Identifier: crusoesislandbir00ober (find matches)
Title: Crusoe's Island; a bird-hunter's story
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Ober, Frederick A. (Frederick Albion), 1849-1913
Subjects: Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731 Birds
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ts Ifound a large tuber attached to the woody stem, andthen knew that I was looking upon a plant known tothe aborigines of these islands before the advent ofthe white man. The Indians prepare the cassava by grating thetuber and making from it a fine meal which is bakedinto thin cakes. As the bitter cassava is deadly poisonin a raw state, and the poison is dissipated by heat,the meal is heated over a fire before it is stored awayfor use. My stock of flour was nearly half gone at the endof the second month, and 1 knew that somethingmust be done soon or I should be without bread:The cassava would yield a supply of farinaceous food,at a pinch, and I held it in reserve for the future. Behind my cocoa grove was a small tract of richsoil which I, with infinite labor, dug up with a spadeand here planted some shoots of the manihot. Thiswas done by merely cutting off sections of the stemsand sticking them in the ground—quite in the oldand easy aboriginal way, with the least trouble pos-sible.
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MY FRIENDS POMONA AND CERES. 93 If it appear that I seem lazy, I shall offer no de-fense, as I have become so and was not born so.The easiest way is always the best, but some peopleare not satisfied with that, and spend their time hunt-ing out one more difficult. In that same abandoned field I found what gaveme a thrill of joy at beholding: some stalks of maize,or Indian corn. Like cassava, indigenous to America,yet the maize (Zea mays) has had a more general dis-semination throughout the world than the other, andnow supplies the staff of life to millions. Yet at onetime it was known only to the American Indian, andwas first discovered by Europeans in these very islandsof the West Indies. I dont think Columbus himself could have experi-enced greater satisfaction when Indian Guacanagaribrought him those golden grains, on the coast of Haitiin 1492, than I did at the sight of the majestic maizestalks growing in this deserted corner of Tobago.There were some large ears on the stalks, but

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