THE PINE APPLE. 155 



upon the 20th of July, (1819 ;) and that is (March 

 1820) beginning to show fruit. Its stem is thick 

 enough to produce a very large fruit ; but its leaves 

 are short, though broad and numerous ; and the 

 gardeners who have -seen it, all appear wholly at a 

 loss to conjecture what will be the- value of its pro- 

 duce. In other cases, in which I retained the old 

 stems and roots, I selected small and late suckers, 

 and these have afforded me the most perfect plants 

 I have ever seen ; and they do not exhibit any 

 symptoms of disposition to fruit prematurely. I 

 am, however, still ignorant whether any advantage 

 will be ultimately obtained by this mode of treat- 

 ing the Queen Pine ; but I believe it will be found 

 applicable with much advantage in the culture of 

 those varieties of the Pine, which do not usually 

 bear fruit till the plants are three or four years old. 

 " I shall now offer a few remarks upon the faci- 

 lity of managing Pines in the manner recommend- 

 ed, and upon the necessary amount of the ex- 

 pense. My gardener is an extremely simple la- 

 bourer, he does not know a letter or a figure ; and 

 he never saw a Pine plant growing, till he saw 

 those of which he has the care. If I were absent, he 

 would not know at what period of maturity to cut the 

 fruit ; but in every other respect he knows how to 

 manage the plants as well as I do ; and I could teach 

 any other moderately intelligent and attentive la- 

 bourer, in one month, to manage them just as well 

 as he can : in short, I do not think the skill neces- 

 sary to raise a Pine Apple, according to the mode 



