Hanthawaddy, Amherst, Toungoo, and elsewhere. The first experiments were made in Government plantations in Arakan, Mergui and Rangoon. The Mergui plantation has been acquired by a Company.
Fruits. Fruits abound in rich and varied profusion. Most widely distributed is the plantain (banana) which is cultivated everywhere. Plantains vary in quality; some kinds are of excellent flavour; others are hardly fit to offer to a pony. A somewhat similar judgement may be passed on the mango, except that it is not offered to ponies. The ordinary mango with a flavour of turpentine is worthless. The best kind is one of the most delicious fruits. From the extreme south come the durian (Durio Zibethinus) and the mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana). So highly esteemed by B urmans is the durian that, in the king's time, as soon as the fruit ripened, a steamer was chartered every year to bring a cargo of the dainty for the Court at Mandalay. As already mentioned, some Europeans profess a morbid passion for this fruit. To others, its scent and taste alike are inexpressibly loathsome. The mangosteen, by universal consent, is the most delicate and exquisite of eastern fruits. Coco-nuts abound; pine-apples, custard-apples (Anona squamosa), pleasant but somewhat insipid, marian, jack fruit, papaya (Carica papaya) of peptic virtue, guavas, and pomegranates are plentiful. Allied to the custard-apple, the chirimoya of Peru (Anona cherimolia) has been introduced and is cultivated but not to any great extent. Oranges grow best in the Northern Shan States; less successfully elsewhere, as in the Southern Shan States, Chin Hills, and Amherst. Limes and citrons are cultivated in the hills. Mulberries are grown by Yabein[1] in Magwe and Thayetmyo; but for the sake of the leaves to feed silk-worms, not for the fruit. The bael tree, of
- ↑ Yabein are of Burmese stock, dwellers on the western slopes of the Pegu Yoma; despised on account of their practice of destroying silk-worms in the course of their silk culture.
