When we journey into tropical regions we find a great many very tough, but extremely valuable, nuts to crack, and first and foremost is the cocoanut, which is the principal food and wealth of the natives of the South Sea Islands, the tree itself {Cocos nucifera) serving all the multifarious uses of the household. It forms the timber of the huts, the leaves are used for thatch, the fibre for mats and ropes, the nuts for eating, the shells for drinking and cooking utensils ; the milky juice in the nut forms a pleasant drink, and in the East Indies, toddy and arrack are extracted from the tree.

Latterly the cocoanut has become a favourite ingredient for cakes, puddings, and biscuits, but it always appears indigestible, probably because not used when quite fresh. The oil extracted from the nut has also many uses, but it quickly becomes rancid. Each cocoa palm yields about a hundred nuts, and it may be readily understood that a grove of these trees would be of extreme value in the tropical countries which produce them. Two of these graceful cocoa palms may be seen growing in the gardens of the Due de Rochefoucault, at Cannes, but, like the other palms, they do not thrive and bear fruit in Europe.

The Brazil nut, although well known as a fruit, is not so much used in this country as the other nuts we have mentioned, and few people are aware that these triangular nuts are the contents of a large outer shell of extreme hardness, which forms a nut as large as a child's head, within which the Brazil nuts of commerce are tightly packed, sometimes to the number of fifteen to twenty or more. Humboldt described this nut as one of the most extraordinary fruits of South America. It grows on a tree 120 feet high, and at the time of ripening the natives dare not enter the woods where they grow without a wooden buckler over the head, lest they should be killed by the falling nuts. The monkeys are said to unite to break the shell with stones, and the Indians hold a feast at the ingathering, which they say is the feast of animals as well as of men. The fall of the ripe nut from so great a height is, it may be supposed, generally sufficient to break it, otherwise it must be a very hard nut to crack even for men; but, besides the reputed breaking by the Capuchin apes, the Cavia aguli is said to be able to gnaw through the shell and eat the nuts.

Another very hard-shelled nut, the butter nut of the West Indies, known locally as the Souari nut, was brought over among the products of Guiana at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, and when fresh is a most delicious nut, eating like rich cream, but I suspect that it very frequently becomes rancid when old, otherwise it would seem a fruit well suited for exportation.

The cashew nut, also a product of the West Indies, strongly resembles the walnut, and is much used in flavouring various dishes. In India and the Philippine Islands it is roasted in the husk and eaten with salt, and the husk itself produces an indelible stain used in the manufacture of marking ink, and also for burning warts and ulcers.

The pistachio nut, now so much used, comes to us from Persia and from Western Africa, which is rich in nuts of various kinds, and these nuts, with the oil extracted from them, form a very important branch of commerce. The chief of these are palm nuts and ground nuts, the oil from the latter being often sold as olive oil.

The nut of the poisonous palm, Cycas media, is eaten by the Australian natives, after the kernel has been subjected to much pounding and soaking in water, a process which I have pointed out in Chapter III (Various Bread-Stuffs). as that adopted by many savages in the case of poisonous plants, such as the manioc. The porridge made from these roasted and pounded nuts, which is called Kadjera, forms the chief food of the Australian natives from October to December, when other fruits come in.

The acorn, which was formerly eaten in Britain, had to be prepared in the same manner before it could be made palatable, but we are told that acorns were esteemed delicacies among the Arcadians and Spaniards, and Pliny says the latter eat them as dessert, roasted in wood ashes. Acorns, like beech-nuts and horse-chestnuts, are now consigned to pigs, goats, deer, sheep, and poultry.

Next to nuts, we may perhaps place apples as the fruit of greatest value, at all events in temperate climates. In the extreme north the apple is unknown, and in the tropics it is supplanted by more luscious fruits. 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away,' says the proverb, and there can be no doubt that in temperate climes the apple, from its excellent hygienic and keeping qualities, ranks first in usefulness. It has a very extensive range, for it is found apparently wild in Persia and Syria, in Africa, and throughout the continent of Europe. In Great Britain the crab or wild apple is very frequently referred to by old writers, and roasted crabs were always the accompaniment to the Christmas wassail bowl; but when the art of grafting became known the crab was soon supplanted by a great variety of excellent apples brought, probably, in the first place from France, as their names testify, and cultivated largely by the monks. It is greatly to be regretted that these famous old sorts, such as the nonpareil, the rennet, and the codlin, have been allowed to die out or to degenerate, for they are scarcely equalled in flavour by the innumerable varieties of modern times, and it is also matter of regret that English apples should have been supplanted of late years in the London market by foreign consignments, chiefly American, and yet those who have visited the late exhibitions and congresses of fruit-growers would hardly suppose that the cultivation of this favourite old English fruit was on the wane; the innumerable varieties exhibited at the Mansion House in 1890, and at the Horticultural Exhibition this year, and the crowds assembled to gaze upon and admire with longing eyes and watering mouths the juicy fruit displayed, seemed to show a great revival of interest in British apples and pears, but as I overheard a grower remark of some of the splendid fruit exhibited, 'This is all very well for exhibition, but it would not pay to grow, for a tree could not carry a bushel of such fruit';' added to which our uncertain climate always renders fruit of any kind a precarious crop, and a good apple season seldom comes oftener than once in three years, so that we are obliged to resort to America and our colonies to supply the deficiency in years of scarcity, and this so lowers the market price as to render a good crop unprofitable to the English grower, although I believe most housekeepers are willing to pay more for English than for foreign apples, as being of better flavour and more juicy.