SLICE COB AS te VE, 19 
distance between rows when these are planted in beds. If the fruit falls over so as to 
expose a side to the direct effect of the sun, burning or scalding results, thus destroying 
the symmetry and beauty of the fruit, injuring greatly its market value, and this furnishes 
a further reason why the plants should be so set as to mutually support themselves in 
the field. In the case of the very heavy varieties such as the Smooth Cayenne pineapples 
this is doubly essential, but in these cases the very heavy and vigorous plants, if planted 
at the distance just mentioned, will form a network of leaves so dense that it is almost 
impossible for the plants to escape from a practically perpendicular position. 
When, therefore, the soil is well prepared and ready to receive the young plants, 
these are brought to the field and delivered along the beds or rows. If the surface soil 
is such as tends to dry out quickly, it is best to remove from an inch or more of the base 
of the young plants the small short leaves under which are found the eyes from which 
the young roots spring, but if the soil is retentive, these young leaves soon decay, permit- 
ting the roots to have direct access to the earth. They soon establish themselves. In 
very light soils, inclined to blow, the hearts of the young plants should be filled with some 
such material as cotton seed meal or dried blood, preventing them from being filled and 
caused to decay by sand or earth that otherwise would blow into them. These sub- 
stances also act as a fertilizer, the rains carrying down to the young roots the plant food 
contained in them. 
Thorough cultivation of the fields is essential, in order that the soil may not become 
too compact and to keep down the weeds and grass that otherwise would smother the 
young plants. This cultivation is done largely by means of manual labor, although in 
many of our plantations a sufficient width between beds is left for the passage of a mule 
and cultivator. It is not very long, however, until the spread of the leaves of the plants 
is so great as to prevent such operations and to require further work to be done by hand. 
As we have already indicated, the greatest care is necessary to prevent water from stand- 
ing in the fields, and in reality drainage should be provided of such a character as to 
prevent the surface twelve inches of soil from becoming waterlogged at any time during 
the life of the crop. This cultivation must be continued until shortly before the blooming 
period of the plant commences, this being from eight to twelve months after planting, 
depending upon the class of plants used, whether suckers or slips, upon the climatic con- 
ditions, and upon the care, cultivation and fertilization that has been given the field. 
Here, fertilization of the pineapple fields is not the rule, Cuba suffering in this respect 
a great contrast to Porto Rico, where a pineapple industry of considerable importance 
also exists. Tests with fertilizers have been made in Cuba on the soils best adapted to 
the growth of pineapples, and they have invariably shown favorable results, increasing 
not only the size of the fruit, but also the number of pineapples obtained from the fields 
and the quality and resistance to shipping of the fruit. Those familiar with the market 
conditions governing the sale of Porto Rican pines have beyond doubt noticed the higher 
prices that are invariably obtained for them during the period of heavy shipments of 
fruit from Cuba, and the writer understands that this difference is largely due to the 
superior quality of the Porto Rican fruit, the result of its being picked when in a riper 
condition than is possible with the Cuban fruit, this being possible on account of its 
better carrying qualities. Anyone who has had opportunity of comparing the luscious, 
aromatic flesh of 4 pineapple which has reached almost complete ripeness upon the plant, 
with the hard, tough, fibrous, almost tasteless and aromaless flesh of the average Cuban 
pineapple as sold in the North, can realize the tremendous importance that attaches to 
the harvesting of this fruit at the latest possible moment that will allow it to reach the 
market and be sold while still in good condition. The care, cultivation and heavy ferti- 
lization with proper fertilizers given the Porto Rican pineapple has enabled the growers 
there to leave their fruit upon the plant until it has those qualities which make this fruit 
the really luscious edible that it is. Our chemists have shown that the pineapple is one 
of the very few fruits whose sugar content is not increased through the coloring or “‘Tipen- ~ 
ing” process after the fruit is once detached from the plant, the sugar in the fruit coming 
only from the stem and leaves of the plant itself. This explains why the gathering of 
