PINE APPLES. SAPODILLAS. 105 



exported in 1864 was £21,299 — which makes tliem average about 

 four cents a piece; tliat in sliipping the pine to the United 

 States it is stripped of every tiling but its head, while the whole 

 plant was formerly sent to England, the leaves and shoots being 

 Avrapped round the fruit to keep it fresh, but that since 1858 

 only the shoots are left on the stalks ; that the fruit is arranged 

 in tiers, great attention being paid to ventilation; the hatches are 

 left open during the voyage ; serious losses often occur on ship- 

 board arising from exceptionally bad weather and long voyages, 

 as well as from other causes. The shoots are used for new plan- 

 tations, and as these are sent with the apples to England the 

 price is for that reason increased. There are two annual cut- 

 tings: the Cuba is cut early in May and late in June, and the 

 sugar loaf from the 1st to the 20th of June, and in July and 

 August. As in 1879 and also in 1880 we left the Bahamas in 

 April, much to our regret we were unable to test the quality 

 of pine apples fully ripened in the field. 



The sapodilla is very abundant and cheap in Nassau. The 

 tree is large and is a good bearer. The fruit is of a uniform dull 

 dark broAvn color, and almost unpromising in its outward ap- 

 pearance as a cocoanut. Its skin is very thin, its flesh yellow, 

 soft and sweet, its shape oval, and its diameter from two to three 

 inches. A taste for it has to be acquired, so that while it is dis- 

 carded by the many, the few strangers who have learned to love 

 it, esteem it very highly. It is conceded to be a very healthy 

 fruit. We saw but two varieties. Some specimens of the fruit 

 in size, flavor, and richness of the coloring of the flesh, were very 

 much superior to those offered ordinarily for sale. 



The cocoanut is cultivated in the Bahamas, and thrives in some 

 parts of New Providence. Gov. Eawson includes it in a table 

 containing the names of twenty-three varieties of fruit which 

 were growing upon the Bahamas in 1864, and which he claimed 



