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the hot-houses of England and America, its quality as a fruit is altogether dependent upon the care exercised in its cultivation. In its wild state, about the only condition in which it produces a reproductive seed, it is hardly ever sought after as a food, but rather for the long, fine fiber contained in the leaves. There are as many as fifty varieties, not all of them bearing a palatable fruit, even when cultivated. That thought the most of, in the Phillippine Islands—not as a fruit, but for its fiber-producing qualities-grows in the wild state, and is known to botanists as the Bromelia pinguin. This particular plant throws out leaves from three to sometimes eight feet long, which abound in fiber of great strength and durability in the older plants, while in the leaves of the younger growth a fiber is found that the natives work into all the delicate forms, gossamer and cobweb like, and in such delicate and beautiful designs as not only to always astonish the traveler, but to invariably bring, when in the form of veils, handkerchiefs, etc., many times their weight in gold.

MANILLA HEMP.

The textile fiber of the abaca palm, of the family of musas, to which the banana and plantain belong, is found native in a great many of the island groups of the South Sea, but probably is better known and grows in greater luxuriance in the Phillippines, where the manifold uses the fiber is put to, in the manufacture of the most delicate laces, veils, handkerchiefs, to the coarsest cables used by ships, has made the name of the hemp world-wide. The thousands of tons of the raw material shipped from the Phillippines every year, and to nearly every part of the world, bear evidence

as to its value and the continually increasing demand for the fiber. The luxuriance of plant growth throughout the islands of the Pacific, may yet be taxed to supply the growing demands of the world, for products lavished by nature on these sunny lands. From this same and kindred plants, a great quantity of paper is made, and the fiber is spun and woven alike by the natives into a superior cloth for clothing, or into a heavier material for sails, mats, bagging, etc.

PEPPER (PIPER).

The fruit of the climbing shrub or vine (piper nigrum) is native and cultivated in many of the tropical countries. Although a spice, apparently used in small quantities, yet in the aggregate, thousands of tons of it are produced and exported from the Pacific islands. each year.

Java, Borneo, Sumatra, the Phillippines and the Molluccas furnish the little pungent berry in abundance. Where not native in the grand old forests of the islands, or when not supported by trees, the plant is cultivated in a manner very similar to our hop fields. The black and white varieties are the product of the same plant, the latter simply being put through a bleaching process, in water or by chemicals, and results in the white pepper of commerce. Pepper is not at all a product of the South American pepper tree, much used in our country for shade and ornament; the berry produced being similar in appearance to that of the pepper plant, together with the name, the erroneous impression sometimes prevails that the pungent product is from this tree. The effect of the pepper tree berry on the system is somewhat different

from that of the true pepper. Red pepper, also a great island product, is from the plant-genus solanacca, or nightshade family, and is grown in all parts of the world. It is native to tropical countries, and in the islands of the Pacific grows in the greatest luxuriance. After ripening on the plant, it is picked, dried and ground, furnishing the Cayenne pepper of commerce.

GUTTA PERCHA.

Gutta Percha is the name given by the Malays to the tree belonging to the natural order sapotacea, and to the newer genus isonandra, is found in the greatest abundance in the forests of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and, in fact, throughout nearly all of the island groups where the forestry is abundant. The tree ranges from two to eight feet in diameter, and reaches a height of sixty to eighty feet. The timber is of great value, and is used by the Malays in many of their manufactures. The sap from the tree, after being reduced to the form of a gum, with its valuable property of becoming plastic in hot water, so that it can be molded up into any form, retaining the shape when cooled, was known to the Malays probably for ages. This property, from which so many useful advantages have been derived, seems to have remained unknown to our people until about 1842 and '43, when specimens of the gum were forwarded to England, and some time transpired before it was brought into practical use. Gutta percha differs very materially from india rubber (also one of the bounteous products of the islands), in being elastic only in a very slight degree. The plants are very different. The india rubber, although growing a foot or so in diame

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PARADISE A PAPUANA.-Bird of Paradise-Young male, emerald throat. From the Island of New Guinea.

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