15 



THE WIDE-BED SYSTEM. 



The method known as the " wide-bed system," also called "the 

 Florida system," may be used where the conditions are similar to those 

 in Florida, which does not often occur in Porto Rico. The land is 

 marked off with the rows about 18 inches apart and the plants set 

 in perfectly straight lines, which may be as long as the field, but for 

 the sake of passing through the field there ought to be a roadway 

 of 8 feet for every 200 feet of bed. The width of the bed is made 

 30 to 50 feet, according to the distance a man can throw a pineapple. 

 In harvesting the fruit one man goes into the bed and breaks off the 

 fruit and throws it to a man in the roadway, who catches it and 

 places it in baskets or boxes, which are then hauled to the packing 

 houses. In practice, beds 30 feet wide with roadways 8 feet wide, to- 

 gether with crossroads every 200 feet, make a very convenient field. 



PREPARING THE PLANTS. 



The young plants, whether suckers, slips, or crowns,, are covered 

 with leaves to the very tip of the base. In stripping these leaves 

 off and exposing the stem a number of excrescences will be seen, which 

 are the root buds, some of which may be already developed into roots 

 of considerable length. Many planters maintain that it is necessary 

 to trim the plants — that is, to cut the tip of the base and to strip the 

 leaves off for a distance of 1 to 2 inches. Other planters maintain 

 that this process is not at all necessary. Why is this? The reason 

 is simply the difference in local conditions under which the plants 

 arc 1 grown. If a slip is planted without trimming in a dry, sand}' 

 soil, the loots will form, but instead of spreading out in the normal 

 fashion they will wind around the stem under the leaves. There are 

 two reasons for this; one is that on account of the clr}^ soil the leaves 

 covering the stem remain hard and dry and the roots would have to 

 overcome great resistance in order to penetrate them; they therefore 

 follow the course of least resistance and develop under the leaves. 

 The other reason is that the plant catches a great deal of dew T and 

 w ater from light rains, which is retained in the heart and leaf axils, 

 from which it trickles down around the base and makes the condi- 

 tion there favorable for root formation, while at a distance of an inch 

 or more from the stem the soil is drier. This growing of the roots 

 around the stem is called in Florida " tangleroot," and there plants 

 are trimmed in order to insure the desired root development. If the 

 plants are set in a loamy or clay soil that contains considerable mois- 

 ture, the leaves covered up with soil will decay in a short time, and 

 as the soil is as moist a distance away from the plant as close by the 

 roots will spread out just as well as if the plants had been trimmed. 

 Therefore for planting in a dry soil or in a dry season, trim, but for 

 71070— Bull, s — (J0 a 



