PINE-APPLES. 



131 



ally cultivated for market. The Egyptian Queen and the 

 smooth-leaved Cayenne are fine varieties, the fruit of the former 

 being considered superior to the sugar-loaf, while the large fruit 

 and the smooth leaves of the Cayenne makes it a very desirable 

 sort to cultivate ; one of the drawbacks to the pine-apple culture 

 being the torn clothes and flesh that are apt to follow quick or 

 careless movements among its prickly leaves. 



In the Azores, w^here, as in Florida, cold winds sometimes 

 sweep over the islands, pine-apple culture is one of the great 

 staples, and vast conservatories are built on purpose to preserve 

 the fruiting plants from the uncertainties of the climate. 



Fruiting plants, we repeat — for there is a distinction made 

 between plants too small and those large enough to bear fruit — 

 the former are left in the open ground to take their chances, as 

 best they may, until they are nearly ready to fruit, then they are 

 carefully taken up and placed in the conservatory, w^here the 

 whole energies of the gardener are devoted to the task of coaxing 

 out of it the largest and finest pine-apple possible. 



This plant, as we have seen, does not fruit at any given 

 time of year, but according to its size ; and it is a point with 

 Azorians to place their best fruit in the London market during 

 the Christmas festivities and the height of the "season." They 

 have found a method of making their plants fruit at the proper 

 time by constant attention to hurry their growth, or none at all, 

 to retard it. Sometimes they even resort to the heroic treatment 

 of sacrificing the bloom, so as to induce the immediate starting 

 of the suckers that always appear, at the blooming season, ready 

 to grow off rapidly, and bear fruit on their own account at a 

 more suitable season than that essayed by their parents, whose 

 career was, as we have seen, " nipped in the bud." 



Great care is taken in handling and packing the fruit, so 

 that it may reach its market in full perfection. Choice speci- 

 mens, frequently weighing twelve to fifteen pounds, are cut with 

 the stem several inches below the fruit ; then an ordinary flower- 

 pot, or even a tin can, is filled with mould, and the stalk inserted 

 in the latter in such manner that it looks as though it were 

 grown there ; each pine thus prepared is placed in a wooden skel- 



