Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/69

 mDUSTEIAL PEODTJCE, ETC. 47 quantities of taro, yams, kawai, banana, kumera, and sugar-cane. Rows of maize and ti-tree, and patches of tobacco, are often seen, and the papua-apple is cultivated. Some of these things are too familiar t<! need any minute description. Of yams there are in Fiji the usual varieties, and, in some parts of the group, two crops are raised in the year. Ordinary tubers of this valuable plant weigh from six to twelve pounds ; extraordinary, from thirty to one hundred pounds. I have raised yams in my own garden nearly six feet in length, and weighing eighty pounds. A teacher on the island of Ono gave a yam nearly nine feet long to a Missionary's child, as a birth-day present. The soil is well cleared for the reception of the plants, which are placed in mounds, and the vines prevented from touching the ground, or playing too freely with the wind, by reeds planted cross-wise beneath, or piled like sticks for peas. Some of the yams grown in Fiji are for barter, and keep well for several months. The tubers of the kumera, or sweet potato, vary in weight from half a pound to five pounds. The kawai, or sweet yam, resembles a kidney potato about eight or ten inches long. The vine is more woody than either of the two preceding, and armed with spines. It is prolific, and yields tubers of an average weight of one pound and a half. Dalo [Arum esculentum) is the taro of sea-faring men, and the Fijian's " staff of life," surpassing all his other esculents in nutritious value. One kind is grown on dry soil. Irrigated taro beds are generally oblong, and prepared with much labour. The most approved soil is a stiff, rich clay, which is worked into the consistency of mortar, and watered carefiilly, and often with skill. Valleys are preferred for these beds ; but sometimes they have to be cut on the mountain slopes, which, when thus terraced with mature taro patches, present as beautiful a spectacle as any kind of agriculture can furnish. The deep, rich green of the broad leaves, which rise three feet or more from their watery beds in rank and file, contrasts beautifully with the profuse but irregular vegetation of the uncultivated ground. The root is oval in outline, and of a dark or light slate-colour, showing in section an appearance like fuiely veined marble. It is propagated by setting the tops of the ripe roots in deep holes prepared in the clay, and bringing to mind the celery-beds at home in England. In ten or twelve months the taro is fit to be drawn up, and yields well. ^From one to four pounds is a common weight ; not unusually eight, ten, or twelve pounds. I weighed one head without the skin, and it reached twenty-one pounds and a half. The acrid taste of the raw root is removed by cooking, which renders the taro a useful and delicious food, the substitute for bread to the 4