A description of the mangostan and the bread-fruit ... the first, esteemed one of the most delicious, the other, the most useful of all the fruits of the East Indies : To which are added, directions to voyagers, for bringing over these and other vegetable productions, which would be extremely beneficial to the inhabitants of our West India Islands / By John Ellis.

  • Ellis, John, 1710?-1776.
Date:
1775
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A description of the mangostan and the bread-fruit ... the first, esteemed one of the most delicious, the other, the most useful of all the fruits of the East Indies : To which are added, directions to voyagers, for bringing over these and other vegetable productions, which would be extremely beneficial to the inhabitants of our West India Islands / By John Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/72 (page 16)
    It is eaten both cold and hot, and the natives feldoni make a meal without it; though to us the tafte was as difagreeable as that of pickled olive generally is the firft time it is eaten.” However, a gentleman of diftindion who accompanied Captain Cook in this voyage, preferred the tafte of the Maine to that of the Bread-fruit in feafon. Thus much, for the Bread-fruit tree, and its fruits, as they were found by this gentleman at Otaheite. Candour, however, obliges me to mention, that the fame gentleman obferves, that, when at Batavia, he found the Soccum, which is of the fame kind with the Bread-fruit tree of the South Sea iflands ; but. fo much inferior, that, if it had not been for the fimilitude of the outward appearance both of the fruit and the tree, he fhould not have referred them to the fame clafs. To obviate in fome meafure this objection, I muft remind my readers, that there are two kinds of. Bread-fruit in the Eaft Indies : one, without any ftones or feeds ; the other, containing a confiderable number. Both are accounted good, yet the former is held to be the moft excellent. It was the latter only, that Captain Cook found at Batavia; although I am credibly in¬ formed that both kinds grow* at that place. It is like wife to be obferved, that at Batavia, where the earth is liberal to its inhabitants, where the fertility of the foil in fome degree compenfates for the unhealthynefs of climate, this va¬ luable fruit, o.bfcured by numbers ftill more agreeable, attracts no particular regard, nor receives any degree of cultivation. What influence this muft haye on its quality, every one, from ex¬ perience in cafes of a fimilar nature, muft be fufEciently able to judge. I would laftly take notice, that this fruit is out of feafon at leaft four months in the year; that thefe very months, viz. Sep¬ tember, Odober, November, December, were the feafon wherein