-PINE APPLES. © 103 
Among the tropical fruits that we were always pleased to give 
house room in the frozen north, was the pine apple, and now that 
we were upon one of its native rocks, or upon rocks where it had 
become thoroughly naturalized, we had a desire to see for our- 
selves the manner of its cultivation, and the processes and stages 
of its growth and development. Our curiosity was gratified in 
the following manner: 
In going to the caves in the Blue Hills we took the shore 
road, or the extension of Bay street to the west, and skirted for 
several miles Delaport Bay—a body of water which Silver, Long, 
and North Keys, with their connecting submerged reefs, shelter 
from the ocean, and which as you approach Nassau, after cross- 
ing its bar, stretches away to the right. Passing the caves nearest 
to the highway, we ascended a little hill, turned abruptly to the 
left, followed for a few rods a carriage road through the dense 
low woods, and, leaving our carriages near some small negro 
cabins, and following our very dusky guides, started on a foot- 
path for the more extensive caverns which hide in the hill from 
half to three-quarters of a mile further to the east. The trail 
led us through the center of a pine apple field which covered 
fifteen acres. It was termed an “orchard,” but there was no- 
_thing in its appearance suggestive of such a name. We found 
it humble, lowly and modest. It put on no airs, and evidently 
had no ambition to occupy a conspicuous position and make a 
show in the world. This West India ‘‘ apple” does not grow in 
clusters like the cocoanut, nor upon high, wide branching trees 
like its northern namesake—but singly upon plants which attain 
an average height of about one and a-half feet. The lowly plant 
has long narrow leaves or fronds, hard, thick, coarse, bayonet- 
shaped, and with sharp serreted edges. A single fruit stem 
pushes up from the center of the root, blossoms, and in about 
eighteen months from the time of planting matures a single 
