38 
PLANTS AND INSECTS 
Its jaws, or mandibles, are strong, and its prey is entirely helpless 
when discovered. 
Another useful insect, though belonging to another order, is the 
dragon-fiy. It is easily recognized by its four large gauzy wings, very 
large eyes, and slender body. It is most commonly found about ponds 
and streams on warm summer days. It is sometimes called the swal¬ 
low of the insect world; for it destroys gnats, flies, and mosquitoes. 
The larvae also rid the water in which they live of many small insects. 
The eye of the full-grown dragon-fly is a study in itself, being com¬ 
posed of twenty-eight thousand lenses. Small wonder if nothing escapes 
its vision, and we can never seem to approach it for a closer view. 
These are but instances of the wonders of the insect world, to 
which many learned men have given a life-time of study. 
—An Observer. 
A DELICIOUS FRUIT 
HE fruit I wish to tell you! about is grown on plantations in south- 
A era climes—Florida, West Indies, Hawaii. It grows not on a 
bush or tree, but on a stalk not unlike a cabbage—one fruit to a plant. 
It is brownish-red in color, and sits in the midst of long, green, cactus¬ 
like leaves, tipped with crimson. Ordinarily it grows to about, ten 
inches in length and five inches thick, but oftentimes specimens are 
found that wteigh about, fifteen pounds. Look at the picture and see 
if you can tell wjhat this fruit is. If you have-never seen it growing, 
perhaps I shall have tol tell you. It is pineapple. 
Pineapples as we receive them are a cultivated fruit. They are 
usually grown in open fields but sometimes under sheds. These sheds 
are usually a light framework about eight feet high, to which laths 
spaced about two or three inches apart are nailed, thus covering half 
the space of the field. Because of the expense incurred in erecting 
sheds, they arei not used except for the finest varieties of pineapples. 
The sheds protect the plants from- heavy or cold winds, frost, the ex¬ 
treme heat of the summer, and help to preserve the moisture. 
Pineapples are rarely grown from seeds. They are propagated by 
setting out the crown, the little tuft of leaves we see at the top of the 
fruit; by slips, little buds or sprouts looking much like a small pine- 
