of the juice. In the West Indies, it is soft and yellow when ripe, and is in taste and smell like a very ripe melon. Hogs, dogs, and poultry then feed on it readily.
Besidesthis, the bread-fruit-tree proper, there is one that has been long known in India and the Eastern Islands, of which the fruit contains from forty to an hundred farinaceous seeds, in appearance resembling chesnuts. These when roasted or boiled are more grateful to many persons than the bread-fruit, and the negroes are very fond of them. The external characters of the tree are scarcely to be distinguish ed from those of the other, and the chief distinction lies in the fruit, which attains nearly the size of that we have described, and is covered with prickles like - a hedgehog. It grow* from the seed with rapid ve getation, and attains larger dimensions than the proper bread-fruit-tree.
The natives of those islands producing this useful vegetable, collect it without the smallest trouble ; they have only to climb the tree to gather the fruit. Nor is this the sole purpose to which it is converted, for they have a method of fabricating cloth from the bark ; the leaves are substituted for towels, and the wood• is employed in the construction of their boats and houses. A kind of cement and birdlime is also
prepared by boiling the juice exuding from the bark iu cocoa-nut oil.
It appears that there are other vegetables of this class, producing fruit of inferior quality, but on that account receiving less attention. The bread fruit proper is of easy cultivation in its native soil. In some of the Islands it seems an indigenous pro duct, and springs from the root of old trees, without any care ; in others, it requires simply to be put into • the earth. The trees flourish with greatest luxu riance on rising grounds; and it has been remarked, that where the hills of the Sandwich Islands rise al most perpendicularly in a great variety of peaks, their steep declivities, and the deep valleys intervening, are covered with trees, among which the bread-fruit is particularly abundant. It has also been observed, that 'although we are accustomed to consider Otaheite as of the greatest fertility in this plant, the trees of.
the Sandwich Islands produce double the quantity of fruit. Though nearly of the same height, the branches begin to shoot out much lower from the trunk, and with greater luxuriance. In Otabeite, they are propagated by suckers from the root, which are best trans lamed in vtet weather, when the earth tbrma balls around them ; then they are not liable to suffer from removal. This valuable plant is widely diffused in the Southern and Eastern Isles, and it is generally found throughout the great Paci fic Ocean. It grows on Amboyna, the Banda Islands, Timor, and the Ladrones ; but it is more specially the object of care and cultivation in the Marquesas, and the Friendly and Society Islands, where it vegetates in uncommon luxuriance and pro fusion.
The great utility of the bread-fruit as an articleof subsistence for mankind, has, at different times, led to speculations on the possibility of naturalising it in places where it is not of spontaneous growth. M. de Pon*, the philosophic Governor of the Mauritius, succeeded in introducing it there, and in the Isle of Bourbon, whither it was conveyed by M. de Sonnerat from Lucon in the Philippine Islands. Being found in the greatest luxuriance under the same latitudes as the British West India Islands, and in a climate dissimilar, Government deemed the transmis sion of it thither, both as practicable without made difficulty, and as promising a future store of subsist ence for the inhabitants. An expedition was therein* fitted out, with particular care, under the command of Captain, then Lieutenant Bligh, who sailed in the Bounty stare ship, for the South Seas, in December _ 1787. This vessel was prepared so as to receive a great many bread-fruit and other plants, which would have proved a valuable acquisition to the Colonists of the West ladies, and some which were expected to succeed under the culture of the curious in Great Britain. The Bounty arrived in safety at Otabeite, the principal place of her destination, and took on board 1015 bread-fruit plants, besides a great ye .