Macadamia (1893)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   Merriam-Webster has 1929 for "macadamia," and that's just nuts.
   The revised OED entry has that 1929 cite, but added a 1904 citation.
   I checked out:

HISTORY OF THE MACADAMIA NUT
INDUSTRY IN HAWAI'I, 1881-1981:
FROM BUSH NUT TO GOURMET'S DELIGHT
by Sandra Wagner-Wright
The Edwin Mellen Press,
Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter
1995

   There are some nice publications mentioned in the notes.  Pre-1900 cites seem kind of sketchy, however.  "Macadamia" was also called "Queensland nut" and "Bush nut" and "Australian hazelnut" and "Monkey nut."
   A big commercial boost came from Ernest van Tassel (1881-1943), founder of the Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Company, Limited.  (FWIW, Tassel was a graduate from Yale.  Many of the books I've read on Hawaii were written by Yale missionaries.)
   The best hits came from the Periodical Contents Index, which references the AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE OF NEW SOUTH WALES (the NYPL has this in the annex).
   From the AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE OF NEW SOUTH WALES, vol. 4 (1893):

Pg. 2 (Plate II illustration):
   Macadamia ternifolia, F.v.M.
   "Australian Nut."
Pg. 5:  _Reference to Plate._--The drawing was made from a photograph of a tree growing in the Sydney Botanic Gardens.

Pg. 3:
   THE CULTIVATION OF THE "AUSTRALIAN NUT."
      (_Macadamia ternifolia_, F.v.M.)
      By FRED TURNER.
THE "Australian nut," or, as it is frequently called, the "Queensland nut," is a very ornamental evergreen tree.
   In its natural state it is mostly found growing on rich alluvial soils bordering rivers or creeks in the coastal districts of southern Queensland, and in the north-eastern portion of New South Wales. (...)
   The nuts, however, are very hard, and it requires some force to break them before the edible portion can be got at.  It is probably owing to this circumstance that the tree is not so well and widely known amongst cultivators as it ought to be, considered from an economic point of view.

Pg. 529:
   _Notes on Economic Plants._
A VERY great deal of interest has been taken in the "Australian Nut"* since it was figured and described in Part I, Vol. IV, of the _Agricultural Gazette_.  The article and also the illustration have been republished in a number of Australian journals. (...)
*NOTE.--The "Australian Nut" better known as the "Queensland Nut" grows with great freedom in the Botanic Gardens, Sydney, where some fine specimen trees produce nuts freely, and also in many suburban gardens.


(The University of Adelaide, Australia, has a centre for the study of food.  Is there an early cite there for the Queensland/Macadamia nut?...The Sydney Botanic Gardens were indeed nice.  Perhaps Sydney has some 19th century info?...The macadamias that I ate in Australia seem inferior to the Hawaiian macadamias.  I still have some nuts in this apartment, right next to some vegemite--ed.)