No one of the managers
had the hardihood to propose a recurrence to horse-chestnuts. Pride and
fear alike forbade a return to their old purveyor. Other fruits there
were which, in spite of the contract with the market-gardener, had at
various times been secretly introduced into the island; but they had
never greatly flourished, and the Statue was loth to recommend to the
notice of his subjects productions an indulgence in which, through the
instigation of the recently-expelled agents, it had so often denounced
as detrimental to the health, and had so often discouraged by the
severest punishments.
At this difficult and delicate crisis, when even expedients seemed
exhausted and statesmen were at fault, the genius of an individual
offered a substitute. An inventive mind discovered the power of
propagating suckers. The expelled dealers had either been ignorant of
this power, or had concealed their knowledge of it. They ever
maintained that it was impossible for pine-apples to grow except in one
spot, and that the whole earth must be supplied from the gardens of the
palace of the Prince of the World.
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