able to hold its own against all kinds of indigenous growths, but
has developed into a vigorous, healthy tree, thus showing that it is
perfectly at home, and that the soil and climate of Queensland suit it
to perfection. The fact that by far the greater portion of our
mango-trees have been grown from seed has resulted in the production of
innumerable varieties, many of which are of decidedly inferior quality,
as one never knows when planting the seed what the resultant fruit is
going to be like. One is more likely to get good fruit by planting the
seeds from selected fruit of the highest quality, but is by no means
certain to do so, as a number of seeds always revert to inferior types.
This has had a bad effect on our mango industry, and has been apt to
give the fruit as a class a bad name, so much so that we find it
difficult to get our Southern neighbours to take to it at all readily. I
can quite understand anyone, whose first experience of a mango is that
of an inferior fruit, full of fibre, and having a distinctly
disagreeable flavour, condemning the particular fruit, but because there
are inferior fruits one should not condemn the whole without knowing
what a really good mango is like.

[Illustration: Mango Trees, Port Douglas.]

We have many good mangoes in Queensland, but only a few that are really
first-class, and of the latter I have yet to meet the man or woman, who
is a fruit-eater, who does not appreciate their exquisite flavour, and
who does not consider them worthy to rank with any of the finest fruits.
By many a really fine mango is considered to be the king of fruits, and
I am not at all certain that they are not right, but, at the same time,
a really bad mango is indescribably bad.

The mango grows to a large size here, even when comparatively young. I
know trees over 50 feet in height, having a spread of the branches of
more than 60 feet, a main trunk nearly 3 feet in diameter, that are
under thirty years old, and that have borne from 1 to 2 tons of fruit
for a single crop. Hundreds of tons of fruit go to waste annually for
want of a market, or are consumed by farm animals, as the consumption of
the fruit is practically confined to this State, and the production is
greater than we can consume, despite the fact that mangoes are in season
from the end of September to March, and that they are a favourite fruit
with all who have acquired a liking for them. In addition to the
consumption of the fruit in