EDUCATOR 123 



the subject, I owned up that it was a terra incognita to 

 me. He owns a fine plantation of pineapples and about 

 ten acres of bean-land across the river, on the island that 

 separates us from the ocean. ... A pineapple plantation 

 is a very beautiful sight, for you see bud, flowers and per- 

 fect fruits at the same time in the plantation. The flowers 

 come out singly on each scale of the half-grown apple. 

 They are of a deep blue and contrast with the brilliant red 

 of the inner leaves and the red brown of the fruit. How the 

 mischief such a luscious fruit ever grows out of the pure 

 white sand gets me, but Nature beats us all, and I am not 

 going to set myself in opposition to her laws. The beans 

 do not grow in this sand but in a fine soil on the island. 

 They are shipping at this station about a thousand crates 

 a day to New York. The leaves of the pineapples termi- 

 nate in a very sharp, aggressive thorn, and as the edges 

 are alive with thorns it is no joke to gather the fruit. The 

 picker goes in with leather gaiters, gray duck trousers and 

 long gauntlets, and throws the apples to the catcher, who 

 follows him up in small paths that have been cut or left 

 across the field twenty or thirty feet apart. Then they are 

 taken to the packing-house on wooden tram-ways that 

 bisect the field, and there they are sorted, packed and 

 crated. There are about four miles of this pineapple plan- 

 tation skirting the river-front. But how Nature, Well, 

 there; I'll sure just leave Nature to work out her own sal- 

 vation alone in her own sweet way, without interference 

 on my part. The planters all up and down the coast line 

 recognize me as Captain Allen's friend, and I have received 

 many courtesies from them. 



I shall stay here till Wednesday the 17th, then go to Jack- 



