296 HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



are stronger and finer, than when the plants are separated 

 at a distance from each other: by this their roots are 

 likewise kept cooler and moister. 



Mr. Swinbura observes, that the ananas grows very 

 well out of doors at Reggio near Naples. The prince of 

 Scilla was the first that cultivated it in that part of the 

 world. He treated it in the beginning with great chari- 

 ness and precaution ; but, upon trial, he found a bolder 

 management suit it better. 



In the month of February 1822. we saw exhibited at 

 the London Horticultural Society, a moderate-sized pine- 

 apple, which was grown in a common green-house ; and 

 Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. tells us, in the Transactions 

 of that Society, that, " in the month of June 1820, he 

 gave a couple of pine-plants, which had shewn fruit at 

 six months old, and were of small size, and no value, 

 to a child, 4:o be placed in a conservatory, in which no 

 fires were kept during the summer. In July, a storm of 

 hail destroyed nearly, or fully, half the glass of the con- 

 servatory ; and its temperature through the summer and 

 autumn had been so low, that the Chasselas grapes in 

 it were not ripe in the second week in September. In 

 the second week of the present month (October) one of 

 the pine-apples became ripe, having previously swollen 

 to a most extraordinary size, comparatively with the 

 size of the plant; and upon measuring accurately the 

 comparative width of the fruit, and of the stem, he found 

 the width of the fruit to exceed that of the stem in the 

 proportion of seven and three quarters to one. The fruit 

 had of course, been propped during all the latter part 

 of the summer, the stem being wholly incapable of sup- 

 porting it. The taste and flavour of this fruit were ex- 

 cellent, and the appearance of the other, which is not 

 yet ripe, and is of a larger size, is still more promising/' 



