Outline:
- Different fruits and flowers at different altitudes.
- Differences of climate, longitude and latitude, influence fruits and flowers of a district.
- Some fruits give a living to the people.
- The production of fruit could be greatly increased for the benefit of the people.
Pakistan is a vast area of land, some parts of the country being of tropical heat and others cold and temperate in climate. It is to be expected that a great range of different fruits and flowers will be found in the land. What is familiar and well known to the dweller on the hot plains will not be known to the inhabitants of the cold hill regions, and the reverse is also the case.
Of all the fruits, the mango is perhaps the best known and the most popular. This noble fruit grows on a dark green tree with fine shady foliage, and is found mainly in hot districts of the south, at a low or moderate altitude, the mango is eaten and appreciated by all classes. Those from the district of the Multan are especially good. There are large and small mangoes, the noble Alphonso being so large that one fruit will be sufficient to satisfy several people. It is not properly known in Europe, for, though mangoes are exported, the flavour is. lost to some extent and they are not so good if eaten in Europe. They are, however, tinned and made into jam and chutney and, in the future, may form an important export.[the_ad id=”17141″]
Grapes, apples, pears, plums and peaches flourish in many of the cooler districts. Some of these were regarded as European fruits, and were originally imported. But they grow very well in the West Pakistan Strawberries of delightful quality are grown in Shujabad. The Pakistan orange known as Kinno is a popular and health-giving fruit. It grows widely over the plains, but specially fine oranges come from Sialkot Lyallpur and Gujranwala districts. Melons, bananas and litchis and guavas, figs of excellent quality all are found in their different districts. Indeed plantains, Pakistan is well supplied, but the sad thing is that this fruit, so beneficial to health, is not well distributed. In many a poor village, an orange is never seen: yet they are growing not so very far away.
The flowers of Pakistan are equally varied. That which strikes the eye first is the gorgeous gold-mohur blossom which flames in the streets of Lahore and Rawalpindi in the summer months. There can be no finer scene in nature than a gold-mohur tree in full bloom. The lovely rose blooms widely, but requires a cooler climate than the plains to do really well. A very popular flower is the sweet-scented a jasmine, so much in demand or making garlands, when we mention perfume, there is the rat-ki-rani the Queen of the Night, not much to look at with her little white blossoms, but shedding a perfume in the winter months that entrances the senses. Lovely lilies grow in the tanks, and it would require a larger space than this essay to mention even the names, of all the wonderful orchids and other blossoms which adorn the hills of Pakistan.