Little Journey to Puerto Rico Part 10

The hills are covered with forests, which, yield valuable timber and dye woods. Among these are mahogany, cedar, ebony, and lignum-vitae trees.

Logwood and other dye materials are common.

Many varieties of the palm flourish here,--the cocoanut palm producing fruit in greater abundance than in any other country of the West Indies.

THE COCOA PALM.

The most abundant cocoanut groves in the world are said to be found on Puerto Rico and the other islands of the Antilles. This tree usually grows near the coast, for it loves the salt water; but it is sometimes found on the hill slopes a short distance inland.

"The tree grows to a height of from sixty to eighty feet, lives a hundred years, bears a hundred nuts each year, and is said to have a hundred uses for man."

The trees bear such heavy burdens of fruit that it seems impossible that so slender a trunk could hold such a weight of fruit in the air. The fruit is expensive when it comes to us, because of the difficulty in climbing the trees, gathering the nuts, and removing from them the heavy fibrous husks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GATHERING COCOANUTS.]

Here is a negro gathering cocoanuts. Let us watch him. He climbs the tall tree, dragging a rope after him. About his waist is a belt in which is thrust a machete.

He hacks off a bunch of the nuts and attaches it to the end of the rope.

It is then lowered to another negro or to the ground. The nuts are in bunches of a dozen or two, and are covered with a green, smooth, s.h.i.+ning covering.

After the bunches of nuts are all removed from the tree, the climber throws down the rope and comes down hand over hand.

These nuts are so large that a single one often yields two gla.s.ses of milk.

We found that the natives made boats and furniture, as well as houses, from the trunk of this palm tree. They extract from its roots a remedy for fever. The foot stalks of the leaves are made into combs. The leaves are used for thatching huts and in making baskets, mats and hats.

The fibrous material at the base of the foot stalks is used for sieves, and woven into clothing. A medicine is made from the flowers, and from the flower-stalks palm wine is made. From the juice is made sugar and vinegar. From the fruit or nut, water, jelly and meat are obtained. Oil is extracted from the kernel; and the refuse is used for food for fowls and cattle, as well as for manure.

From the husks ropes, brooms, brushes, and bedding are made. The sh.e.l.ls are used as lamps, cups, spoons, and scoops.

It has been called the poor man's tree because it gives him food, drink, medicine and material with which to build his home.

The tropics could not do without the palm. It is more to that region than the pine is to the north.

THE CALABASH TREE.

Another very useful tree to the natives is the calabash, or gourd tree.

It provides him with many household utensils. In height and size it resembles an apple tree. Its leaves are wedge-shaped and its flowers are large, whitish and fleshy.

The fruit is something like a gourd and often a foot in diameter. The sh.e.l.l of the fruit is so hard that it is not easily broken by rough usage or burnt by exposure to fire. It is used instead of bottles, cups, basins, dishes, pots and kettles, and to make musical instruments.

Sometimes the calabashes are polished, carved, dyed or otherwise ornamented. The pulp of the fruit is used as a medicine.

THE TRAVELER'S TREE.

One of the most curious and beautiful trees on the island is the traveler's tree. It is so named because it contains in its leaves and at their bases a large quant.i.ty of pure water.

By piercing the leaves with a spear or pike the water is drawn out, and found cool and refres.h.i.+ng. It often relieves the thirst of the traveler in this warm country.

BREAD FRUIT.

Among the fruit products used in large quant.i.ties are the bread-fruit and bread-nuts. These trees grow very large and have wide-spreading branches about fifty feet from the ground.

The leaves are, very broad, and the fruit looks something like an ovoid osage orange as large as one's head.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BREADFRUIT.]

The fruit is best when picked green, and baked in an oven or in the ashes, after paring away the outer skin or rind. When done it resembles a browned loaf of bread. It is very good and, wholesome, too; but it tastes more like baked plantain than bread.

The bread-nuts look on the outside like the bread-fruit, but the inside contains a great ma.s.s of closely packed nuts like large chestnuts. These are not good raw, but are fine when baked or boiled.

ANNOTTO.

We have often heard people speak of b.u.t.ter and cheese being colored, but did not know that the dairyman was obliged to send to the West Indies for his dye. The bush which provides it is called the annotto or annatto. It grows to the size of the quince tree. The leaves are heart-shaped; and the rosy flowers are followed by fuzzy red-and-yellow pods, something like chestnut burs.

These small burs are filled with a crimson pulp containing many seeds.

This pulp is immersed in water a few weeks, strained and boiled to a paste. The paste is made into cakes and dried in the sun. Then it comes to our country and appears upon our tables in b.u.t.ter or cheese.

Can you tell me where bay rum comes from? We have often wondered, and find here an answer to the question. It is furnished by the bay tree, which grows here. The leaves are distilled and the oil extracted from them to furnish this perfume for the bath.

SPICES.

Spices, in some form, are served every day upon our table; yet few of us know where they come from, or where, how, or upon what they grow.

We have heard of the Spice Islands, perhaps, and we just take it for granted that they all grow there. We are very much surprised, then, to find many of the spices in Puerto Rico.

ALLSPICE, OR PIMENTO.

The pimento spice is native to this soil. The groves of these trees are beautiful. The trees grow to a height of thirty feet, their stems are smooth and clean, and their leaves glossy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRANCH AND BUD OF PIMENTO (ALL-SPICE).]

The trees bear fruit when about seven years old. The berries are gathered green and dried in the sun. The branches to which the berries are attached are broken off by boys and thrown to girls and women, who pick off the berries, and take them to the drying places. One tree sometimes bears a hundred pounds.

The tree likes the hills and mountains along the sea, a hot climate and a dry atmosphere.

THE NUTMEG TREE.

The nutmeg tree grows to a height of thirty to fifty feet. The ripe fruit looks somewhat like the apricot on the outside. It bursts in two and shows the dark nut covered with mace, a bright scarlet. This is stripped off and pressed flat. The sh.e.l.ls are broken open when perfectly dry, and the nuts powdered with lime to prevent the attacks of worms.

The tree bears the sixth or seventh year,--the nuts becoming ripe six months after the flower appears. Twenty thousand nuts are sometimes gathered from one tree.

Other important growths we find to be pepper, which begins to bear when five years old and may bear for thirty years; the vanilla bean, which proves to be very profitable when properly cared for; and cacao, which requires eight years to come to full fruitage, but is an invaluable plant.

MINERALS.

Puerto Rico has no mines or minerals of any consequence, except a little iron. Foundries for magnetic iron have been established at Ponce, San Juan and Mayaguez.

Gold, silver, copper and coal are known to exist in small quant.i.ties beneath the surface, but not in sufficient amount to be mined.