Page:Foods and their adulteration; origin, manufacture, and composition of food products; description of common adulterations, food standards, and national food laws and regulations (IA foodstheiradulte02wile).pdf/387

 Naturally they would enter the nearest caprifig in the proper stage of development. But, meanwhile, if the caprifig containing the colony has been plucked from its stem and suspended in the branches of an adjacent Smyrna tree, the female on emerging forces her way in a fruit of the latter class, losing her wings in the process, and at once begins a frantic scramble around the interior, searching for the anticipated gall flowers in which to deposit her eggs. Failing, necessarily, to find them, and incapable of again taking flight, she finally curls up and dies heartbroken, but not until she and her companions have between them pollinated every female flower in the cavity with the plentiful store of pollen conveyed from the caprifig—thereby insuring the development of the fruit."

Grape Fruit (Pomelo) (Citrus decumana).—The so-called grape fruit or pomelo is one of the biggest products of the citrus family and also possesses properties which may be regarded as a cross between the lemon and the orange. It is more acid than the orange and more sweet than the lemon. This fruit is perhaps more highly esteemed than any other citrus variety for direct edible purposes, forming a breakfast dish which is eaten very extensively throughout all parts of the United States by those who are able to afford the luxury, for so it still is by reason of the high price of the product. Grape fruit grows to a large extent in the United States, and its culture is confined to the same region as that where the orange and lemon are grown.

Composition of Grape Fruit (Pomelo).—The composition of the pomelo as given for the California product (Station Report, 1892, p. 256) shows this fruit to have the following composition:

Average weight,                                  357.00 grams Rind,                                             23.50 percent Seeds,                                             3.70    " Edible portion,                                    72.80    "

Composition of the juice from the edible portion:

Total solids,                                   13.20 percent Total sugars,                                    9.50    " Acids (as citric),                                2.70    "

Professor Colby says in discussing these analyses that the proportion of acid is larger in these samples than the general taste demands.

Cuban Grape Fruit.—The grape fruit which is grown in Cuba has quite a different character. Its flavor is mild, and it is almost devoid of the bitter taste which is found in the American product, and which adds greatly to its palatable properties when the consumer becomes accustomed to it.

A marmalade is made from the grape fruit similar in all respects, except the peculiar flavor given by the raw material, to that made from oranges. It is evident from its high palatable properties and its wholesomeness that grape