18 
From an average of the results and from the rather striking nature 
of the evidence in particular cases there seems no doubt but that the 
chlorosis of the pineapple plants is due to the high content of calcium 
carbonate in the soil. 
PINEAPPLE SOILS OF OTHER COUNTRIES. 
No analyses of Cuban pineapple soils are available, but from a 
statement by Prof. F.S. Earle, at one time director of the experiment 
station at Santiago de las Vegas, it appears that pineapple plantings 
on the calcareous soils of Cuba have been unsuccessful.' 
J. C. Brunnich, chemist of the experiment station of Queensland, 
in a personal communication, reports a disease of the pineapple there, 
induced by poor drainage, but says: ‘‘We have no experience of 
pines grown on a strongly calcareous soil.” 
The Hawaiian pineapple soils reported by W. P. Kelley? average 
about 0.50 per cent of CaO, most of them being acid in reaction, and, 
so far as reported, none of them being calcareous. Certain soils in 
Hawaii were found unfavorable for pineapples due to the high con- 
tent of soluble manganese. This is interesting in illustrating the 
sensitiveness of the pineapple to the chemical character of the soil. 
From numerous analyses by Miller and Hume it appears that the 
good pineapple soils of Florida mainland contain no carbonate of 
lime.? The type of soil which produces the best pineapples there 
contains less than 0.20 per cent of CaO and about 99 per cent of 
insoluble matter. Webber reports that ‘“‘many plantations have 
been put out on shell land but have uniformly failed.”* As sea 
shells are composed of calcium carbonate, such soils would be cal- 
careous. 
In the cultivation of pineapples in the Florida Keys, however, we 
have an apparent exception to the proposition that pineapples will 
not grow well on a calcareous soil. Rolfs describes conditions there 
as follows: 
These are islands near the coast of southern Florida. * * * They have a coral- 
line foundation, making a rather porous substratum. * * * In many cases soil, 
in the ordinary sense, can not be said to exist. In some instances the pineapple 
planter is obliged to choose the spot that has enough decayed vegetable matter to hold 
the plant in place on the coralline rock. The greater part, or nearly all, of the plant 
food is located in the small quantity of decaying vegetable matter; consequently it 
is soon exhausted.® 
1 Prof. Earle, in a personal communication, states: ‘‘Thecommercial pineapple fields of Cuba are prac- 
tically all on the ‘red lands.’ These soils always overlie coral rock and are probably derived from it, but 
they carry very little lime, the carbonate of lime seeming to have practically all leached out. These 
soils though stiff and heavy are very permeable and the water passes down through them readily. _ Pine- 
apples also thrive on certain sandy lands, but they do not do well on heavy black lands. These usually 
carry a considerable percentage of lime, and they are often underlain by ‘coco,’ a soft material that is 
largely carbonate oflime. Fields planted on these lands produce inferior fruit and usually soon die.” 
2 Hawaii Sta. Rpt. 1909, p. 58. 
8 Florida Sta. Bul. 68. 
4U.S. Dept. Agr. Yearbook 1895, p. 273. 
5U.S. Dept. Agr., Farmers’ Bul. 140, p. 14. 
{Bull. 11] 
