SAGO

a starchy food prepared from the pith of the trunks of several tropical palms, particularly the sago-palm (Metrorylon sagu) of the Kast Indies. Froim 600 to 800 pounds is not infrequently obtained from a single tree. _. ——— The sago-palm—which thrives. best i iV YZ a yr in low, marshy places—is thick-trunked medium height—up to about %:. 1% thirty feet. In its natural course, it ~| fruits once, at from ten to fifteen years Ne Stee ni | 4 a of age, and then dies. Just prior to % eee. ee est! fruiting, its trunk is gorged with starchy, ie oat je aete) §=6pith—-which disappears in fruiting if it ae be undisturbed, leaving only a dead or aie Z=| hollow-trunked palm which has com- > 2 S| pleted its cycle.: ) a: To obtain this pith for human use, ' 't fe thie palm is cut down at the height of its _—: gorged condition, and the pith extracted;: = ‘a-| and grated to a powder, strained, and; oie, washed. The product thus secured is. 2S al the erude sago of native consumption. = For export, it is mixed with water into ~ = — UaMWitKoumverc, « paste and rubbed through sieves of The heart of a sago-palm various sizes—thus producing the small ‘pearl’? sago, the larger ‘‘bullet’’? sago, etc. The smaller sizes cook more quickly and are therefore generally preferable. Sago is valuable as a food, being both cheap and nutritious. It is especially pleasing prepared in the same way as rice pudding. The ornamental ‘‘sago-palm’’ popular in small sizes in the North as a house-plant: and in its full height (six to ten feet) as a central plant for Florida parks and gardens, is so called because its pith gives a kind of ‘‘sago,”’ but it has no relationship to the commercial sago-palm. The female palm bears a large number of red, nut-style seeds which many people find pleasingly edible.