238 Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



interest clings to the record of it, since of the hundred 

 thousand young trees said to have been planted in 

 England, under the royal patronage, it is believed that 

 some few are still in existence, though decrepit, at Syon, 

 to wit, and at Oxford. Compared with other edible fruits, 

 the mulberry is remarkable for the large quantity of its 

 sugar, being excelled in this respect only by the fig, the 

 grape, and the cherry. The yield of the fig has just been 

 mentioned as 60 to 70 per cent The grape contains 

 10 "6 to 19, and the cherry 1079. Then comes the 

 mulberry with 9-19, followed by the currant, 6'i, the 

 strawberry 57, and the raspberry with no more than 4 

 per cent. 



THE PINE-APPLE (Ananas sativa). 



THE Pine-apple, like the mulberry, comes of the very 

 curious coalescence and amalgamation of a large number 

 of separate and independent fruits, understanding by this 

 term the ripened ovary, with its adjuncts, of a perfect 

 and independent flower. As many different flowers go to 

 the foundation of it as there are "pips" or projections 

 upon the surface of the mass when mature. The flowers 

 are three-parted, lavender-blue in colour, and lodged in 

 the axils of great scales or " bracts," so disposed upon 

 a fleshy axis as to form a kind of spiral girdle. When 

 they wither, the ovaries, the bracts, and all other parts 

 gradually acquire a condition of extreme succulence, and 

 at last the entire mass becomes consolidated into the great 



