Pine Apple. Beis: 
southern Asia. How it got into Africa we do not pretend 
to explain, nor would we like to assert that it is zo¢ known 
anywhere on the habitable globe, wherever the temperature 
is sufficient for its production. 
When Oliver Cromwell ruled in these realms, a present 
of pine-apples was one of the things which fell to his lot, 
and this was probably the first introduction of the fruit into 
England, although it was known on the Continent four 
years previously. Four years afterwards and Evelyn 
writes of its appearance on the royal table. 
But the fruit, however much it may have been extolled, 
is not the only good product of this plant. From the leaves 
thereof is procured a fibrous material known and appre- 
ciated by the barbarous hordes of Africa, and the semi- 
civilized Malays. The celebrated pine-apple cloth of the 
Philippines, resembling the finest muslin, is woven with the 
delicate fibres of the uncultivated pine-apple plant. This 
- muslin is embroidered by the nuns of the convents of 
Manilla with excellent skill and taste, so that the “ Pina” 
muslin of the Philippines has become a celebrated article 
of manufacture. Mr. Bennett has observed in his “Wan- 
derings,” that one of the coarser fibres may be subdivided 
into filaments of such fineness us to be barely perceptible, 
and yet sufficiently strong for textile purposes. 
The Malays use the fibre of the pine-apple to manu- 
facture their fishing nets, and so plentiful is the plant in 
many parts of India and the East, that it forms immense 
thickets; and Dr. Helfer says that the fruit is so abundant 
in the Tenasserim provinces that it is soldin Amherst Town ~ 
during June and July at the rate of two shillings for a boat 
load. What an inducement for the rapturous devourers of 
pine-apples! Should a Tenasserim Pine-apple Emigration 
Company (Limited), become one of the projects for 1867, 
we shall not permit the fact to be forgotten, that its sugges- | 
tion originated with ourselves and the New Year.— Sczence 
Gossip. 
