A History of Agriculture in India v2.c72.s20: Pineapple
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c72.s20
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Pineapple
v2.c72.s20.1
Pineapple (*Ananas comosus*) is indigenous to Brazil. The Portuguese introduced it into India in the middle of the sixteenth century. In A.D. 1578, Acosta mentioned that this fruit was grown profusely in western India. Abul Fazl states that it was regularly served at the table of Akbar, and the fruits came from the seaports in the possession of the Portuguese. Edward Terry, Chaplain to Sir Thomas Roe, the first British Ambassador to Jahangir, describes the taste of the fruit as ‘a most pleasing compound made of strawberries, claret-wine, rose-water, and sugar well tempered together.’ Manucci describes the pineapples grown in Bengal as large and fine. Pineapple is extensively grown in Assam and Bengal.
v2.c72.s20.2
Khafi Khan, who paid a visit to Goa, mentions the cultivation of pine-apples by the Portuguese.
v2.c72.s20.3
'In the 'Adil-Shahi Kokan, close to the sea, in the fine and famous fort of Goa, their governor resides; and there is a captain there who exercises full powers on the part of Portugal. They have also established some other ports and flourishing villages. Besides this, the Portuguese occupy the country from fourteen or fifteen *kos* south of Surat to the boundaries of the fort of Bombay, which belongs to the English, and to the borders of the territories of the Habshis, which is called the Nizam Shahi Kokan. In the rear of the hills of Baglana, and in strong positions, difficult to access, near the fort of Gulshanabad, they have built seven or eight other forts, small and great. Two of these, by name Daman and Basi, which they obtained by fraud from Sultan Bahadur of Gujarat, they have made very strong, and the villages around are flourishing. Their possessions measure in length about forty or fifty *kos*; but they are not more than a *kos* or a *kos* and a half in width. They cultivate the skirts of the hills, and grow the best products, such as sugarcane, pine-apples, and rice, and cocoa-nut trees, and betel-nut vines, in vast numbers, from which they derive a very large revenue.'⁷
v2.c72.s20.4
⁷ Khafi Khan, *Muntakhabu-l Lubab*, in Elliot and Dowson, *The History of India*..., Vol. VII, p. 345
v2.c72.s20.5
The fruit plants introduced by the Portuguese are shown in Fig. 31.