THE CALABASH TREE. Another very useful tree to the natives is the calabash, or gourd tree. It provides him with many household utensils. In height and size it resembles an apple tree. Its leaves are wedge-shaped and its flowers are large, whitish and fleshy. The fruit is something like a gourd and often a foot in diameter. The shell of the fruit is so hard that it is not easily broken by rough usage or burnt by exposure to fire. It is used instead of bottles, cups, basins, dishes, pots and kettles, and to make musical instruments. Sometimes the calabashes are polished, carved, dyed or otherwise ornamented. The pulp of the fruit is used as a medicine. THE TRAVELER'S TREE. One of the most curious and beautiful trees on the island is the traveler's tree. It is so named because it contains in its leaves and at their bases a large quantity of pure water. By piercing the leaves with a spear or pike the water is drawn out, and found cool and refreshing. It often relieves the thirst of the traveler in this warm country. BREAD FRUIT. Among the fruit products used in large quantities are the bread-fruit and bread-nuts. These trees grow very large and have wide-spreading branches about fifty feet from the ground. The leaves are, very broad, and the fruit looks something like an ovoid osage orange as large as one's head. [Illustration: BREADFRUIT.] The fruit is best when picked green, and baked in an oven or in the ashes, after paring away the outer skin or rind. When done it resembles a browned loaf of bread. It is very good and, wholesome, too; but it tastes more like baked plantain than bread. The bread-nuts look on the outside like the bread-fruit, but the inside contains a great mass of closely packed nuts like large chestnuts. These are not good raw, but are fine when baked or boiled. ANNOTTO. We have often heard people speak of butter and cheese being colored, but did not know that the dairyman was obliged to send to the West Indies for his dye. The bush which provides it is called the annotto or annatto. It grows to the size of the quince tree. The leaves are heart-shaped; and the rosy flowers are followed by fuzzy red-and-yellow pods, something like chestnut burs. These small burs are filled with a crimson pulp containing many seeds. This pulp is immersed in water a few weeks, strained and boiled to a paste. The paste is made into cakes and dried in the sun. Then it comes to our country and appears upon our tables in butter or cheese. Can you tell me where bay rum comes from? We have often wondered, and find here an answer to the question. It is furnished by the bay tree, which grows here. The leaves are distilled and the oil extracted from them to furnish this perfume for the bath. SPICES. Spices, in some form, are served every day upon our table; yet few of us know where they come from, or where, how, or upon what they grow.