13738 Pineapple Field in Florida

Did you think that pineapples grew on trees just as other apples do? You see they do not. They grow more like cabbages. Little sprouts or slips come from roots of the old plants. Instead of sowing seeds these slips are planted. Or sometimes the stiff leaves at the top of the pineapples are used to make the next year’s crop. These are set out in rows. By and by long pointed leaves grow from the slips. These are stiff and sharp and prickly. They are green with red tips. The pineapple grows in the middle of these leaves. It is red and yellow. Look at the picture and think how pretty this field must be.

It is harder work to cut pineapples than to pick apples. The saw-like leaves tear one’s clothes and cut one. The men who go into the fields wear on their hands heavy canvas gloves or mittens. Some wind strips of carpet about their legs. With one hand they take hold of the stiff leaves at the top of the fruit. With the other hand they cut the stem just under the pineapple. The queer knives they use are short, sharp and hooked. They drop the pineapples into bags. These bags are swung across their shoulders and hand open under one arm. Then the fruit is put in crates and shipped away.

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20127 Banana Trees, Hawaii

If you lived in Hawaii perhaps your father would say to you, “John, you may have that first banana plant for your very own. But you must find out all about it and you must take care of it.

Here are some of the things you would find out: Banana plants like these are ten or fifteen feet tall. The stalk is soft and may be a foot thick at the bottom. The leaves are green and grow only at the top. The wind tears the edges into a fringe. Only one bunch of bananas grows on a plant. This bunch is on a stem which comes from the middle of the leaves. It hangs down. From the stem the bananas grow pointing upward. Look at the picture and see if this is not so. In our shops you see the bunches of bananas hanging bottom up.

Your bunch has sixty or seventy bananas on it. Some have more than one hundred. When your bananas are full grown but still green, your father would say: “It is time to sell your bananas. We will cut down your stalk today. You may have the small plant that sprouted from its roots for yours. It will grow tall and give you another bunch next year.

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9844 Date Palms, Alexandria, Egypt

How tall and straight these date palms grow. Their trunks are like telephone poles. Close to the top the leaves branch out like giant ferns. Some of these trees grow a hundred feet high.

Wouldn’t you like to have an Arab boy drop down a handful of ripe juicy dates for you? The dates must be picked very carefully. They are soft and sticky and crush easily. It will take hard work to gather the dates from all of these trees. Perhaps some of them will be pressed and packed into boxes. Perhaps you will buy them at your grocery store.

These trees grow near the edge of the largest desert in the world. The Arabs who live on the desert have dates at almost every meal. They make a kind of cake from the dates that have been dried and pressed. They press oil from the date seeds. This oil is used with meal in baking. From the leaves of the date palm they weave mats to use in their tents.

Date Palms can also be found growing on the desert. But they can only grow in places where a spring of water bubbles up out of the earth. Grass can grow in such places too.

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10076 A Coconut Farm, P.I.

Perhaps you think this is a pile of melons. It is not. Melons are not found on trees. But coconuts are, and this is a pile of coconuts. They grow on coconut palms. These palms like the sea air and grow best near the ocean. All over the world in warm countries coconuts have planted themselves. The nuts have hard shells—you know it is not easy to break them. They have fallen into the ocean where they floated and were carried far away to other shores. Here they sprouted and made new coconut groves.

The trees are tall. No branches grow from the trucks. You would have a hard time climbing them. All of the branches and leaves are at the top. Among them grow the nuts—some as big as your head. Maybe there are a hundred on a tree. Each is in a strong husk. At first the husk and the nut in it are green. When they change to brown the nuts are ripe.

Sometimes men and boys climb the trees and throw the nuts down. Sometimes a sharp knife is fastened to the end of a long pole. Then the nuts can be cut off by a man standing on the ground.

When you see a coconut, look at the end with the three flat spots. See if it looks like a monkey’s face. The name coconut comes from a word that means monkey.

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xxxxxx Preparing cane stocks for planting, West Indies.

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Copyright The Keystone View Co.