Johann Beckmann - A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)

In the middle of the sixteenth century Franc. Hernandes, a naturalist, undertook an expensive, and almost useless voyage to Mexico. It cost Philip II. king of Spain 60,000 ducats, and the observations he collected, for which, at the time Acosta was in America, 1200 figures were ready, were never completely printed; and in what are printed one can scarcely distinguish those of the original author from the additions of strangers. He has, however, given a somewhat better figure of the ananas, which he calls matzatli or pinea Indica 251.

Christopher Acosto, in his Treatise of the drugs and medicines of the East Indies, printed in 1578, calls this plant the ananas. He says it was brought from Santa Cruz to the West Indies, and that it was afterwards transplanted to the East Indies and China, where it was at that time common. The latter part of this account is confirmed by J. Hugo de Linschotten, who was in the East Indies from 1594 to 1595 252.

Attempts were very early made, as Oviedo assures us, to transplant the ananas into Europe; and as in the beginning of the seventeenth century it was reckoned among the marks of royal magnificence to have orange-trees in expensive hot-houses, it was hoped that this fruit could be brought to maturity also in the artificial climate of these buildings. These attempts, however, were everywhere unsuccessful; no fruit was produced, or it did not ripen, because, perhaps, this favourite exotic was treated with too much care. It is not certainly known who in Europe first had the pleasure of seeing ananas ripen in his garden; but it appears that several enjoyed that satisfaction at the same time in the beginning of the last century.

The German gardens in which the ananas was first brought to maturity appear to have been the following. First, that of Baron de Munchausen, at Schwobber, not far from Hameln, which on account of the botanical knowledge of its proprietor, and the abundance of plants it contains, is well-known to all those who are fond of botany. In the beginning of the last century it belonged to Otto de Munchausen, who, perhaps, was the first person who erected large buildings for the express purpose of raising that fruit, and who had the noble satisfaction of making known their advantageous construction. With this view he sent a description and plan of his ananas-houses to J. Christopher Volkamer, a merchant of Nuremberg, who inserted them in his continuation of the Nuremberg Hesperides, printed there in 1714, and by these means rendered the attainment of this fruit common. This Baron de Munchausen is the same who has been celebrated by Leibnitz: “All the travellers in the world,” says that great man, “could not have given us, by their relations, what we are indebted for to a gentleman of this country, who cultivates with success the ananas, three leagues from Hanover, almost on the banks of the Weser, and who has found out the method of multiplying them, so that we may, perhaps, have them one day as plentiful, of our own growth, as the Portuguese oranges, though there will, in all appearance, be some deficiency in the taste 253.” As the Baron Munchausen’s garden at Schwobber was in the absence of the proprietor, as Volkamer says, under the care of J. F. Berner, canon of the cathedral of St. Boniface, he probably may have had some share in rendering this service to horticulture.

This fruit was produced also in the garden of Dr. Volkamer at Nuremberg, and in that of Dr. F. Kaltschmid at Breslau, almost about the same time. The latter was so fortunate as to bring it to maturity so early as 1702, and he sent some of it then for the first time to the imperial court. At Frankfort on the Maine it was first produced in 1702 254; and at Cassel in 1715, by the skill of Wurstorfs, the head gardener.

Holland procured the first ripe ananas from the garden of De la Court, whom Miller calls Le Cour, in the neighbourhood of Leyden. As a great many plants were sold out of this garden to foreigners, and as the English had theirs first from it, many are of opinion that Europe is indebted for the first possession of this fruit to De la Court, and his gardener William de Vinck 255.

I shall here take occasion to mention a circumstance which belongs also to the history of gardening. Before the cultivation of the ananas was introduced, the Dutch had begun to employ tanner’s bark for making forcing-beds. From them the English learned this improvement, and the first forcing-beds in England were made at Blackheath in Kent, in 1688, and employed for rearing orange-trees; but about the year 1719, much later than in Holland, ananas became more common, and forcing-beds were in much greater use 256.

This plant, the history of which I have given, received from Plumier 257, who first distinguished its characters, the name of Bromelia 258, after the Swedish naturalist, whose remembrance deserves to be here revived. Olof Bromelius was born in 1639, at Oerebro, where his father carried on trade. He studied physic at Upsal, disputed there in 1667 de Pleuritide, and in 1668 taught botany at Stockholm. In 1672 he was physician to the embassy to England, and afterwards to that to Holland, where, in 1673, he received the degree of doctor at Leyden, and wrote a dissertation De Lumbricis. On his return to his native country, in 1674, he became a member of the college of physicians at Stockholm; but in 1691 he was city physician to Gottenburg, and provincial physician in Elsburg and Bahuslan, in which situation he died in the year 1705. His botanical writings are Lupologia, and Chloris Gothica 259. His son, Magnus von Bromel, is the author of Lithographia Suecana.

[Within the few last years, large numbers of pine-apples have been imported into this country from the Bahamas, where they are grown as turnips are grown in our fields. They are sold comparatively speaking at an extremely moderate price, and those that have become somewhat spoilt by the long carriage are hawked about the streets of London at a halfpenny or penny per slice. They are however vastly inferior in flavour to the pines cultivated in our hot-houses, but it is to be expected, from the considerable demand, that greater care will be bestowed on their cultivation, and the markets of London be regularly supplied with a much improved kind.]

If we give this name to any fluid, which when written with, will remain invisible till after a certain operation, such liquids were known in very early periods. Among the methods, with which Ovid teaches young women to deceive their guardians, when they write to their lovers 260, he mentions that of writing with new milk, and of making the writing legible by coal-dust or soot. Ausonius proposes the same means to Paulinus 261; but his commentators seem not to have fully understood his meaning; for favilla is not to be explained by favilla non modice calida , as Vinetus has explained it, but by fuligo . That word is often employed by the poets in the same sense. As a proof of it, Columella, speaking of the method, not altogether ineffectual, and even still used, of preserving plants from insects by soot, calls it nigra favilla ; and afterwards, when mentioning the same method, free from poetical fetters, he says fuliginem quæ supra focos tectis inhæret 262. It may be easily perceived, that instead of milk any other colourless and glutinous juice might be employed, as it would equally hold fast the black powder strewed over it. Pliny, therefore, recommends the milky sap of certain plants for the like purpose 263.

There are several metallic solutions perfectly colourless, or, at least, without any strong tint, which being used for writing, the letters will not appear until the paper be washed over with another colourless solution, or exposed to the vapour of it; but among all these there is none which excites more astonishment, than that which consists of a solution of lead in acetic acid, and which by sulphuretted hydrogen gas becomes black, even at a considerable distance. This ink, which may be employed by conjurers, proves the subtlety of this gas, and the porosity of bodies; as the change or colouring takes place, even when the writing is placed on the other side of a thin wall.