242 Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



fruit, having to be cut before it is quite ripe, so as to 

 sustain the voyage, can never become a successful rival 

 of the hothouse product in respect of richness. But 

 those who raise pine-apples for sale, the dealers and the 

 fruiterers, find the competition press very heavily. First- 

 class home-grown pine-apple is still worth five shillings 

 per pound, but nothing like as many pounds of it are 

 wanted as in days gone by. Slicing is all well enough for 

 the streets, but it spoils the fruit when before us on the 

 table. The legitimate way to eat a pine-apple is to grasp 

 the stem in the left hand, remove the crown, then, with a 

 silver fork, to dig out the constituent fruits, as severally 

 indicated by the sculpture outside, and enjoy them, like 

 strawberries, without losing a single drop of the juice. 

 The most approved varieties for English culture are 

 Queen, Enville, Charlotte Rothschild, and Montserrat. 



THE MONSTERA ( Monstera delidosa). 



MINGLING, nowadays, with the special favourites of the 

 warm conservatory, are constantly seen examples of 

 plants remarkable less for their flowers than for the 

 grandeur or the rich colouring of their leaves. In the 

 leaf-beauty of nature as a whole we have a feature 

 consummately charming, and in variety exhaustless. Still 

 there are leaves which in artistic qualities eclipse all 

 others. These, of late years, have come distinctly into 

 fashion, for there is fashion in gardening as well as in 



