FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
37 
Mr. Phelps —Mr. Richards, does the Abakka pine grow 
in your section successfully ? 
Mr, Richards —It does very well. We grow plenty of 
them, but we never try to ship them to Northern markets. 
Mr. Phelps— I never got so much off a small space as I did 
off pineapples, but in 1886 I went to pieces on pineapples and 
have never tried them since. There is no question that a 
heavy frost will play havoc with and will ruin a pineapple 
plantation. There is another quality of the pineapple and a 
very important one, which should not be lost sight of. Years 
ago I used the pine as part of my food. I thrived on it. It 
is readily and easily assimilated. One of the best known 
chemical companies in the United States to-day has begun to 
put up a plant in Mexico which will cost thousands of dollars 
to grow pines simply for the use that can be made of them in 
medicine and to produce a free- digesting food that can be 
taken up into the blood without any action of the stomach. I 
investigated thoroughly the properties of the pineapple some 
years ago, aud I can say that this fruit is next to fresh beef 
in nutritive qualities. This chemical company has selected 
Mexico for its plant as being more of an even climate. They 
are going to put up food that will make lean people fat in a 
very short time. It is easily digested and is preferable to 
fresh meat. It is in the form of a syrup. The industry is in 
its infancy. I look forward to more results from the pine in 
that direction than I do to the pine being consumed at the 
table. 
0. P. Rooks — I have a neighbor who claims that he has had 
dyspepsia for twenty years, and there is no food or fruit that 
he c^n eat with as much relish as the pineapple. He states 
that when the pineapple season is on he has no disturbances 
from his complaint because he then eats the pine, I have 
been raising pines for fifteen years. Even t v, e freeze of 1886 
did not break me up. My place is four miles from Leesburg. 
I gathered two elegant pines this morning We h*ve twenty 
varieties and they all seem to be doing fairly well. The 
large varieties do not seem to do as well as the Queen. We 
plant under protection. We put up a rough shed and cover 
that with pine straw as a protection against frost. Pine stiaw 
that is used during the wimer can be put round fruit trees. 
Wherever the pineapples have been planted out trees are do¬ 
ing much better than elsewhere. I have doubled the crop of 
fruit where the pineapples have been planted. There is one 
idea that Mr. Richards advances and that is that sand is abso¬ 
lutely necessary. My land has a clay sub soil from two to 
six feet down and the pines do well. I have raised pineapples 
