Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1884 — A Botanical Usurper. [ARTICLE]

A Botanical Usurper.

A curious instance of the invasion of a country by a plant of foreign origin is seen in the history of the mango in Jamaica. In 1782 specimens of the cinnamon, jack-fruit, and mango were sent to the Botanic Garden of the island. There the cinnamon was carefully fostered, but proved to be difficult of culture in the island; while the mango, which was neglected, became in eleven years as common as the orange, spreading over lowlands and mountains, from the sea-level to 5,000 feet elevation. On the abolition of slavery, immense tracts of land, especially coffee plantations, relapsed into a state of nature, and the mango being a favorite fruit with the blacks, its stones were flung everywhere, giving rise to groves along the roadside and around the settlements ; and the fruit of these again, rolling down hill, give rise to forests in the valleys. The effect of this spread of the mango has been to cover hundreds of thousands of acres, and to ameliorate the climate of what were dry and barren districts.