,
being rather insipid and slightly sweet. Nevertheless it is extremely
good for food, and is much prized by the natives, to whom it may almost
be said to be the staff of life.

The tree on which this excellent fruit grows, besides producing two,
and, in some cases, three crops in a year, furnishes a species of gum,
or resin, which oozes from the bark when cut, and hardens when exposed
to the sun. It is used for pitching the seams of canoes. The bark of
the young branches is employed in making several varieties of native
cloth. The wood of the tree is also valuable for building houses and
canoes. There are nearly fifty varieties of the bread-fruit tree, for
which the natives have distinct names, and as these varieties ripen at
different times, there are few months in the year in which the fruit is
not to be had.

Not less valuable to the natives of these islands is the cocoa-nut tree,
the stem of which is three or four feet in diameter at the root, whence
it tapers gradually without branch or leaf to the top, where it
terminates in a beautiful tuft or plume of long green leaves which wave
gracefully in every breeze.

One of the singular peculiarities of this tree is its power of
flourishing in almost any soil. It grows equally well on the
mountain-side, in the rich valleys beside the streams, and on the barren
sea-beach of the coral reefs, where its only soil is sand, and where its
roots are watered by the waves of every rising tide. Another
peculiarity is, that fruit in every stage may be seen on the same tree
at one time--from the first formation, after the falling of the blossom,
to the ripe nut. As the tree is slow in growth, the nuts do not
probably come to perfection until twelve months after the blossoms have
fallen. The successive ripening of the nuts, therefore, seems to have
been purposely arranged by our beneficent Creator, with a special view
to the comfort of man. Each nut is surrounded by a tough husk, or
shell, nearly two inches thick, and when it has reached its full size it
contains a pint, or a pint and a half, of the juice usually called
cocoa-nut milk.

The kernels of the tough outer husks, above referred to, are the
"cocoa-nuts" which we see exposed for sale in this country, but these
nuts give no idea of the delightful fruit when plucked from the tree.
They are old and dry, and the milk is comparatively rancid. In the
state in which we usually see cocoa-nuts they are never used by t