Distinctive and significant as the virtues possessed by the papaw are, yet because of its universality and because it yields its fruits with little labour, it gets but scant courtesy.  It is tolerated merely; but if we had it not, if it were as far as that vast shore washed by the farthest sea, men would adventure for such merchandise—­and adventure at the bidding of women.  How few there are who recognise in the everyday papaw one of the most estimable gifts of kindly Nature?

Some who dwell in temperate climes claim for the apple and the onion superlative qualities.  In the papaw the excellences of both are blended and combined.  The onion may induce to slumber, but the sleep it produces is it not a trifle too balmy?  The moral life and high standard of statesmanship of an American Senator are cited as examples of the refining influences of apples.  For every day for thirty years he has, to the exclusion of all other food, lunched on that fruit.  Possibly the papaw may be decadent in respect to morals and politics.  The grape, lemon, orange, pomelo, and the strawberry, each in the estimation of special enthusiasts, is proclaimed the panacea for many of the ills of life.  One writer cites cases in which maniacs have been restored to reason by the exclusive use of cherries.  The apple, they say, too, gives to the face of the fair ruddiness, but the tint is it not too bold, compared with maiden blush which bepaints the cheek of the beauty who rightly understands the use of the vital principle of the papaw?  Those who have complexions to retain or restore let them understand and be fair.

In North Queensland the plant grows everywhere.  In the dry, buoyant climate west of the coast range, and in the steamy coastal tract, on cliff-like hill-sides, on sandy beaches a few feet above high-water mark, among rocks with but a few inches of soil, and where the decayed vegetation of generations has made fat mould many feet deep, the papaw flourishes.  It asks foothold, heat, light and moisture, and given these conditions a plant within a few months of its first start in life will begin to provide food—­entertaining, refreshing, salubrious—­and will continue so to do for years.  Its precociousness is so great and its productiveness so lavish, that by the time other trees flaunt their first blossoms, the papaw has worn itself out, and is dying of senile decay, leaving, however, numerous posterity.  The fruit is delicate, too, and soon resolves itself into its original elements.  Pears and peaches are said by the artistic to enjoy but a brief half hour of absolute perfection.  The artist alone knows the interval between immaturity and deterioration.  The refined and delicate perception of the exquisite and transient aroma and flavour of fruits deserves to be classed among the fine arts.  Some people are endowed with nice discrimination.  They are of the order of the genius.  The higher the poetic instinct, generally the better qualified the individual to detect