42(3 
American agricttlttirist. 
[September, 
between papers, and then ironing the papers with 
a warm flat-iron, not too hot. The object should 
he to dry the leaves as quickly as possible, and ar¬ 
rest the change that has already commenced. 
Keep the leaves flat after they are dried; place 
them in a book or between papers, with a moderate 
weight upon them. We will tell you how to use 
them later in the season. In Collecting autumn 
leaves, it is well to secure an abundance, as you 
will find that many friends will be glad to receive 
them. There is sport id gathering colored leaves. 
The Doctor’s Talks. 
PINE-APPLES AND BANANAS. 
A young friend, living in a distant inland town, 
hag evidently just become acquainted with these 
fruits, and wishes me to tell him about piue-apples 
and bananas, where they come from, and what 
kind of trees they grow upon. They are both 
fruits of warm countries, and are brought in large 
quantities from the West India Islands and Central 
and South America. They come in swift steamers 
these suckers, which readily take root. You will 
naturally ask about the flowers of this interest¬ 
ing plant, and will look in vain for the seeds; in¬ 
deed the pine-apple is not a single fruit, on the con¬ 
trary, it is a cluster or a mass of fruits. 
It more closely resembles a mulberry than any 
other of our fruits. The mulberry is the ripened 
remains of numerous small flowers. The more or 
less six-sided divisions upon the surface of a pine¬ 
apple, each represents a flower ; if you carefully 
cut open one of these “ knobs,” you can perhaps 
make out the parts of a flower. In ripening, 
the parts, calyx, corolla, bracts, seed vessel and all, 
become a juicy mass, and even the central stem 
becomes fruit like and juicy. in this general 
Change of the parts, seeds very seldom ripen. In 
the wild pine-apple,where the fruit is much smaller 
and less pulpy, seeds are quite common. A num¬ 
ber of distinct varieties are cultivated, which have 
been obtained from the seed. The botanical name 
of the pine-apple is Ananassa sa'iva ; the first, or 
generic, name comes from the native Brazilians ; the 
other means “ eatable.” The beautiful muslin-like 
fabric known as “ pine-apple cloth,” is made from 
like the banana, though longer in proportion. The 
fruits of these afford a large share of the food of 
the people of some warm countries. They are con¬ 
sumed raw and cooked in various ways, are dried 
and ground into meal, and are also dried in the 
same manner as figs. The leaves are used for cov¬ 
ering cottages, packing, etc. Manilla hemp, so 
much used for ropes, cordage, bagging, and for 
making paper, comes from the stems of a kind of 
banana, the fruit of which is not eatable. 
Raising' Butterflies. 
“ Harry T. ” can get the most perfect specimens 
of butterflies aud moths by raising them. Besides 
this, much may be learned about insects and their 
habits by breeding them. It is well to make a 
breeding cage, though if supplied with an abun¬ 
dance of food, caterpillars are not apt to wander 
far. A cage may be made of a frame-work, or 
simply of a large box without top or bottom, and 
set on end. Cover the open portions With mos¬ 
quito netting, and provide a large door. When 
to New York and other seaports, where they are 
both important articles of trade. Since railroads 
have become so numerous, these fruits are now 
carried far inland, and there are but few places of 
any size where they are not occasionally sold. The 
name, and especially the dealers’ and gardeners’ 
name, “ pines,” give the impression that the pine¬ 
apple may grow upon a tree, but the name is said 
to have been given to the fruit on account of its re¬ 
semblance in shape to that of the cone of a pine tree. 
A NATIVE OF SOUTH AMERICA. 
The pine-apple is a native of South America, 
but it is now grown in all warm countries. In Eu¬ 
rope it is often cultivated under glass, an expensive 
style of gardening, not much followed in this 
country, especially as in one part of our territory, 
the lower portion of Florida, it is raised in the 
open air. The engraving shows the general ap¬ 
pearance of the pine-apple when growing. There 
is a tuft of long curved leaves, often very prickly on 
the edges, with the fruit in the center, raised upon 
a short stem. The fruit has at the top a crown of 
leaves, and at the bottom several offsets or suck¬ 
ers, which are usually attached when it comes to 
market. The" plant is propagated by means of 
the fibre furnished by a wild plant, related to the 
pine-apple, but with much longer leaves. 
THE BANANA 
grows in a very different manner; the appearance 
of the plant is shown in the engraving. Though 
the stem is so large, and from six to fifteen feet or 
more high, it is not properly a tree. The enormous 
leaves have very large and broad leaf-stalks, and 
what appears like the trunk is really made up of 
the leaf-stalks wrapped around one another. 
THE FLOWER CLUSTER 
is produced from the center of this crown of 
leaves ; it has a long stalk, upon which the flowers 
are arranged in groups, covered by a broad scale, 
which falls away as the flowers open. The fruit 
which follows grows very rapidly, each cluster con¬ 
taining from one hundred and sixty to one hundred 
and eighty fruits, and weighing seventy to eighty 
pounds. After the bunch is gathered, the stem is 
cut down ; new shoots at once spring up from the 
root, which in a few months bear fruit in their 
turn. Usually, the cultivated bananas have no 
seeds, the fruit being entirely filled with pulp. 
The plantain is a closely related fruit, and much 
you find any caterpillars you wish to raise, notice 
what they feed upon. While some are general 
feeders, others, unless supplied with the leaves of 
a particular plant, will refuse to eat, and starve. 
You must give your caterpillars fresh leaves in 
plenty, and you will be surprised to see what ap¬ 
petites some of them have. Cut branches or stems 
of the trees and plants, and place them in jars of 
water (old fruit cans will answer), to keep them 
fresh. If you do not know whether your caterpil¬ 
lars “spin up” above ground, or burroW when the 
time comes for them to go to rest, you should 
place a box of soil inside of yonr cage, to allow 
those that make their chrysalis in the earth to do 
so. If you can find the caterpillar of the “Regal 
Walnut Moth,” it will be a most interesting one to 
raise, and see how its appearance changes with 
each cast of its skin, and so with many others. To 
have fine specimens of the perfect insects, the 
caterpillars must have all they can eat. In au¬ 
tumn, when the leaves have fallen, you can find 
many cocoons of large moths attached to trees 
and bushes. These should be brought home and 
placed in the breeding-cage until next spring, when 
the perfect insects will make their appearance. 
