It is of a tawny colour; and the seeds are black, very
round, and as big as a white pea. The other sort is ripe in March or
April. The fruit or pod is like a large apple and very round. The outside
shell is as thick as the top of one's finger. Within this there is a very
thin whitish bag or skin which encloses the cotton. When the cotton-apple
is ripe the outer thick green shell splits itself into 5 equal parts from
stem to tail and drops off, leaving the cotton hanging upon the stem,
only pent up in its fine bag. A day or two afterwards the cotton swells
by the heat of the sun, breaks the bag and bursts out, as big as a man's
head: and then as the wind blows it is by degrees driven away, a little
at a time, out of the bag that still hangs upon the stem, and is
scattered about the fields; the bag soon following the cotton, and the
stem the bag. Here is also a little of the right West India cotton-shrub:
but none of the cotton is exported, nor do they make much cloth of it.
THE BRAZILIAN FRUITS, ORANGES, ETC.
This country produces great variety of fine fruits, as very good oranges
of 3 or 4 sorts (especially one sort of china oranges) limes in
abundance, pomegranates, pomecitrons, plantains, bananas, right coconuts,
guavas, coco-plums (called here munsheroos) wild grapes, such as I have
described, beside such grapes as grow in Europe.
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