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Jusi published, in 22 Volumes, ISmo, 
 
 SOLD TOGETHER OR SEPARATELY, 
 
 AN 
 
 EASY COURSE 
 
 OF 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION; 
 
 COMPRISING 
 
 a. &erie0 of eiememarp %ttmm^ 
 
 ON THE ^ 
 
 VARIOUS BRANCHES OF JUV^ILE INSTRUCTION ; 
 
 TOGETHER WITH ADVICE TO PARENTS AND TUTORS FOR CONDUCT- 
 ING THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN : 
 
 Designed for the Use of Families and Schools, 
 
 By WILLIAM JILLARD HORT, 
 
 AUTHOR OP THE NEW PANTHEON, &C- 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR 
 
 LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, 
 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 Parents and others who have wished to conduct or superintend the education of 
 children, have often been discouraged by their inabiHty to plan a suitable course of 
 studies for their young pupils, and by the difficulty of selecting, among the mul- 
 titude of school-books, those which possess the greatest merit, or are best adapted 
 to their respective objects. The design of this publication is to supply such per- 
 sons with the best directions on these points, and to afford them the means, without 
 any further assistance, of undertaking and carrying on the instruction of young 
 persons with pleasure and success. It has been the anxious endeavour of the 
 author, to comprise, within moderate limits, and in a uniform and connected course, 
 all the essential elements of a respectable education. The series of treatises which 
 he here submits to the public judgment, cannot fail, if carefully studied, to convey 
 to the yoiing student a large body of important information ; and will, it is be- 
 lieved, be found fully sufficient to qualify him to perform, with sttisfaction and 
 credit, the various duties of any station in which he may be placefl in life. In 
 case,^i,owever, it sliould be desired to pursue the ' education of some pupils fur- 
 th^h^hitfi thope volumes extend, some additional bgoks have been pointed out with 
 thai^iew : a classed list has also been added of the most approved works on the 
 several subjects of science and literature, forming, altogether, a valuable libr^y-y, 
 from which the teacher, or even the learner himself, may easily make his choice of 
 tliose which are suited to his particular objects or pursuits. 
 
 The 
 
I 
 
 The Course of Domestic Education comprises the following 
 
 Works, *which are sold together or separately : — 
 
 1. 
 
 ADVICE to PARENTS and TUTORS, for conducting the EDUCATION of 
 CHILDREN. Price 3*. half-bound. 
 
 2. 
 A FIRST SPELLING-BOOK; intended to lead the Pupil, by an easy and gradual Me- 
 thod, to a correct Pronunciation and Accentuation of the English Language. 
 Price 1*. 6d. 
 
 3. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ENGLISH READING-BOOK, intended to give easy Lessons in 
 
 Reading ; to convey useful Information ; and to inculcate good Principles. 2*. 6d. 
 
 Tire ENGLISH READING-BOOK, in Pro'se. Price 3*. 6d. 
 
 5. 
 The ENGLISH READING-BOOK, in Verse. Price 3*. 
 
 6. 
 An INTRODUCTION to ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Price 2.9. 6d. 
 
 7. 
 EXERCISES for the ILLUSTRATION and ENFORCEMENT of the RULES of the 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Price 2a. 
 
 8. 
 The KEY to EXERCISES for Illustration and Enforcement of the Rules of the 
 English Grammar. Price 2*. 
 
 9. 
 An ENGLISH SCHOOL DICTIONARY of SELECT WORDS, with their Meanings 
 affixed, intended to be committed to Memory, as well as for Reference in Reading 
 and Writing. To which is added, a List of the principal Heathen Deities of Greece, 
 and of other Pagan Nations, and a Selection of Scripture Proper Names. 2^. 6d. 
 
 10. 
 An EPITOME of the HOLY BIBLE. Price 2*. 6d. 
 
 11. 
 INTROCUCTION to GEOGRAPHY, Modern and Antient, and to the Use of the 
 Globes. Price 2s. 6d. 
 
 12. 
 An INTRODUCTION to ARITHMETIC. Price 2*. Gd. 
 
 13. 
 An EPITOME of UNIVERSAL HISTORY. Price As. 6d. 
 
 14. 
 An EPITOME of the HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Price 2*. 6d. 
 
 15 and 16. 
 A GENERAL VIEW of the SCIENCES and ARTS. In 2 Vols. Price 8*. 
 
 17. 
 An INTRODUCTION to NATURAL HISTORY, with numerous Wood Cuts. 6s. 
 
 18. 
 An EASY GRAMMAR of the FRENCH LANGUAGE. Price 4s. 
 
 19. 
 EXERCISES adapted to the Grammar of the French Language. Price 3s. 6d. 
 
 20. 
 KEY to the FRENCH EXERCISES. Price 2*. 6d. 
 
 21. 
 ELEMENTS of FRENCH CONVERSATION, including familiar Phrases and easy 
 Dialogues, each Subject being preceded by a Vocabulary. Price 2*. 6d. 
 
 22. 
 L« NOUVEAU LECTEUR FRANCAIS, k I'Usage des M^res de Famille qui veulent 
 instruire leurs Enfans, et de tons ceux qui sont engages dans les ecoles. Price 4*;. 6d. 
 
 Complete in 22 Vohimes, in a Case, 31. 13s. 6d. 
 
 Also, by Mr, Hort, 
 
 The NEW PANTHEON ; or, an Introduction to the Mythology of the Ancients, in 
 Question and Answer. To which are added, an Accentuated Index, Questions for 
 Exercise, and Poetical Illustrations of Grecian Mj'thology, from Homer and Virgil. 
 InlBmo. The Fifth Edition ; considerably enlarged, by the Addition of the Ori- 
 ental and the Northern Mythology. With 17 Engravings. Price 5*. 6d. Bound. 
 
 An INTRODUCTION to the STUDY of CHRONOLOGY and ANCIENT HISTORY, 
 t in Question and Answer. In ISmo. Price 4*. Bound and lettered. The Second 
 Edition. 
 
 INTRODUCTION to MODERN HISTORY, from the Birth of Christ to the present 
 Time, in Continuation of an Introduction to Chronology and Ancient Historj'. 
 In 2 Vols. ISmo. Price 10^. 6V/. Bound and lettered. 
 
 ." From these jittle volumes the juvenile reader may obtain a clear and useful Com- 
 pendium oiiModern and Universal History ; they are creditable to Mr. Hort's 
 industry and juogiuent, and deserve attention from persons concerned in educa- 
 tion." -r-^/oMTBife/Jeyjm', l-^M/?. 1820, 
 
This Dai/ is published^ 
 
 /omplete, in Qne large Volume 8vo. of 1500 pages, closely printed, 
 Price 21, 10s, boards. 
 
 AN 
 
 ENCYCLOPAEDIA 
 
 OF 
 
 GARDENING; 
 
 eOMFRISIKG THE 
 
 THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 OF 
 
 HORTICULTURE, FLORICULTURE, 
 
 ARBORICULTURE, 
 
 AND 
 
 LANDSCAPE-GARDENING; 
 
 IKCLUDIKG 
 
 Sill tfie latent 3lmproljemeitt0> 
 
 A GENERAL HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ALL COUNTRIES 
 
 AND A STATISTICAL VIEW OF ITS PRESENT STATE, 
 
 WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR ITS FUTURE PROGRESS. IN THE 
 BRITISH ISLES. 
 
 By J. C. LOUDON, F.L.S. H.S. &c. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 A TREATISE ON FORMING AND IMPROVING COUNTRY RESIDENCES.* 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH 
 
 SIX HUNDRED ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD 
 BY BRANSTON. 
 
 PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, 
 
 PATJEBNOSTER-ROW, LONDON. 
 
 X HIS Work is by far the most complete body of Gardening ever 
 as <^ontMiing^I gyjg||JVIgd^iTi Ij 
 les of tB LrO™onpfip 
 
2 
 
 tural Societies, and all other Improvements both foreign and 
 domestic up to the present time; and, considering the great 
 number of Engravings and the immense quantity of matter it con- 
 tains, it is, perhaps, the cheapest book ever published. It is cal- 
 culated by its Indexes to serve both as a Gai^dener's Kalendar and 
 Gardener's Dictionary ; it contains a copious Introduction to Botany; 
 engraved plans and elevations of all manner of hot-houses, orna- 
 mental buildings, kitchen gardens, flower gardens, shrubberies, 
 pleasure grounds, and parks ; of many curious fruits and flowers ; 
 of all the garden implements, utensils, and machines. Besides the 
 culinary, fruit, and flower gardening, and the laying out of grounds, 
 it treats of trees, planting, forest management, nurseries, market 
 gardens, and botanic gardens ; of gardeners' societies, and lodges ; 
 of the duties of head gardeners in every situation and servitude, 
 from that of the tradesman's town garden, of a few poles in extent, 
 to the first rate gardens of the nobility, including public and royal 
 gardens ; it treats of the improvement of the taste of the patrons 
 and employers of gardeners ; of the education of young gardeners, 
 and the general conduct of a gardener's life : in short it is of itself 
 a gardener's library, and contains more matter than the four folio 
 volumes of Miller's Dictionary. 
 
 No work is so well fitted for being presented by a gentleman to 
 his head gardener, or by a head gardener to his deserving 
 apprentice. 
 
 Preparhigfor PMicatiorif 
 
 AN 
 
 ENCYCLOPiEDIA OF AGRICULTURE, 
 
 In One large Volume, 8vo. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH 
 
 NUMEROUS WOOD ENGRAVINGS 
 
 BY BRANSTON. 
 
 "^^ *^« This Work is on the Plan of the Encyclopaedia of 
 
 ^ Gardening. 
 
EDINBURGH REVIEW 
 
 OF 
 
 BOWDLER'S FAMILY SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 No, 11.--' October, 1821. 
 
 Art. III. The Famili/ Shakspeare. In Ten Volumes V2mo. 
 In tvhich nothing is added to the Text; but those Words and 
 Expressions are omitted vohich cannot luith Propriety be read 
 aloud in a Family, By Thomas Bowdler, Esq., F.R.S. & 
 S. A. Price 3/. 3 J. London. Longman and Co., 1818. 
 
 W E have long intended to notice this very meritorious publica- 
 tion ; and are of opinion, that it requires nothing more than a 
 notice to bring it into general circulation. We are not ourselves, 
 we confess, particularly squeamish about incorrect expressions and 
 allusions ; and in the learned languages especially, which seldom 
 come into the hands of the more delicate sex, and can rarely be 
 perused by any one for the gratification of a depraved taste, we 
 have not been very anxious about the dissemination of castrated 
 editions ; but in an author of such unbounded and deserved popu- 
 larity as our great Dramatist, whose volumes are constantly in the 
 hands of almost all who can read of both sexes, it is undoubtedly 
 of great consequence to take care that youth runs no risk of corrup- 
 tion in the pursuit of innocent amusement or valuable instruction ; 
 or rather, that no oflfence is offered to delicacy in the midst of the 
 purest gratification of taste. 
 
 Now it is quite undeniable, that there are many passages in 
 Shakspeare, which a father could not read aloud to his chil- 
 dren — a brother to his sister — or a gentleman to a lady: — and 
 every one almost must have felt or witnessed the extreme awk- 
 wardness, and even distress, that arises from suddenly stumbhng 
 upon such expressions, when it is almost too late to avoid them, 
 and when the readiest wit cannot suggest any paraphrase, which 
 shall not betray, by its harshness, the embarrassment from which 
 it has arisen. Those who recollect such scenes, must all rejoice, 
 we should think, that Mr. Bowdler has provided a security against 
 their recurrence ; and, as what cannot be pronounced in decent 
 company cannot well afford much pleasure in the closet, we think 
 it is better every way, that what cannot be spoken, and ought not 
 to have been written, should now cease to be printed. 
 
We have only ferther to observe, tliat Mr. Bowdler lias not exe- 
 cctted his task in any thing of a precise or prudish spirit ; that he 
 has left many things in the text which, to a delicate taste, must still 
 appear coarse and reprehensible : and only effaced those gross 
 indecencies which every one must have felt as blemishes, and by 
 the removal of which no imaginable excellence can be affected. 
 It is comfortable to be able to add, that this purification has 
 been accomplished with surprisingly little loss either of weight 
 or value; and that the base alloy in the pure metal of Shakspeare 
 has been found to amount to an inconceivably small proportion. 
 It is infinitely to his credit that, with the most luxuriant fancy 
 which ever fell to the lot of a mortal, and with no great restraints 
 from the training or habits of his early life, he is by far the 
 purest of the dramatists of his own or the succeeding age, — and 
 has resisted, in a great degree, the corrupting example of his 
 contemporaries. In them, as well as in him, it is indeed remark- 
 able, that the obscenities which occur, are rather offensive than 
 corrupting — and seem suggested rather by the misdirected wan- 
 tonness of too lively a fancy, than by a vicious taste, or partiality 
 to profligate indulgence ; — while in Dryden and Congreve, the 
 indecency belongs not to the jest, but to the character and action ; 
 and immodest speech is the cold and impudent exponent of licen- 
 tious principles. In the one, it is the fantastic colouring (if a 
 coarse and grotesque buffoonery — in the other, the shameless 
 speech of rakes, who make a boast of their profligacy. It is owing 
 to this circumstance, perhaps, that it has in general been found easy 
 to extirpate the offensive expressions of our great poet, without 
 any injury to the context, or any visible scar or blank in the compo- 
 sition. They turn out not to be so much cankers in the flowers, 
 as weeds that have sprung up by their side — not flaws in the 
 metal, but impurities that have gathered on its surface — and that, 
 so far from being missed on their removal, the work generally 
 appears more natural and harmonious without them. We do not 
 pretend to have gone over the whole work with attention — or even 
 to have actually collated any considerable part of it : but we have 
 examined three plays of rather a ticklish description — Othello, 
 Troilus and Cressida, and Measure for Measure — and feel quite 
 assured, from these specimens, that the work has been executed in 
 the spirit, and with the success which we have represented. 
 ' Mr. B. has in general followed the very best text — and the work 
 is very neatly printed. We hope, however, that the publishers will 
 soon be encouraged to give us another edition, on a larger letter. * 
 For we rather suspect, from some casual experiments of our own, 
 that few papas will be able to read this, in a winter-evening to their 
 children, without the undramatic aid of spectacles. 
 
 * The Publishers beg to say the hirtt is taJcerii and that they are 
 printing a handsome octavo edition, Jor the accommodation ©/"papas, 
 t»ihile the smaller edition may continue to please their younger friends. 
 
August, 1822. 
 
 WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED, 
 
 BY 
 
 LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 1. 
 
 TRAVELS IN THE Interior of SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
 
 By WILLIAM J. BURCHELL, Esq. 
 
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 4500 miles of ground, besides numberless lateral excursions, in regions never 
 before trodden by European foot, have produced a multitude of discoveries and 
 observations which have never until now been laid before the public. 
 
 2. 
 THE PRIVATE AND CONFIDENtlAL CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 OF. 
 
 CHARLES TALBOT, DUKE OF SHREWSBURY, 
 
 Principal Minister of King William for a considerable Period of his Reign. 
 
 By the Rev. ARCHDEACON COXE. 
 
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 MEMOIRS of the DUKE of MARLBOROUGH. 6 Vols. 8vo., and 
 
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 THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, 
 
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 24. 
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 ON 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF BOTANY. 
 
 Containing the Descriptive Anatomy of those Organs, on which tlie Growth and 
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 Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, &c. &c. 
 
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 25. 
 THE DIFFERENT MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 THE PINE-APPLE, 
 
 From its first Introduction into Europe, to the late Improvements of 
 T. A. Knight, Esq, 
 
 3y a MEMBER of the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
 
 In 8vo. Price 9*. Boards. With 74 Wood Engravings, exhibiting the best 
 
 Plans of Pine- Stoves and Pits, 
 
 26. 
 
 SKETCHES OF THE CHARACTER, MANNERS, AND 
 
 PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 THE HIGHLANDERS OF SCOTLAND. 
 
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 By COLONEL DAVID STEWART. 
 
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 27. — 
 
 ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 
 
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 from the most celebrated Writers and Travellers, Ancient aad Modern. 
 
 Designed as a Sequel to Oriental Customs. 
 
 By tlie Rev. SAMUEL BURDER, A.M. 
 
 In 2 large Vols. 8vo. Closely printed. Price IL 10s. Boards. 
 
 This Work, besides a great body of interesting matter selected from the most 
 important modern Publications, coiatains much valuable Criticism from a Work of 
 Dr. Rosenmiiller, of Leipsig, lately published in German, and now first tran». 
 lated into English. 
 
 Just published, by the same Author. 
 
 ORIENTAL CUSTOMS; or, an Illustration of the Sacred Scriptures, by 
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 SELECT WORKS OF THE BRITISH POETS, 
 
 WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL PREFACES, 
 
 By Dr. AlKIN. 
 
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 42. 
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 WITH TRAVELS IN THE INTERIOR OF THE ISLAND. 
 
 By JOHN DAVY, M.D. F.R.S. 
 
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 UEIGN OF KING GEORGE THE THIRD ; 
 
 BROUGHT nOWN TO HIS DEATH. 
 
 By JOHN AIKIN, M.D. 
 
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 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION, 
 
 INTELLECTUAL, MORAL, AND PHYSICAL. 
 
 By the Reverend LANT CARPENTER, LL.D. 
 
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 and the Rev. J. JOYCE. 
 
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 STATED AND EXPLAINED. 
 
 By WILLIAM MORGAN, Esq. F.R.S. 
 
 Actuary of the Equitable Life Insurance Office. 
 
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 AND HIS SONS, RICHARD AND HENRY. 
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 A SYSTEM OF UNIVERSAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
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 in Parts, or Half- Volumes, Price 7s, 6d, each. 
 
THE 
 
 DIFFERENT MODES 
 
 CULTIVATING 
 
 THE 
 
 PINE-APPLE, 
 
 ITS FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE 
 
 LATE IMPROVEMENTS OF T. A. KNIGHT, ESQ. 
 
 BY A MEMBER OF THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
 
 EXHIBITING THE BEST PLANS OF PINE-STOVES AND PITS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED EOR 
 
 LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, 
 
 PATERNOSTER-noW. 
 
 1822. 
 
London: 
 Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode, 
 
 N ew- Street- Square. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 A CONSIDERABLE interest has been excited in 
 the Horticultural world by the experiments 
 of T. A. Knight, Esq. on the culture of the 
 Pine Apple. Our object is to add our efforts 
 to those of that eminent Horticulturist, in 
 promoting the culture of that king of fruits. 
 
 The rneans which we consider as most 
 likely to attain our object, is the bringing to- 
 gether accounts of all the different modes of 
 treating that Plant, which have hitherto been 
 adopted in Europe ; and the sources from 
 which we have drawn the means, are the dif- 
 ferent publications which have appeared on 
 the Pine Apple, and our own observations on 
 its management, by those Gardeners who are 
 its most successful cultivators. 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The British pubhcations which treat ex- 
 clusively, or principally, of the Pine Apple, 
 are: 
 
 1767. John Giles, of Lewisham. A Me- 
 thod of raising Pines and Melons, 8vo. 
 
 1769. Adam Taylor , Gardener at Devizes, 
 in Wiltshire. A Treatise on the Ananas and 
 on Melons, 8vo. 
 
 1779. William Speechly, Gardener to the 
 Duke of Portland, at Welbeck, in Notting- 
 hamshire. A Treatise on the culture of the 
 Pine Apple, and the managemant of the Hot- 
 house, &c. 8vo. 
 
 1808. William Griffin, Gardener to J. C. 
 Girardot, Esq. at Kelham, near Nottingham. 
 A Treatise on the culture of the Pine Apple, 
 8vo. 
 
 1818. Thomas Baldwin, Gardener to the 
 Marquis of Hertford, at Ragley, in Warwick- 
 
INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 shire. A Treatise on the culture of the 
 Ananas, &c. 12mo. 
 
 The Authors who have treated on the Pine 
 Apple, as a part of their general subject, in- 
 clude nearly all those who have written on 
 Horticulture since the commencement of the 
 18th century; the principal are, Bradley, 
 Miller, Justice, Abercrombie, M'Phail, and 
 Nicol, in their respective works ; and T. A. 
 Knight, Esq., and Peter Marsland, Esq., in 
 the Transactions of the London and Cale- 
 donian Horticultural Societies. 
 
 The Foreign publications on the Pine 
 Apple are few, and of little value ; because 
 the Continental Gardeners have never been 
 very successful in its culture. Professor 
 Thouin and M. Bosc, are the principal 
 French Authors who have noticed the sub- 
 ject, and this only in general works, such as 
 Hosier's Dictionary, &c. Kirchner is almost 
 the only German writer who has written on 
 this fruit, in his Fractische Anleitung filr 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Gartenkunst, published in 1796, and devoted 
 more particularly to the culture of the Pine 
 and the Grape. Some other foreign tracts 
 on the subject in the Banksian Library are 
 merely translations from La Cours chapter 
 on the subject, and from English authors. 
 
 The most eminent cultivators of the Pine 
 Apple in England, at the present time, are, 
 Mr. Thomas Baldwin, Gardener to the Mar- 
 quis of Hertford, at Ragley, in Warwickshire; 
 Mr. William Griffin, Gardener to Samuel 
 Smith, Esq., at Woodhall Park, Hertford- 
 shire ; William Townsend Aiton, Esq. Gar- 
 dener to the King, at Kensington ; Mr. James 
 Andrews, Commercial Gardener, Lambeth ; 
 and Mr. Isaac Oldacre, Gardener to Lady 
 Banks, at Springrove, Middlesex. 
 
 A number of other gardeners might be 
 mentioned, as excelling in the culture of this 
 fruit ; but the above have been first-rate cul- 
 tivators for several years. 
 
INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 On the Continent the Pine Apple is culti- 
 vated most extensively in Russia ; it occurs 
 but seldom in France or Germany ; and only 
 in a few gardens in Italy. It has happened 
 to us to have visited the principal Continen- 
 tal Gardens, as well as the English ones 
 alluded to above, and various others ; and 
 we mention this to justify the extension of our 
 remarks, not only to domestic, but foreign 
 practices ; and to account for our not confin- 
 ing ourselves merely to what is contained in 
 books, but discussing also the modes of cul- 
 ture actually practised in different gardens. 
 We shall first notice the introduction of the 
 Pine Apple into Europe, and next the differ- 
 ent varieties in cultivation; we shall then 
 glance at the Continental practices, and 
 finally detail those of our own country. 
 
 a 
 
This Day is published, 
 
 By Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, London, 
 
 An ENCYCLOPEDIA of GARDENING; 
 
 Comprising the Theory and Practice of Horticulture, Floriculture, Arbo- 
 riculture, and Landscape Gardening ; including all the latest Improvements, 
 a general History of Gardening in all Countries ; and a Statistical View of 
 its present State, with Suggestions for its future Progress, in the British 
 Isles. 
 
 By J.C. LOUDON, F.L.S. H.S. &c.. 
 
 Author of " A Treatise on forming and improving Country Residences." 
 Complete, in One large Volume, 8vo. of 1500 Page^ closely printed, 
 with Six Hundred Engravings on Wood, Price £2. 10s. 
 
 This Work claims the Attention of the Public : 
 
 1. By the comprehensiveness of its plan, by which, for the first time, 
 every part of the subject of Gardening is brought together, and presented in 
 one systematic whole. 
 
 2. By its being the only work wi)ich contains all the modern improvements 
 in Gardening, foreign as well as domestic. 
 
 3. By the addition of a Kalendarial Index, by which the practical part of the 
 work may be consulted monthly, as the operations are to be performed ; and 
 a copious General Index, by which the whole may be consulted alphabetically. 
 Thus the work will serve as a Gardener s Kalendar, and Gardener s Dic- 
 tionary : both, it is confidently hoped, far more complete than any hitherto 
 presented to the public. 
 
 By means of a copious page, by condensed descriptive tables of fruits, 
 culinary vegetables, and flowers, and by the local introduction of such illus- 
 trative engravings as greatly shorten the necessity of verbal description, this 
 immense body of matter has been comprised in one thick volume. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. I. Page 
 
 Of the Pine Apple ; its Culture in the West Indies. — 
 Introduction to Holland. — And to Endand 1 
 
 -£3- 
 
 CPIAP. II. 
 or the varieties of the Pine Apple 6 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 Foreign modes of cultivating the Pine Apple 11 
 
 Sect. I. Culture of the Pine Apple in Plolland 12 
 
 II in Germany 20 
 
 III in Russia 22 
 
 IV in France 2i< 
 
 V in Italy 26 
 
 VI , in other parts of Europe 29 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 Of the different modes of cultivating the Pine Apple, 
 which have been, or are practised in Britain by 
 practical Gardeners 30 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 Pcfge. 
 Sect. I. Mode of cultivating the Pine Apple, by 
 
 Telende, in 1719 31 
 
 II by Miller 34 
 
 III by Justice 40 
 
 IV ...by Giles 43 
 
 V by Taylor 45 
 
 VI.... by Speedily 49 
 
 VII byM'Phaii 67 
 
 VIII by Nicol 88 
 
 IX by Griffin 104 
 
 X by Baldwin 110 
 
 XI by Abercrombie 120 
 
 XII by Andrews 125 
 
 XIII by Gunter 129 
 
 XIV by Oldacre 133 
 
 XV. by Alton 138 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 Improvements recently attempted in the culture of the 
 
 Pine Apple 146 
 
 Sect. I. Of the Improvements proposed by Mr. 
 
 Knight 148 
 
 II. Of other Improvements proposed 170 
 
ONT THE 
 
 CULTIVATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PINE APPLE 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 OF THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 Its Culture in the West and East Indies, — Introduction to 
 Holland, — To England, 
 
 The Pine Apple is the Bromelia Ananas of Lin- 
 neus ; of the artificial class and order Hexandria 
 Monogynia ; and of the natural order of Jussieu, 
 Bromeleae. The generic name was originally 
 Ananas, from Nana, its common name in the 
 Brazils ; and the Queen Pine is named the Ana- 
 nas Ovata, in the earlier editions of Miller's 
 Dictionary ; but Linneus changed it to Bromelia, 
 in memory of Olaus Bromel, a Swedish natu- 
 ralist, and included under it the Karatas, or Wild 
 Pine, till then considered, a distinct genus. The 
 English name of Pine Apple appears to have 
 
 B 
 
2 OF THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 taken its rise from the resemblance of the fruit to 
 the cone of some species of the Pine tree. 
 
 There are twelve species of Bromelia, described 
 by Persoon ; the fruit of all which may be con- 
 sidered edible, and is occasionally made use of 
 by the natives. Six of these species are natural- 
 ized in the West Indies ; and the rest are found 
 wild in Chili, Peru, and other parts of South 
 America. 
 
 The Bromelia Ananas is the only species in 
 general cultivation ; it is cultivated abundantly 
 in both the Indies, and in China. It is said to 
 grow wild in Africa ; but Linneus ascribes it to 
 New Spain and Surinam ; and Acosta (Histoire 
 Naturelle des Indes,) says, it was first sent from the 
 province of Santa Croce, in Brazil, into the West, 
 and afterwards into the East Indies and China. 
 Persoon considers it as a native of South America ; 
 and Baron Humboldt and the Prince Maximilian 
 found it in the Caraccas, in the Brazils. 
 
 Whichever way it was introduced from South 
 America to the West Indies, its culture in these 
 islands, and particularly in Jamaica, has been car- 
 ried on for an unknown length of time. It is vul- 
 garly supposed in this country, that it grows wild 
 there; but, from the best information which we 
 have been able to collect, the true Ananas is only 
 cultivated in gardens, or grounds under spade 
 culture ; and there much in the same way as cab- 
 bages are in this country, and produces its fruit in 
 
 18 
 
OF THE PINE APPLE. 3 
 
 from fifteen to eighteen months after planting the 
 crown. The common weight of the fruit is from 
 half a pound to three pounds ; and it abounds 
 chiefly in the dry season. In the rainy sea- 
 son, which includes nearly half the year, ripe Pine 
 Apples are more scarce in the gardens of Jamaica 
 than in the hot-houses of England. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Calcutta it is culti- 
 vated in the same manner as in Jamaica, and, when 
 liberally supplied with water, by a system of sur- 
 face-irrigation, the first is said to attain a large size, 
 and to be in season most months of the year. 
 
 The first attempts to cultivate the Pine Apple 
 in Europe seem to have been made about the end 
 of the seventeenth century, by M. Le Cour (or 
 La Courts as written by CoUinson), a wealthy 
 Flemish merchant, who had a fine garden at Drie- 
 oeck, near Ley den. Of this garden he published 
 an account in 1732, and died in I737. 
 
 It was visited by Miller and Justice, who speak 
 of its proprietor as one of the greatest encouragers 
 of gardening in his time ; of having curious walls 
 and hot-houses ; and as being the first person who 
 succeeded in cultivating the Pine Apple. It was 
 from him. Miller observes, ( Dictionary , Art. Bro- 
 melia,) that our gardens were first supplied, through 
 Sir Matthew Decker, of Richmond, in the year 1719; 
 though, as a botanic plant, it had been introduced 
 so far back as 1690, by Mr. Bentick, afterwards 
 Earl of Portsmouth. 
 
 B 2 
 
 I 
 
4 OF THE PINE APPLE, 
 
 " When I say," observes Mr. Cowel of Hoxtmty 
 in his Curious and Profitable Gardener, Lon. 1730^ 
 p. 27. " that the first Pine Apples that were cul- 
 tivated in England, were in Sir Matthew Deck- 
 er's gardens at Richmond, I mean the first that 
 were cultivated with success, were in those gar- 
 dens; for long before we had plants of them 
 brought to us, but had not before that time con- 
 veniences for bringing them to fruit, or even of 
 keeping the plants alive.*' 
 
 " The Pine Apple," he adds, in the same page, 
 ** is now (I73O) found in almost every curious gar- 
 den." 
 
 The fruit of the Ananas was sent to Europe, 
 and especially to Holland, as a preserve, for many 
 years before the Ananas plant was introduced. 
 
 That it found its way even to England in this 
 state, so early as the sixteenth century, is evident 
 from what Lord Bacon says of it in his Essay on 
 Colonies ; and also from a picture in the posses- 
 sion of the Earl of Waldegrave, representing 
 Charles II. in a garden, and Rose, the royal gar- 
 dener, presenting his Majesty with a Pine Apple. 
 This picture. Lord Walpole informs us, was be- 
 queathed by Mr. London, who was Rose's appren- 
 tice, to the Rev. Mr. Pennicott, of Thames Ditton, 
 by whom it was presented to himself. It does not 
 appear, however, that the Pine was cultivated 
 either by Rose or London, otherwise it would cer- 
 tainly have been noticed in the pubhcations, 
 which, if not written by, at least passed under the 
 
OF THE PINE APPLE. O 
 
 name, and received the sanction of London and 
 Wise ; and also of Evelyn, Ray, Rea, and other 
 gardening writers of these times. In short, it is 
 evident from Ray's letters, that the idea of heating 
 green-houses by fire was quite new in 1684, and 
 first adopted by Mr. Watts, gardener, to the 
 apothecaries at Chelsea in that year ; and Miller 
 states, (Diet. Art. Tan,) that there were very few 
 tan-beds used in England before the ye^ 1719. 
 The Pine Apple, therefore, could not be cultivated 
 in the seventeenth century in England. 
 
 Of late years the Pine Apple has been sent to 
 England in abundance, attached to the entire plant, 
 and a cargo has arrived from Providence Island, in 
 the Bermudas, in six weeks. This facility of cul- 
 tivation, and their more general culture, has greatly 
 lessened their price, and rendered them common. 
 They are sold in fruit-stands in the London streets, 
 in one or two places, during the summer months ; 
 and moderate- sized fruit may be had from half-a- 
 crown to a crown each j or at two shillings a 
 pound. 
 
 B S 
 
CHAP. 11. 
 
 OF THE VARIETIES OF THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 Of the Pine Apple, as of most other fruits that 
 have been long in cultivation, there are many 
 varieties. The principal part of those cultivated 
 in this country have been obtained from the West 
 India islands ; but some also have been raised in 
 this country from seed. 
 
 Speechly states, that, in the year 1 768, he raised 
 seventy plants from seeds that were sent to the 
 Duke of Portland from the West Indies, most of 
 which varied distinctly either in the leaves or fruit, 
 but the quality of the latter was very inferior. 
 
 The most esteemed varieties in present culti- 
 vation are : 
 
 1. The Old Queen, Fruit oval-shaped, and of 
 a gold colour. Esteemed the hardiest kind, and 
 fruited in fifteen or eighteen months. The fruit 
 grows to a large size, often weighing from three to 
 four pounds. It is much more certain of shewing 
 fruit at a proper age and season than most of the 
 other sorts, and has a just preference in most hot- 
 houses. 
 
OF THE PINE APPLE. 7 
 
 ^. Ripley^s New Queen. A sub-variety of the 
 Old Quee?i, with a large elegant fruit; fruited also 
 in an equally short period. 
 
 3. Welbeck Seedling ; fruit small, generally 
 broader at the head than at the base ; of a pale 
 yellow, or sulphur colour, with very flat pips ; flesh 
 white and tender, rich in flavour, with less aci- 
 dity than is found in most other pines. Hort. 
 Tram, iv. S13. 
 
 4. Fyramidaly or Brown Sugar-loaf, Cone- 
 shaped, and dark coloured till it ripens ; the leaves 
 brownish, the flesh yellow. 
 
 5. Prickly Striped Sugar-loaf. Cone-shaped, the 
 fruit of a golden colour, the leaves striped with 
 black or purple lines. 
 
 6. Smooth Striped Sugar-loaf; similar to the 
 above, but the leaves not prickly. 
 
 7. Havannah. Tankard- shaped ; dark coloured 
 till it ripens. 
 
 8. Montserrat. The leaves of a dark brown, in- 
 clining to purple in the inside ; fruit middle-sized 
 and tun-shaped, and the pips or protuberances of 
 the fruit larger and. flatter than in the other 
 kinds. 
 
 9. King Fine, or Shining Green. The leaves of 
 a grass-green, with few prickles, the pulp hard and 
 rather stringy, but of good flavor when ripe. 
 
 10. Green, or St. Vincent'* s Fine. A rare variety ; 
 when ripe the fruit is of an olive hue, middle- 
 sized, and pyramidical. 
 
 B 4 
 
8 OF THE VARIETIES OF 
 
 11. Black Aiitigua, The fruit is shaped hke the 
 frustrum of a pyramid : leaves of a brownish tinge, 
 and drooping at the extremities, with strong 
 prickles, thinly scattered. The pips of the fruit 
 are large, often an inch over; and it attains a 
 large size, weighing from three to four pounds. It 
 is of a dark colour till it ripens ; very juicy, and 
 high flavoured. 
 
 12. Black Jamaica. The fruit is large, and 
 the plant similar in character and habits to the 
 above. 
 
 13. Providence Pine, There are two varietieSj^ 
 the white and green ; the fruit is larger than that 
 of any of the kinds cultivated in this country; 
 the form inclining to pyramidical ^ the colour, at 
 first, brownish grey, but, when mature, of a pale 
 yellow. The flesh yellow and melting, abounding 
 with quick lively juice. Speechly produced in the 
 gardens at Welbeck, in 1794, a fruit that weighed^ 
 five pounds and a quarter, or eighty-four ounces, 
 and from ^ plant that was not a large one. Griffin 
 had, in 1803, two plants placed under his care, 
 which fruited in July 1804 ; the fruit of one plant 
 weighing seven pounds two ounces^ and the other 
 nine pounds three ounces, avoirdupois. This sort, 
 and the two preceding, require generally three 
 years, and sometimes four or fi\e, to produce their 
 fruit, 
 
 14. Blood-red ; fruit equal in bulk at both ends* 
 Pips of moderate size ; colour brick-red ; flesh 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 9 
 
 white and opaque ; leaves of a changeable hue ; 
 the flavor of the fruit being inferior to that of 
 most others ; this is to be considered merely as a 
 curious variety. Hort, Trans, iv. 214. 
 ' 15. Silver-striped Queen. Leaves beautifully 
 striped with white, yellow, and red ; but the plant, 
 though elegant, is a reluctant fruiter. 
 
 16, Variegated-leaved Fines. Besides the 
 Striped-leaved Queen, there are several sorts with 
 beautifully varied leaves and fruits ; but in general 
 they are tardy in fruiting, and more to be con= 
 sidered as ornamental than as useful varieties. 
 
 To these may be added, as sorts not generally 
 known, or of inferior value : 
 
 The Smooth Pine. Miller. 
 The Smooth Long Narrow-leaved PinCn Ibid, 
 The Grunda Pine. Ibid. 
 The Bogwarp Pine, Ibid. 
 The Surinam Pine. Ibid. 
 The Antigua Queen. Speechly. 
 The Green Providence, or Old Providence, from 
 one of the Bermuda islands of that name. 
 
 New Sorts. Pine plants are frequently imported 
 from the West India islands, and in this case ge- 
 nerally bear their names. In general, however, 
 these plants are far inferior, both as to kinds and 
 condition, to those grown, and to be procured 
 from nurserymen in this country. They are ge- 
 
10 OF THK PINE APPLE. 
 
 nerally infested with the bug, and very uncertain 
 in their time of fruiting, as well as to its flavor. 
 If these were to be enumerated, the list of pines 
 known in this country would amount to upwards 
 of forty sorts. Specimens of above thirty sorts are 
 grown in the gardens of Mr. Gunter, at Earl's- 
 court. 
 
 The Pine Apple, as every gardener knows, is 
 propagated in the same manner by all those who 
 grow it; that is, by that singular production in 
 which the fruit terminates, called a crown, and by 
 suckers ; these are planted in small pots, or in 
 beds of rotten tan, earth, or dung, at first, and 
 shifted in regular gradation into pots of different 
 sizes, at the discretion of the cultivator. 
 
11 
 
 CHAR III. 
 
 FOREIGN MODES OF CULTIVATING THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 Ctdture of the Pine Apple in Holland, — France, — Germany , — 
 Italy, Sfc. 
 
 The horticulture of the continent is, in general, 
 .copied from that of Holland, as was our culture, 
 and that of every other country two centuries ago. 
 Excepting in Holland, therefore, the English gar- 
 dener will find very little to learn in other coun- 
 tries ; but it is worth while to know how little is 
 to be known in one quarter, that we may be the 
 more assiduous in our attention to such quarters 
 as are likely to furnish us with information. 
 
 For this purpose, we shall take a short view of 
 the culture of the Pine Apple in the principal 
 parts of the Continent. 
 
 Whether Le Cour was the first who imported 
 Pine plants from the West Indies, is less certain 
 than that he was the first to attempt their culture 
 with success. Professor Bradley, in his General 
 Treatise of Husbandry and Gardening for July 1724, 
 p. 206. gives a description of the Pine Apple, and the 
 introduction of it into Holland by Mr. Le Cour. 
 He says, that there were in the Amsterdam gardens 
 
IS FOREIGN HODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 about two hundred plants, chiefly from Surinam 
 and Curasao, but some from the Dutch factories 
 in the East Indies, which were in good health ; 
 but the art of bringing them to fruit was not known 
 till Mr. Le Cour took them in hand. Miller says, 
 that after a great many trials, with little or no 
 success, Mr. Le Cour did at length hit upon a 
 proper degree of heat and management, so as to 
 produce fruit equally good (though not so large), 
 as that which is produced in the West Indies. 
 About the year 1737> the year before his death, 
 Mr. Le Cour published a quarto volume in Dutch, 
 containing the result of his observations on gar- 
 dens, trees, and flowers ; with explanatory descrip- 
 tions of his stoves. 
 
 From this work, and from the statements of 
 Professor Bradley, {Treatise on Husbandry and 
 Gardening, for June 1724, p. I6l.) we learn that 
 Le Cour's mode of treating the Pine plant was very 
 similar to that adopted at Sir Matthew Decker's 
 garden at Richmond, to be afterwards described ; 
 but we shall give this gentleman's practice, as re-^ 
 lated by himself. 
 
 Sect. I. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple by Mr. Le Cour in the beginnitig 
 of the \^th century, at Drieocckj near Leijden. 
 
 I DISTINGUISH, he says, three different species of 
 Pine Apple \ the first and best has green leaves, gar- 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 1^ 
 
 nlshed with fine prickles, fruit of which I have had 
 seven inches high, and thirteen inches in circum- 
 ference ; this sort, if it is kept cool before it shows 
 fruit, and then advances slowly by somewhat more 
 heat, grows larger and more pointed than that 
 which has been kept warmer and in a growing state 
 during winter. The leaves of the second sort are 
 larger and broader, of a darker green mixed with 
 red ; it does not produce fruit of so large a size, 
 but its knobs are broader and larger, yet flater ; 
 the unripe fruit being of a reddish brown, and 
 when ripe of a deep yellow, with brownish yellow 
 spots on the knobs ; this sort has not so pleasant a 
 taste as the first, which, when unripe, is of a darker 
 green, and when ripe, with lighter yellow knobs, 
 on which account I cultivate chiefly the following 
 sort. 
 
 This is called the Smooth Ananas, on account of 
 its being without prickles, but the ends of the 
 leaves grow longer, narrower, and more upright : 
 the fruit is smaller. The Ananas cannot bear the 
 cold of our winter, and must have in summer a 
 more permanent warmth and less change in the 
 winter than we commonly have in our climate ; and 
 must therefore not only be put during the winter 
 into stoves, but even during the summer under 
 glass frames, and the pots placed in a hot-bed of 
 tan. However, it is with these plants, as it is with 
 all others from a warmer climate ; when they by 
 degrees have been accustomed to our colder cli- 
 mate, they become more hardy, and can bear more 
 
14r FOREIGN MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 cold and change of weather, and therefore produce 
 better fruit than those which are sent to us from 
 abroad and have been reared in a warmer country 
 more congenial to their nature. It is therefore ne- 
 cessary that we should try to get plants that have 
 already been accustomed to our country, by propa- 
 gation from suckers for a number of years, for in 
 that case they may be reared with very little 
 trouble. 
 
 The most convenient time to take away the 
 suckers is from the middle of June to the end of 
 the month. Both suckers and crowns must be put 
 in sandy earth in little pots, as in this manner they 
 strike their roots best ; but when the plants have 
 grown larger, they must be transplanted in the fol- 
 lowing year in richer and less sandy earth, and in 
 larger pots, care being taken that the earth is not 
 loosened from the roots in shifting them. The most 
 convenient time for transplanting them is in March, 
 when the plants must be taken from the hot-house 
 and put in a bed of earth under a frame. Care 
 must be taken in shifting them into other pots, to 
 make the earth adhere well to the roots, and to 
 water them well afterwards, and not to use too 
 large pots, as they take up more I'oom, are not 
 so easily handled, and are less proper for growing 
 large fruit than those of a moderate size ; the most 
 convenient pots for transplanting are ten inches in 
 diameter within the rim, seven inches at bottom, 
 and ten and a half inches deep. 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 15 
 
 The plants, when growing, commonly require a 
 great deal of water, and more when they set their 
 fruit. They should then" be watered frequently all 
 over their leaves. Afterwards they must be treated 
 with more caution, and be less watered; for too 
 much water would be injurious about the time of 
 the ripening of the fruit, which would get watery, 
 and of a transparent greenish yellow, and be of infe- 
 rior taste and smell. Too little water dries them up, 
 and makes the marrow perish in the leaves, the first 
 signs of which are, when you hold the green leaves 
 towards the light, you will perceive them speckled 
 with yellowish spots. To produce proper fruit, the 
 plant of a sucker or crown must have grown well 
 and bulky, at least for three years ; the first sign of 
 setting fruit is, that its leaves spread a little, and 
 the plant opens a little in the heart where the fruit 
 soon shews itself like the head of a large nail. As 
 the fruit and stalk grow higher, the fruit grows 
 rounder, with pointed little leaves like thistles, on 
 some reddish, and on others whitish spreading 
 leaves. After the fruit has grown about a month, 
 and is of the size of a walnut, there appears out of 
 each knob a three-leaved pointed little flower, which, 
 in the Common Ananas, is of a pale blue colour; oij 
 the Red Ananas, deep blue ; and on the third sort, 
 the Smooth Ananas, almost violet. This flower does 
 not fall off with the increase of the fruit, but 
 shrivels up, and leaves some visible remains be- 
 hind when, the fruit has attained its full maturity. 
 
l6 FOREIGN MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 The time, from the beginning of the fruit to its 
 perfect maturity, cannot be limited to a certain 
 number of days and weeks, since it depends very 
 much on the weather of two summers following. 
 During the spring, when the plants are in the hot- 
 house, a vefy natural growth may be obtained by 
 heating the stove, and by the sun shining at right 
 angles on the glass, which growth may be continued 
 during the summer. In autumn this cannot be the 
 case, because the sun has less power, and the rains 
 common to that season diminish it still more ; there- 
 fore, from December at latest, more and more arti- 
 ficial heat must be given to the plants, until they 
 begin in the middle of February, or at farthest in 
 the beginning of March, to show their fruit, which 
 then, with good summer weather and proper treat- 
 ment, will attain to maturity in the beginning of 
 July, and thus are five months ripening ; the fruit, 
 which shows itself in the beginning of March, wants 
 at least a fortnight more to ripen ; that which appears 
 in the middle of March wants a month more, and 
 consequently is six months coming to maturity ; 
 that which shows itself in April wants still more, 
 and seldom becomes so ripe as to obtain its proper 
 taste and smell. The agreeable smell which the 
 ripe Ananas emits on lifting up the sashes, is the 
 surest proof of maturity : it is then of a deep yel- 
 low, and the knobs have brownish yellow spots. 
 
 The time for removing the plants from the bark 
 bed into the flued pit, and hence again into the 
 bark bed, cannot be fixed, as this depends on the 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 17 
 
 weather, and on the length of summer or winter. 
 In some years I have been obUged to put them m 
 a hot-house in September, and keep them there 
 until April ; but in common years they are moved 
 into the hot-house on the 10th or 12th of October, 
 and from thence again into the hot-bed of tan in 
 the middle of March. The flues must be dried 
 by heating them before the plants are brought 
 into the hot-house, not only to remove the damp 
 which, on the first heating, is powerful and in- 
 jurious, but also to discover whether there are any 
 openings by which the smoke may escape into the 
 hot-house, for they must be carefully stopped up. 
 This pit or wintering house may be of any con- 
 venient length or breadth ; supposing two joined 
 together, then the fire flues (fig. 1. a. a.) may be 
 formed at the extreme ends; the smoke may first 
 enter and fill a vault of the whole width and length 
 of the pit (b.) ; it may afterwards enter a flue 
 (c. c.) and pass round the pit, and then out by a 
 chimney in the back wall. 
 
 
 The saslies of the pits at Drieoeck are six feet 
 wide, and three and a-half feet broad, and each has 
 a cover of boards which are raised up and let down 
 by means of cords and puUies, the better to retain 
 
 - - ■ c 
 
18 
 
 FOREIGN MOI>ES OP CULTIVATING 
 
 the heat in the winter months (^g, 2.) Tiieir 
 slope forms an angle, with the horizon of about 
 twenty degrees. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 z^fcrfeS 
 
 In these pits a boarded stage is formed, on 
 which the plants are set, so as to be almost touch- 
 ing the glass during winter ; during summer a bed 
 of tan is substituted for the boarded stage, and no 
 fire-heat is applied, but the plants plunged in the 
 tan. 
 
 The following is the general course of temper- 
 ature aimed at : — 
 
 Temperature during the first fourteen days in 
 October, when the plants are removed from the 
 hot-beds of bark to the stages in the flued pits, 
 87^ Fah. 
 
THE PIXE APPLE, 19 
 
 Temperature from this time till the 20th of the 
 January following, from 55^ to 64^. 
 
 Temperature from January to March not under 
 55^, Lowest degree admissible during winter 42*^. 
 Highest summer heat 105^. 
 
 Temperature of the bark hot-beds, in which the 
 plants are placed to fruit when air is given, 103^. 
 
 Ordinary summer heat for the fruiting plants 96®. 
 
 In Holland and Flanders, at the present day, the 
 Pine Apple is never grown in any other manner 
 than in pits and hot-beds. The crowns and suckers 
 are struck and forwarded, from three to six, or nine 
 months, in hot-beds, and afterwards removed to pits. 
 These pits differ from ours in being rather steeper in 
 the roof, and generally the fruiting pits have a pas- 
 sage at the back, with a flue against the back wall, 
 and an entrance door to the passage at one end. 
 In some the passage and flue are in front, and in 
 others a passage and flue are conducted round the 
 house, leaving the pit in the middle ; but this is 
 rather an uncommon form, and chiefly to be met 
 with in pits or stoves for ornamental plants. The 
 fuel in general use is peat, and the glass is well 
 covered with boards and matting or canvas or 
 thatch every night after sun-set, excepting in the 
 warmest part of the season. 
 
 The soil used by the Dutch is good garden earth, 
 mixed with a third part of well-rotten hot-bed 
 dung, or cow dung, and a sufficient quantity of 
 sand to render it free and pervious to moisture. 
 
 c 2 
 
!20 FOREIGN MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 The gardeners there are by no means so particular 
 in the article of soil, as many are in this country ; 
 their object seems to be to make it rich and free ; 
 without being very anxious as to employing virgin 
 soil only, or any particular kind of dung. They 
 generally, however, keep the mixture some time in 
 heaps, and turn it over once or twice before using it. 
 At the same time we have seen them shifting Pines, 
 and using a black rich earth newly dug out of an 
 adjoining plat of turnips ; only mixing it with a 
 little rotten dung and white sand. 
 
 They shift their plants in spring, and refresh the 
 surfaces of the pots in autumn, and they seem on the 
 whole to fruit them in larger pots than we do ; but 
 they leave off shifting them nine or ten months be- 
 fore the fruit is expected to appear, wishing to have 
 the pots filled with roots at this crisis. They sel- 
 dom fruit a crown plant under two years, and more 
 generally three, from the time it is taken from the 
 fruit; large suckers they fruit earlier, according 
 to their size when taken off the mother plant ; some 
 which come out from near the bottom of the stem 
 they earth up, and do not take off at all. These 
 come early into fruit, but it is not large. 
 
 Sect. 11. 
 Culture of the Pine Apple in Germany. 
 
 The Germans took their horticulture from the 
 Dutch, as they did their landscape gardening from 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 5^1 
 
 the French. They seem to have tried the culture 
 of the Pine Apple almost immediately after its in- 
 troduction to Holland; for, according to Beckmann, 
 it was ripened by Dr. Kaltschmidt at Breslaw in 
 1702, who sent some fruit to the Imperial Court; 
 but he states also that its culture was first attempt- 
 ed by Baron Munchausen, a great encourager of 
 gardening, and a botanist who had a fine demesne 
 and garden at Schwobber, near Hamelin, in West- 
 phaha. From the account of these gardens in the 
 Neuremberg Hesperides, they appear to have been 
 grown both in pits, and on stages in larger houses. 
 
 The king of Prussia grew the Pine Apple exten- 
 sively at Potsdam; he followed the Dutch man- 
 ner in every thing, and had a gardener from that 
 country who attended exclusively to the forcing 
 department at Sans Souci. The quantity of glass 
 there was greater than any where else in Germany : 
 the whole was kept in high order and good culture 
 for many years ; but after the king's death, in I786, 
 it soon fell into neglect ; the glass of most of the 
 peach-houses and vineries was removed or destroy- 
 ed ; the Pine plants were neglected and diminished 
 in numbers, from time to time. In 1813 the royal 
 gardens at Sans Souci contained only about two 
 dozen of Pine plants, which were kept in a lofty 
 opaque roofed conservatory, and these, as may be 
 easily imagined, were by no means in a thriving 
 condition. 
 
 Before the French Revolution, the Pine Apple 
 was cultivated at most of the court gardens in Ger- 
 
 c 3 
 
22 FOREIGN MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 many; but in the year 1814, there were very few 
 in th^ empire. 
 
 Sect. III. 
 
 Cultuic of the Pine Apple in Russia. 
 
 The Pine Apple is extensively cultivated in the 
 imperial gardens in the neighbourhood of Peters- 
 burg and Moscow, and also in those of a few of the 
 greatest nobility and mercantile men adjoining 
 those cities. Nothing can be more wonderful 
 than to contemplate the resources by which this 
 plant, requiring not less than from 50 to 70 degrees 
 of heat at all times of the year, is preserved in ex- 
 istence through a winter of seven months, during the 
 whole of which the ground is covered with snow, 
 and Fahrenheit's thermometer, often for weeks to- 
 gether, at 20^ below Zero. 
 
 The head gardeners of the emperor, and the 
 great nobles of Russia, are, for the greater part, 
 Britons ; and the sort of houses they erect, and the 
 mode of culture they follow, is as nearly as circum- 
 stances will admit, those of Speechly or Nicol. 
 
 The culture of the grape is, to a certain extent, 
 combined with that of the Pine Apple ; the former 
 is trained on the rafters, and the latter grown in 
 a pit, surrounded by flues and a path. In ad- 
 dition to the flues, many of the fruiting-houses 
 have stoves built in them, on the German con- 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 28 
 
 struction, which are used in the most severe wea- 
 ther. Sometimes there is a double roof of glass ; 
 but more generally the roof, ends, and fronts, are 
 covered with boards ; which not only prevents the 
 weight of sudden falls of snow from breaking the 
 glass, but by admitting of a coating of snow over 
 them, prevents, in a considerable degree, the in- 
 ternal heat from escaping. This covering, or a 
 covering of matts or canvass, as practised near 
 Moscow, and from which the snow is raked off as 
 fast as it falls, is sometimes kept on night and day 
 for three months together. The plants being all the 
 while in a dormant state, it is remarkable how 
 little they suffer. 
 
 The best ranges of hot-houses in the neighbour- 
 hood of Petersburg, have been imported there from 
 Leith, or London. At Moscow, where the same 
 faciUty of importation is not afforded, they are 
 constructed on the spot, in a very rude manner ; 
 in the best of them, the interstices between the 
 sashes and rafters are so large, that they have to 
 be stuffed with moss. Still it is astonishing how 
 well the Pine Apple is preserved in them through 
 a long winter, and what excellent peaches and 
 grapes they produce during summer. The cause 
 seems to be owing to the great care and skill of the 
 gardeners, in keeping the plants in a dormant 
 state, when there is but little light ; and in apply- 
 ing powerfully all the agents of growth and culture, 
 diu'ing the short, but warm Russian summer. 
 
 There are some German gardeners in Russia, 
 c 4 
 
^4 FOREIGN MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 who cultivate the Pine Apple in pits as in Holland ; 
 and crowns and suckers are forwarded in this way 
 by them, and also by the British gardeners settled 
 in that country. 
 
 Sect. IV. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple in France* 
 
 The culture of the Pine Apple does not appear 
 to have been commenced in France till after the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, and then only in 
 the royal gardens at Versailles, in those of the 
 Duke of Orleans at Mousseaux, and one or two 
 others. It has never been cultivated by above a 
 dozen persons in that country ; nor is it grown by 
 so great a number at the present time. The best 
 are in the garden of M. Boursault, within the 
 boundary of Paris ; and the next those of the king 
 at Trianon and Versailles, and of the banker La- 
 fitte, at his country-seat, a few leagues from the 
 capital. 
 
 M. Boursault grows them in low houses, which 
 may be termed pits, being without glass in the 
 front or ends 5 the plants are plunged in tan, and 
 kept as near the glass as possible ; and the soil 
 used is good garden earth, or free soil {terre- 
 franche), with about half its bulk oi' poudrette, or 
 desiccated nightsoil. M. Boursault tried them 
 formerly in the poudrette alone, but found they 
 did not succeed so well as when a smaller quantity 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 25 
 
 was used. He produces fruit from half a pound 
 to two pounds in weight, and it is said of a good 
 flavour. 
 
 Rosier states, that M. Mal- 
 let, a curious horticulturist, 
 grew ananas in a peculiarly 
 constructed frame of his own 
 invention (fig. 3.) ; but we 
 could see none of these frames 
 in use in any way, and were 
 
 informed by different persons, that they were too 
 expensive in their first cost to succeed. 
 
 The Pine plants in the royal gardens, did not 
 appear to us so well cultivated as those of M. 
 Boursault; they were very much drawn, and 
 seemed too sparingly watered. All the Pine 
 plants which we have seen in France, and also in 
 Italy, had this yellow sickly appearance ; and the 
 fruit produced was universally of small size ; one 
 of three pips is thought worth presenting to table. 
 It is certainly a very singular fact, and not hither- 
 to explained, that the Pine plant in a climate where 
 it gets more light than in Germany, Britain, or 
 Russia, should yet be less green than in those 
 countries. Had the reverse been the case, the 
 circumstance would not have been surprising; 
 but that more greenth should be produced in the 
 northern hemisphere, and under the torrid zone, 
 than under what might be considered as a happy 
 medium between two extremes, is astonishing, and 
 leads to a suspicion of deficiency of management. 
 
^6 FOREIGN MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 The cause seems referable to deficiency of water, 
 and too great heat during night ; for during day 
 they have the precaution to shade them fjom the 
 sun's direct influence. 
 
 Sect. V. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple in Italy. 
 
 The' Pine Apple was grown in Italy before the 
 revolution, by the Pope, at Naples, and by the king of 
 Sardinia, at Turin. The late king of Sardinia sent 
 his gardener to England, to study the culture of 
 this fruit ; and he returned and published in 1777> 
 a pamphlet on the subject. He recommends it to 
 be grown in pits, much the same as those of the 
 Dutch, but without flues, which is still the general 
 practice in Italy. After the possession of Piedmont 
 by the French, the royal palaces and gardens were 
 neglected, and in 1819, when we saw them, they 
 were not restored. 
 
 At the royal gardens, and those of Prince 
 Leopold, at Portici, near Naples, a few Pines are 
 grown in pits, by two German gardeners, that of 
 Prince Leopold, an intelligent man and a good 
 botanist ; but the plants, notwithstanding the fine 
 climate, are etiolated, slender, and pale, with very 
 small fruit. The pits were entirely sunk in the 
 ground, narrow, and without flues, and they were 
 shaded in the day-time with a net. It appeared to 
 us, that they were much too tenderly treated ; if 
 
THE PINE APPLE. ^7 
 
 uncovered in the night-time, or planted in the 
 open garden, and left exposed all the summer, 
 and covered with double glass frames during win- 
 ter, without any fire heat ; but, if occasion requir- 
 ed, surrounded by linings of dung, we have no 
 doubt they would succeed much better. 
 
 At Caserta, a royal palace about eighteen 
 miles from Naples, the Pine Apple is grown in a 
 style much superior. The gardens and grounds 
 there, were laid out by M. GraefFer, a German 
 gardener, who was formerly a partner in the firm 
 of Gordon, Thomson, & Co. London nurserymen. 
 The hot-houses are built exactly in the English 
 style ; the Pines raised and forwarded in pits, and 
 fruited in broad low houses, with vines trained 
 under the rafters, in Speechly's manner. M. 
 Graeffer died in 1816, and his son has still the care 
 of the royal gardens, and in 1819 had the Pines, in 
 what would be considered in this country, middling 
 good order. They were certainly of a much less 
 vivid green than those of England or Holland, and 
 the fruit was smaller ; M. Grseffer, jun. never having 
 been out of Italy, was not aware of the difference ; 
 but on enquiring into his mode of treatment, we were 
 led to suspect a deficiency of water and of mois- 
 ture, by watering the flues and paths of the house, 
 and too great a heat kept up during the night. The 
 air of Italy is, at most periods of the year, much 
 drier than that of the north of Europe ; that of 
 France and Germany is also drier than the air of 
 Holland, Britain, and Russia; and perhaps this 
 
28 FOREIGN MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 diiFerence in atmospheric moisture, and the over- 
 heating at night, may, in some measure, account 
 for the difference in the colour of the fohage of the 
 Pine and other plants kept under glass in France 
 and Italy. 
 
 There are some Pines grown at Rome, Florence, 
 and Genoa ; but they are not much better than 
 those of Portici. The greatest number, and the 
 finest plants and fruit which we saw in Italy, was 
 in the Vice-regal gardens at Monza, near Milan, 
 under the management of a most intelligent Italian 
 gardener, a pupil of Professor Thouin of Paris, 
 8ignior Luigi Vilaresi. The treatment is in all re- 
 spects that of the Dutch ; the plants are forwarded 
 in frames, and sometimes in the open air for a 
 month or two during summer ; they are fruited in 
 large pits, with a walk behind, and when more 
 plants come into fruit than are wanted, they are 
 retarded, or preserved, by being placed in a divi- 
 sion of the pit without bark, and where they re- 
 ceive abundance of air in the day-time, but no 
 water. The plants here were large and long-leaved, 
 but still not so green and stocky as those of Eng- 
 land, and the fruit did not appear to be above one 
 and a half, or two pounds in weight. On enquiry, 
 we found no air was ever left to the pits in the 
 night-time. 
 
the pine apple. ^9 
 
 Sect. VL 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple in other parts of Europe, 
 
 The Pine Apple has been fruited at Stockholm, 
 and in one or two places besides in Sweden ; and 
 also in the Court gardens at Copenhagen, and by 
 De Conninck, and some of the rich merchants of 
 Denmark ; but we could hear of none being grown 
 in either of these countries, when we visited them 
 in 1813 and 1814. 
 
 It is said to be cultivated in Spain, near the sea 
 coast ; and also at Lisbon. We know it was grown 
 by the late M. De Vismes, near the latter city; 
 and we believe it is now grown by some English 
 merchants at Seville ; but this is all we know. It 
 does not appear to be grown in European Turkey. 
 
30 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 OF THE DIFFERENT MODES OF CULTIVATING THE PINE 
 APPLE WHICH HAVE BEEN, AND ARE PRACTISED IN 
 BRITAIN BY PRACTICAL GARDENERS. 
 
 Xhe Pine Apple plant, as already obsei-ved, 
 seems to have been first introduced by Mr. Ben- 
 tick, afterwards re-introduced from Holland in 
 1719, and then first cultivated for its fruit in Sir 
 Matthew Decker's garden at Richmond. Here, 
 according to Professor Bradley, the gardener, *' Mr. 
 Henry Telende, imitated so successfully M. Le 
 Cour's newly discovered method of cultivating this 
 delicious fruit, that he is likely to ripen forty of 
 them in the present (17^4) autumn." (Husb, and 
 Gard, for June 1724, p. I6I.) He elsewhere tells 
 us that " the late instance of bringing the Ananas 
 or Pine Apple to perfection in England, by the in- 
 genuity of Mr. Telende at Sir Matthew Decker's, 
 has so far gained upon the curious, that already 
 many of our nobility have undertaken the same im- 
 provement ; and 'tis not to be doubted but a year 
 or two more will make this undertaking much more 
 general." He mentions " their being brought to ex- 
 traordinary perfection at the garden of the right 
 honourable Spencer Compton, Speaker of the 
 House of Commons, at Chiswick ; and at that 
 curious gentleman's, Mr. John Warner, Rother- 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 31 
 
 hithe." He informs us that an excellent stove on a 
 new plan, with a bark pit, was built by William 
 Parker, Esq. near Croydon, in Surry, to make 
 ** experiments in ripening fruits that has not been 
 tried 5" and that Mr. Fairchild, in 17^^, built one 
 at Hoxton for Pine Apples and other tender plants, 
 in which the fire flues were raised above the surface 
 of the floor, by which means all danger from damps 
 was avoided. Mr. Cowel, as before observed, 
 (p. 4.) states that in 1730 Pine Apple stoves were 
 to be found in almost every curious garden. Mr. 
 Telende's mode of cultivating the Pine Apple is 
 detailed by Professor Bradley in 17^4, and the 
 most generally approved mode of culture from that 
 time to the middle of the eighteenth century may 
 be considered as given by Miller in his Dictionary. 
 The improvements which have since been made by 
 practical gardeners, may be ranged under the heads 
 of Justice, Speechly, Abercrombie, M*Phail, Nicol, 
 Griffin, Baldwin, Andrews, Oldacre, Gunter, 
 Grange, and Alton. To each of these names we 
 shall devote a section ; and under each, consider in 
 succession, the form of house, soil, general treat- 
 ment, insects, and fruit produced. 
 
 Sect. I. 
 
 Mode of cultivating the Pine Apple practised hy Mr, Henry 
 Telende, in the Garden of Sir M. Decker, at Richmond, 1719, 
 to 1730, or later. 
 
 Form of Home, For the education and ripening 
 of this fruit, Mr. Telende employed a frame made of 
 
32 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 deal, closely jointed : the length eleven feet, divid- 
 ed equally into four lights ; the width seven feet and 
 a half; three feet high at the back, and about ten 
 inches in front. The pit was somewhat more than 
 five feet deep in the ground ; the sides were lined 
 with brick, and the bottom covered with pebbles. 
 
 The stove or fruiting-house used was that with 
 iron plates over the flues ; which, for greater warmth, 
 was covered thick with thatch, and the glasses Were 
 well guarded with shutters ; and that the fire might 
 be constant, he burnt only such turf as is com- 
 monly used in Holland, agreeable to M. Le Cour's 
 method. 
 
 General Management. About the middle of 
 February, he " puts in as much hot dung or horse- 
 litter as will raise the bed about a foot high, and 
 then lays on the tanner's bark as equally as possible, 
 till the case of brick- work is filled, beating down the 
 tan gently with a prong, or pressing it down easily 
 with a board. A bed of this kind will take up three 
 hundred bushels of tan, and if it be well made, will 
 heat in about fifteen days, provided the frame and 
 glasses are set over it. When the bed breathes a 
 right heat, which we are to judge of by a thermo- 
 meter, the plants are brought from the stove to it, 
 either to have their pots quite plunged into the 
 bark ; or, if upon opening the holes for them, the 
 bark be found too hot, then to be set in only half 
 way, laying a few pebbles under the bottom of each 
 pot, that the water may pass freely through them. 
 Care must be taken not to remove the pots in frost 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 33 
 
 or snow ; and to examine the bed from time to time^ 
 whether the bark grows mouldy, musty, or dry, 
 which it will often do in the summer : in such case, 
 it must be watered to recover its heat. Abed thus pre- 
 pared and managed will maintain a constant degree 
 of heat, sufficient to give these plants the utmost 
 vigour they require, from the end of February to the 
 end of October ; and then the plants must be again 
 removed into the stove or conservatory. In exces- 
 sive heats the glasses are tilted up at the back of 
 the frame ; and when the evenings are cool, the 
 bed must be carefully covered with substantial mat- 
 tresses of straw. A bed of this kind sinks about a 
 foot, which is convenient ; for otherwise the plants 
 would be too tall for the frame, before the time of 
 housing them. 
 
 " The thermometer used by Mr. Telende had a 
 tube twenty-four inches long, and one-eighth of an 
 inch in diameter. When the spirit rose only to 
 fifleeninches, he accounted the aircoldforhis plants j 
 at sixteen and a half temperate ; at eighteen warm, 
 which was his standard for Pine Apple heat; at 
 twenty inches, hot air ; and at twenty-one inches, 
 sultry."' 
 
 Insects. Nothing is said on this subject. 
 
 Fruit produced, Mr. Cowel says (Curious and 
 Profitable Gardener, p. S7.) that all gentlemen who 
 had eaten Pines abroad allowed those raised by Mr. 
 Telende to be as good and as large as they found 
 in the West Indies. Bradley says, forty Pines were 
 likely to ripen in the autumn of 1724. 
 
34 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 Sect. II. 
 
 Of the Culture of the Pine, as given by Phillip Miller 
 in his Gardener s Dictionary* 
 
 Form of House, It was formerly the practice. 
 Miller observes, to build dry stoves, in which the 
 plants were kept in winter, placed on scaffolds, 
 after the manner in which orange-trees are placed 
 in a green-house ; and in summer, in hot-beds of 
 tanners' bark, under frames. But it is now the 
 practice, he adds, to erect low stoves, called the 
 succession-house, with pits therein for the hot-bed. 
 It is also necessary to have a bark-pit under a deep 
 frame, for bringing forward the suckers and crowns 
 to supply the succession-house. 
 
 Mr. Miller's fruiting-house has upright glasses in 
 front, high enough to admit a person to walk up- 
 right on the walk in front of the house. Over the 
 upright glasses there must be a range of sloping 
 glasses, ** which must run to join the roof, which 
 should come so far from the back wall as to cover 
 the flues and the walk behind the tan-pit ; for if the 
 sloping glasses are of length sufficient to reach 
 nearly over the bed, the plants will require no more 
 light : therefore these glasses should not be longer 
 than is absolutely necessary, that they may be the 
 more manageable." 
 
 The difference between this stove and that of 
 Speechly is, that in the latter the sloping sashes 
 reach to the back wall, by which means, instead of 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 35 
 
 a useless opaque roof over the path, an excellent 
 place is formed for training a vine ; and this being 
 at all times the hottest part of the house, such vines 
 as are there trained will produce very early and 
 high-flavoured firuit. 
 
 The succession-house of Miller has no upright 
 glass, and only a walk at the back of the house : 
 the bark-pit may be partly sunk in the ground, if 
 the situation be dry ; or if wet, kept above it. 
 The flue makes three returns against the back wall, 
 beginning from the level of the walk. Many per- 
 sons, he says, have made tan-beds, with two flues 
 running through the back wall, and covered with 
 glasses, like common hot-beds ; but, besides the in- 
 convenience of taking off the glasses when the 
 plants want water, the damps rise in winter when 
 the glasses are closely shut, and there is danger of 
 the tan taking fire. 
 
 The improvement on this plan consists in de- 
 taching the flue from the back wall, and separating 
 it from the tan by a vacuity of two or three inches ; 
 or, what is still better, placing the flue in front 
 similarly detached, and surrounded by air on all 
 sides. 
 
86 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 Soil " As to the earth in which Pines should be 
 planted, if you have a rich good kitchen-garden mould, 
 not too heavy, so as to detain the moisture too long, 
 nor over light and sandy, it will be very proper for 
 them without any mixture : but where this is want- 
 ing, you should procure some fresh earth from a 
 good pasture, which should be mixed with about 
 a third part of rotten neats' dung, or the dung of an 
 old melon or cucumber bed, which is well con- 
 sumed. These should be mixed six or eight months 
 at least before they are used, but if it be a year, it 
 will be the better ; and should be often turned, that 
 their parts may be the better united, as also the 
 clods well broken. This earth should not be 
 screened very fine, but only cleared of the great 
 stones. You should always avoid mixing any sand 
 with the earth, unless it be extremely stiff, and then 
 it will be necessary to have it mixed at least six 
 months or a year before it is used : and it must be 
 frequently turned, that the sand may be incorpor- 
 ated in the earth, so as to divide its parts ; but you 
 should not put more tlian a sixth part of sand, for 
 too much is very injurious to these plants. 
 
 General Management. " There are some persons 
 who frequently shift these plants from pot to pot; 
 but this is by no means to be practised by those who 
 propose to have large well-flavoured fruit : for un- 
 less the pots be filled with the roots by the time 
 the plants begin to show their fruit, they commonly 
 produce small fruit, which have generally large 
 crowns on th^m ; therefore the plants will not re- 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 37 
 
 quire to be j)otted oftener than twice in a season. 
 The first time should be about the end of April, when 
 the suckers and crowns of the former year's fruit 
 (which remained all the winter in those pots in 
 which they were first planted) should be shifted 
 into larger pots. The second time for shifting them 
 is in the beginning of August, when you should 
 vsliift those plants which are of a proper size for 
 fruiting the following spring. At each of these 
 times of shifting the plants, the bark-bed should be 
 stirred up, and some new bark added, to raise the 
 bed up to the height it was at first made ; and when 
 the pots are plunged again into the bark-bed, the 
 plants should be watered gently all over their 
 leaves, to wash off the filth, and to settle the earth 
 to the roots of the plants. If the bark-bed be well 
 stirred, and a quantity of good fresh bark added 
 to the bed, at this latter shifting, it will be of great 
 service to the plants ; and they may remain in the 
 same tan until the beginning of November, or 
 sometimes later, according to the mildness of the 
 season. 
 
 " In the summer season, when the weather is warm, 
 the plants must be frequently watered ; but you 
 should not give them large quantities at a time : 
 you must also be very carefiil that the moisture is 
 not detained in the pots by the holes being stopped, 
 for that will soon destroy the plants. In very warm 
 weather they should be watered twice or three times 
 a week ; but in a cool season, once a week will be 
 often enough j and during the summer season, you 
 
 D 3 
 
38 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 should once a week water them gently all over 
 their leaves, which will wash the filth from off them, 
 and thereby greatly promote the growth of the 
 plants. During the winter season, these plants will 
 not require to be watered oftener than once a week, 
 according as you find the earth in the pots to dry : 
 nor should you give them too much at each time ; 
 for it is much better to give them a little water 
 often than to over- water them, especially at this 
 season." 
 
 Insects, After describing the white scale or 
 mealy pine-bug (cocus hesperidimiy L.) he says, 
 " wherever these insects appear on the plants, the 
 safest method will be to take the plants out of the 
 pots, and clear the earth from the roots ; then pre- 
 pare a large tub, which should be filled with water, 
 in which there has been a strong infusion of tobacco- 
 stalks; into this tub you should put the plants, 
 placing some sticks across the tub, to keep the 
 plants immersed in water. In this water they 
 should remain twenty-four hours ; then take them 
 out, and with a sponge wash off all the insects from 
 the leaves and roots, which may be easily effected 
 when the insects are killed by the infusion ; then cut 
 off all the small fibres of the roots, and dip the plants 
 into a tub of fair water, washing them therein. 
 Then you should pot them in fresh earth, and hav- 
 ing stirred up the bark-bed, and added some new 
 tan to give a fresh heat to the bed, the pots should 
 be plunged again, observing to water them all over 
 fhe leaves (as was before directed), and this should 
 
THE PINE Al^LE. 39 
 
 be repeated once a week during the summer season ; 
 for I observe these insects always multiply much 
 faster where the plants are kept dry, than in such 
 places where the plants are sometimes sprinkled 
 over with water, and kept in a growing state. 
 And the same is also observed in America ; for it is 
 in long di'oughts that the insects make such des- 
 truction in the sugar-canes. And in those islands, 
 where they have had several very dry seasons, they 
 have increased to such a degree as to destroy the 
 greatest part of the canes in the islands, rendering 
 them not only unfit for sugar, but poison the juice 
 of the plant, so as to disqualify it for making rum ; 
 whereby many planters have been ruined. 
 
 " As these insects are frequently brought over 
 from America on the ananas plants, those persons 
 who procure their plants from thence should look 
 carefully over them when they receive them, to see 
 they have none of these insects on them ; for if they 
 have, they will soon be propagated over all the 
 plants in the stove where these are placed : there- 
 fore, whenever they are observed, the plants should; 
 be soaked (as was before directed) before they are 
 planted into pots." 
 
 Fruit produced. Miller finds suckers and crowns, 
 if equal in size and strength, fruit equally soon ; 
 and has seen as good fruit produced from plants 
 received from the West Indies, as from any he has 
 seen, and some three times larger than any he saw 
 in M. Le Cour's garden. 
 
 * D 4 
 
40 
 
 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 Sect. III. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple^ hy James Justice^ Esq. F,R,S* at 
 CrichtoHf near Edinburgh, in 1732, and for some years after' 
 •wards. 
 
 This gentleman was one of the greatest amateurs 
 of gardening of his time, and a most successful 
 cultivator of every thing he attempted. He had a 
 fine garden at Crichton, near Edinburgh, and cor« 
 responded with various foreign horticulturists of 
 Holland and Italy, as well as with Miller, Bradley^ 
 and other eminent English gardeners of his time. 
 
 Form of House. Justice, writing in 17^4, says,. 
 " There have of late years been erected in England 
 and Scotland, many sorts of stoves for the culture 
 of the Pine Apple ; but I am sure, after many ex- 
 periments, that the plan here annexed is the best. 
 
 In this stove, (fig. 5.) with one fire, I can do the 
 business of two stoves, which must have two fires, 
 and cultivate the old as well as the young plants," 
 The front and ends of this house are of glass, as well 
 as the roof J the flue enters from behind at one end, 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 41- 
 
 passes along the middle of the house, returns 
 on itself^ and then makes four returns in the 
 back wall. The path- way enters from behind, at 
 the end opposite to that at which the flue enters ; 
 proceeds to the middle of the house, along the 
 middle, till it meets the flue at the opposite ; and 
 then it turns round till it meets the flue against the 
 back wall, close by the furnace. By this arrange- 
 ment of the walk, no interruption is given to the 
 flue ; which is of great consequence, where it has so 
 many returns to perform. A furnace invented by 
 Mr. James Scot, of Turnham Green, a commercial 
 Pine-grower of those days, is recommended. It is 
 cast in one piece, and requires a wrought-iron door 
 and a cast-iron plate to build over the chamber. 
 Justice agrees with Miller in recommending the 
 furnace to be built within the house, (but supplied 
 from without) in order that no heat may be lost. 
 
 The plan given requires no succession-house ; 
 but he describes a frame used by many persons for 
 growing young Pines, " made in the same manner as 
 common hot-bed frames, but higher and broader ; 
 that is, three feet higher at the back, sloping to one 
 and a half in front, and six feet wide." These cover 
 a tan-pit causewayed at bottom, and surrounded 
 by a stone wall. It is very proper, he says, to have 
 these frames at work as well as the stoves. He 
 also mentions flued pits, such as are described by 
 Miller (Sect. S.) Both stoves and pits he covers 
 with boards, tarpauling, or mats, at night; and 
 the fuel he uses is coal or peat, avoiding wood as 
 of too rapid consumption. 
 
4^ BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 Soil, Two-thirds of good loamy kitchen-garden 
 mould, one-third of old rotten cows' dung, or hot- 
 bed dung, and to every eight barrowfuls of this a 
 barrowful of sea-sand. He adds, ** If your ground 
 is naturally sandy, after having mixed it with the 
 dung above mentioned, add thereto a third of 
 good fat marl ; which succeeded so well with me, 
 that in this compost I had much larger fruit than in 
 any other compound which I used to give them, 
 which induced me to put, at all times, a good deal 
 of marl in the compost I used for these plants." 
 This mixture shoidd lie for six months in those 
 parts of the garden w^hich are airy and least ex- 
 posed to the sun ; after the first three months, turn 
 it over every fortnight. Scots Gardeners^ Directory , 
 5d edit. p. 124. 
 
 General management. The same as is given by 
 Miller. He tried some plants turned out of the 
 pots with their balls, and planted in the bark for the 
 last nine months before the fruit ripened, and found 
 the fruit larger and earlier, but not better flavoured 
 than that of the plants in pots. In shifting, he 
 never cuts off any of the leaves ; "for it is certain," 
 he adds, " that the leaves of all plants and trees bear 
 the same office to them, as the pulmonary vessels 
 do to human bodies." He waters over the leaves 
 when the plants have shewn fruit ; because the fruit 
 stalks, occupying what in young plants was a hol- 
 low tube, no injury can happen. P. 129. 
 
 Insects, At the first appearance of the bug, he 
 picks off the scale with a piri ; and if that does not 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 43 
 
 clean the leaves, he washes with a sponge ; and, in 
 extreme cases, uses Miller's mode. 
 
 Fruit produced. The object of all his directions 
 is, " to have fruit large, good, and early, in a right 
 season; viz. from the middle of June to the middle 
 of September, but no later ; for the rays of the 
 sun, at that time, have not strength enough to give 
 them that poignancy of smell and taste that they 
 ought to have." P. 134. " Cut fruit when their 
 smell is strongest and most poignant ; if too ripe, 
 they soon turn insipidly sweet, and have no more . 
 taste than an orange. Cut them about ten o'clock 
 in the forenoon, with about four inches of stalk to 
 them. When the fruit is to be sent to a distance, 
 cut a day or more before they are ripe, with a 
 larger portion of stalk to them, and wrap them 
 very close in paper, to preserve them from the air ; 
 otherwise their flavour will escape." P. 13^, 
 
 • Sect. IV. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple, by John Giles y at Letvisham, 
 hi Kent, 1767. 
 
 This author, who was gardener to Lady Boyd, 
 and afterwards foreman in the Lewisham nursery, 
 says, he writes after many years' practice and ob- 
 servation ; and that his treatise will be found " of 
 more real advantage to a young unexperienced 
 gardener, than his giving a premium of five or 
 ten guineas to a mercenary old one (who perhaps 
 might have had some practice, with a trifling de- 
 
44 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 gree of success,) to learn — what ? why, to spoil his 
 plants, with the loss of both money and reputation." 
 
 '* Notwithstanding the directions of Miller, Hill, 
 (probably alluding to a letter on the Pine Apple 
 in " Gardener's New Calendar," written by Sir 
 John Hill, under his assumed name of Barnes,) 
 Header, &c. who have endeavoured to explore the 
 method how the Pine Apple is to be grown ; yet, 
 upon trial, tlie success has always fallen much 
 short of their expectation. For these reasons, Mr. 
 Giles " presents the public with explicit directions 
 for managing and bringing to perfection the Pine 
 Apple ; in which all the obstacles and difficulties 
 which gardeners have met with in raising that fruit 
 are remedied, and the true method pointed out in 
 a clear and satisfactory manner." Preface, p. vii. 
 
 Form of House » The plants are brought forward 
 in pits, and afterwards fruited in a stove forty feet 
 long and twelve feet wide, with a pit six feet wide, 
 surrounded by a path, and a flue which makes three 
 returns in a flue close under the back wall. The 
 front of the pit is about three, and the back about 
 ^VQ feet from the glass. It will fruit, he says, a 
 hundred plants annually, they being brought for- 
 ward in the low pits or frames, and removed to the 
 fruiting-house in September or October. 
 
 The obvious objection to the plan of his house is 
 the having no flue in front. 
 
 Soil. A rich hazely loam from a well-pastured 
 common. This soil alone, he says, not only an- 
 swers well for Pines, but for most vegetables. 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 45 
 
 General Management, He recommends keeping 
 a moist atmosphere in the house, and giving abun- 
 dance of air when the plants are in fruit. His 
 other directions relate to mere routine practices, 
 and offer nothing else worth quoting. 
 
 Insects, A moist atmosphere, he says, will keep 
 down these. <* It is only poor plants," he says, 
 " which are not in a good state of health, that 
 are infested with insects. They are encouraged 
 by the warmth and dryness of the air of the stove, 
 and the bad state of the plants ; but where cleanli- 
 ness and moisture are attended to, there will never 
 be any worth notice." P. 36. 
 
 Fruit produced. He fruits tlie Queen Pine in 
 two years, at the usual season ; but does not state 
 to what size the fruit attains. 
 
 Sect. V. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple, by Adam Taylor, Gardener at 
 Devizes f in Wiltshire, 1769. 
 
 This author, who was gardener to J. Sutton, 
 Esq. at New Park, professes " to lay down a 
 mode by which the Pine Apple may be produced 
 in higher perfection, with more ease and less ex- 
 pense than has been hitherto known in this cli- 
 mate." He offers his treatise with confidence, as 
 not being founded on hypothesis, but on some 
 years' experience ; and it may be depended on, as 
 " it admits of the attestation of many persons 
 whose taste and judgment are unquestionable," 
 
46 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 " The present way," he says, " of raising Pine 
 Apples, is made so chargeable by the erection of 
 hot-houses, and the consumption of fuel, that many, 
 even of tolerable fortunes, have been deterred by 
 the consideration of it, from raising this desirable 
 fruit. It is farther attended with trouble, and much 
 uncertainty ; and the fruit itself rarely answers the 
 expense either in size, number, or quality. But by 
 the practice now recommended, these several in- 
 conveniences are sufficiently obviated. There are 
 very few, even of commercial gardeners, who are 
 not able to accumulate the necessary quantity 
 of horse-dung, which is the principal article for 
 this valuable end. And by such application of it, 
 they shall not fail to find their hopes abundantly 
 answered, and their labour well repaid." P. 3. 
 
 Form of House. He both rears and fruits them 
 in a pit. This he forms either of boards, or of 
 brick- work three feet deep, and of any convenient 
 length and width; and on the walls or boards, 
 which inclose the tan, he places a frame two and a half 
 feet deep in front, and four feet high behind. The 
 ends and front are of glass, and the latter is form- 
 ed into small sashes, which slide in a groove. The 
 back is formed of inch boards, and against these he 
 places a powerful lining of dung. 
 
 The pit he fills with tan, or dung, as may be 
 most convenient ; dung, he says, does as well as tan, 
 and only requires a little more trouble, which is 
 amply repaid to the gardener by the value of the 
 
 19 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 47 
 
 dung to the garden, when no longer in active fer- 
 mentation. 
 
 An anonymous annotator (to the copy of 
 Taylor's book, in the library of the Horticultural 
 Society) says, " I find by experience, that the 
 dung of four horses is sufficient to work twa 
 frames twenty-six feet each in length, and six in 
 breadth ; one for the fruiting-house, the other for 
 succession plants ; and that it may be reasonably 
 expected to cut forty fruit yearly after the first 
 year, and the dung as valuable for the field or gar- 
 den, as if this use had not been made of it." P. 3, 
 
 Soil. ** Take one load of mould from under the 
 tiu'f of a good pasture, and, if it be very light, add 
 to it the fourth part of a load of good mellow loam : 
 but if it be of itself of a loamy nature, mix into 
 it two or three bushels of sea-sand. Then take the 
 fourth part of a load of dung from a cow-yard, if 
 it can be thence procured ; but if not, take the 
 same quantity of good rotten dung from your old 
 cucumber or melon beds. Mix these well toge- 
 ther, and turn the whole three or four times, that 
 it may thoroughly imbibe the air. All the large 
 clods should be well broken, but not sifted or 
 screened, as is the practice with many; so shall 
 you have a compost, which is excellently adapt- 
 ed to the growth and noui*ishment of the plants/* 
 P. 15. 
 
 General Management, He takes great care to 
 keep his plants in a dormant state during winter; 
 but about the end of March and April, he applies 
 
48 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 linings, and brings them into a growing state, 
 shifting all those not intended for fruiting that sea- 
 son. He covers the frames at night throughout 
 the year with straw, and a sail-cloth over, excepting 
 in the warmest part of summer ; at that season, 
 during fine showers, he removes the sashes en- 
 tirely, and lets the plants receive a gentle watering. 
 He frequently waters over the leaves in the after- 
 noons with a pot having a fine rose, and shuts up 
 early; which he finds produces a moist heat, rapid 
 growth, and keeps down insects. In winter he uses 
 a tin pipe, to keep the water from touching the 
 leaves of the plants ; and as he has a very low tem- 
 perature at that season, he gives them very little. 
 
 Insects, These he is not much troubled with ; but 
 he says, " Such plants as are attacked by them, 
 should be immediately taken out of the frame, and 
 plunged into a moderate hot-bed made of dung ; 
 this hot-bed should be covered with one or two 
 cucumber-frames, adapted to the height of the 
 plants. Let these frames be covered with lights ; 
 so as to confine the steam of the dung. As soon as 
 the plants receive the heat of this bed, water them 
 all over the tops of the leaves with cold water. 
 This will effectually destroy the insects ; after which 
 the plants are to be restored to the covered frame 
 again. A trial or two of this will convince any 
 person of the infallible efficacy of it.'' P. 38. 
 
 It thus appears that he destroys them by the 
 operation of the ammoniacal gas, much in the same 
 manner as does Mr. Baldwin. 
 
'*^* 
 
 THE PINE APPLEv 49 
 
 Fruit produced. He says nothing of the weight 
 of the fruit, but he calculates on fruiting the 
 plants in two years, and ripening the fruit only in 
 summer and autumn, or between July and October 
 inclusive; and he prefers the Queen Pine to all 
 others. 
 
 Sect. VI. 
 
 Culhtre of the Pine Ajjple hy William SpeecMy, gardener to 
 his Grace the Duke of Portland, at Welbecic, in Nottingham- 
 shire, 1779. 
 
 The culture of the Pine, Mr. Speechly observes, 
 has already been treated of by many persons, who 
 have varied much in the methods they have recom- 
 mended. Far from meaning to depreciate their la- 
 bours, he adds, " my advice and pretensions rest 
 solely upon the success which I have met with in 
 my experiments.*' He went to serve the Duke of 
 Portland in I767, and published his book after 
 eleven years' experience. He continued at Welbeck 
 till about the year 1800. 
 
 Form of House, The great object of Mr. 
 Speechly seems to have been to combine the cul- 
 ture of the Pine and Vine ; and for this purpose he 
 adopted one form both for his succession and fruit- 
 ing-house ; training Vines up the rafters, and on 
 the upper part of the back wall. 
 
nr 
 
 w 
 
 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 In many places small stoves of a particular con- 
 struction (in the which the Pines stand very near the 
 glass) are erected solely for the pui-pose of Fruit' 
 ing-houses. These, from their being always kept 
 up to a high degree of heat, are by gardeners 
 usually termed Roasters, (%. 7.) When there 
 is such conveniency, it is customary, when 
 any Pine-plants show fruit in the large stoves^ to 
 remove such plants (especially the most promising) 
 directly into the fruiting-house ; where, from the 
 high degree of heat kept, they generally swell their 
 fruit astonishingly. 
 
 It is observable that Pines always succeed best 
 in stoves that have been newly erected ; on which 
 account, some of the more curious in the cultivation 
 of this fruit have judged it expedient to pull down 
 and rebuild their Pine-stoves every ten or twelve 
 years. Although I cannot subscribe to such expen- 
 sive mode of procedure, I shall here beg to state 
 the many advantages that accrue from keeping 
 Pine-stoves in good and proper repair. 
 
 Fir^t, by keeping the flues clean from soot, and 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 51 
 
 air-proof, they will heat the house better, and much 
 less fuel will serve. 
 
 Secondly, by a due attention to keeping the in- 
 side of the roof, &c. duly painted, and by con- 
 stantly white- washing the walls and flues in every 
 part of the house, the plants will be greatly bene- 
 fited, both from having a better reflection and from 
 cleanliness. 
 
 A further advantage in stoves newly built may 
 also here be remarked. Where tan only is used, 
 the beds are always filled at the first with new tan 
 entire ; but afterwards, constantly with new and 
 old tan intermixt. 
 
 Lastly, it is probable that stoves, newly erected, 
 derive their greatest benefit from the good con- 
 dition of the glass-work ; for, however well it may 
 be kept in repair afterwards, it is certain that there 
 never is so much light in an old stove as was at 
 the first. Dirt will find its way into the cavities 
 between the squares, &c. which, obstructing the sun's 
 rays, darkens and gives a gloominess to the stove. 
 
 E 2 
 
5^ 
 
 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 He describes a Pine-stove to be heated by steain,. 
 in which the vapour is admitted to a brick vault, 
 over which is the bed of tan or earth ;; this is sur- 
 rounded by a path and smoke-flues, exactly as in 
 the common form of hot-house. 
 
 He also gives a plan of a furnace for burning 
 lime as well as heating hot-houses, as erected at 
 Billing, in Northamptonshire, and at Lady E. 
 Ponsonby's, at Bishop's Court, in Ireland; and, 
 subsequently, at various other places in that coun^ 
 
 try. 
 
 8 
 
 E ^ 
 
 In these kiln-furnaces, (fig. 8.) the heat, after 
 passing through the limestone in the kiln or cruci- 
 ble ( a ), enters the flue ( e ), and passes through it 
 in the usual manner. The grate on which the fuel 
 burns ( g? ) is contrived to draw out by means of a 
 grooved frame ( e ), as soon as the lime in the cru- 
 cible is burned, which then falls into the asJi- 
 pit (Jb), and is removed. 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 53 
 
 Soil, After numerous experiments made with 
 mixtures, of cow, deer, sheep, pigeon, hen, and 
 rotten stable dung, with soot, and other manures, 
 in various proportions, with fresh pasture-soil of 
 different qualities, he says, I can venture -to recom- 
 mend the following : 
 
 In the month of April or May, let the sward or 
 turf of a pasture, w4iere the soil is a strong rich 
 loam, and of a reddish colour, be pared off, not 
 more than tw^o inches thick : let it then be ,carried 
 to the pens in sheep-pastures, where sheep are fre- 
 quently put for the purpose of dressing, which 
 places should be cleared of stones, &c. and made 
 smooth ; then let the turf be laid, with ±he grass- 
 side downwards, and only one course thick ; liere 
 it may continue two, three, or more months, during 
 which time it should be turned with a spade once 
 or twice, according as the pen is more or less fre- 
 quented by the above animals ; who, with their 
 urine and dung, will enrich the turf to a great de- 
 gree, and their feet will reduce it, and prevent any 
 weeds from growing. 
 
 After the turf has lain a sufficient time, it 
 should be brought to a convenient place, and laid 
 in a heap for at least six months, (if a twelvemonth 
 it will be the better,) being frequently turned 
 during that time ; and after being made pretty fine 
 with a spade, but not screened, it will be fit for 
 use. 
 
 In })laces where the above mode cannot be 
 adopted, the mixture may be made by putting a 
 
 E 3 
 
54f BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 quantity of sheep's dung (or deer's dung, if it can 
 be got) and turf together. But here it must be 
 obsei^ved, that the dung should be collected from 
 the pastures when newly fallen ; also, that a larger 
 proportion should be added, making an allowance 
 for the want of urine. 
 
 1. Three wheelbarrows of the above reduced 
 sward or soil ; one barrow of vegetable mould 
 from decayed oak-leaves, or leaves of other deci- 
 duous trees, and half a barrow of coarse sand, 
 make a compost-mould for Crowns, Suckers, and 
 Young Plants. 
 
 2. Three wheelbarrows of swailh, reduced as 
 above, two barrows of vegetable mould, one barrow 
 of coarse sand, and one-fourth of a barrow of soot, 
 make a compost-mould for fruiting plants. 
 
 The above composts should be made some months 
 before they are wanted, and very frequently turned 
 during that time, that the different mixtures may 
 get well and uniformly incorporated. 
 
 It is observable, that in hot-houses, where Pine- 
 plants are put in a light soil, the young plants fre- 
 quently go into fruit the first season, and are then 
 what gardeners term runners -^ on the contrary, 
 where plants are put in a strong rich soil, they will 
 continue to grow, and not fruit even at a proper 
 season : therefore, from the nature of the soil from 
 whence the sward was taken, the quantity of sand 
 used must be proportioned ; when the loam is not 
 strong, sand will be unnecessary in the compost 
 for young plants. 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 53 
 
 I conceive that the urine of sheep contains a 
 greater quantity of mucilage, or oleaginous matter, 
 than the dung of those animals : and this opinion 
 is founded upon observations made in sheep-pas- 
 tures; where, during the summer months, the effects 
 of both are easily distinguished. I also presume 
 that the reduced sward in the pens receives a very 
 considerable degree of fertility from the feet of the 
 sheep. 
 
 Where oak-leaves are not used in hot-houses in- 
 stead of bark, the vegetable-mould may be made 
 by laying a quantity of them together, in a heap 
 sufficiently large to ferment, as soon as they fall 
 from the trees : they should be covered for some 
 time at first, to prevent the upper leaves from being 
 blown away. The heap should ^lerwards be fre- 
 quently turned, and kept clean from weeds : the 
 leaves will be two years before they are sufficiently 
 reduced to be fit for use. 
 
 I shall j ust observe, that it will be proper to keep 
 the different heaps of compost at all times clean 
 from weeds, to turn them frequently, and to round 
 them up in long rainy seasons. If covered, the 
 better : but they should be spread abroad in con- 
 tinued frosts, and in fine weather. 
 
 General Management, The pots he recommends 
 are : 
 
 Inches diameter Inches 
 at the top. ' 4eep. 
 
 1. Pots for full-sized crowns 
 
 and suckers .... 6 5^ 
 
 E 4 
 
56 BItlTJSH MOPES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 2. 
 
 Inches diameter 
 
 Inches 
 
 at the top. 
 Pots for plants to fruit the 
 
 deep. 
 
 following season when 
 
 
 shifted in March . . Si- 
 
 7 
 
 Pots for fruiting plants . Hi: 
 
 10 
 
 I wish it to be understood that the above dimen^ 
 sions are only used for full-sized plants, at their dif- 
 ferent periods : plants below the standard must 
 have less-sized pots in proportion, 
 
 Sometimes, he observes, hot-beds are made 
 for the suckers. When that is the case, they 
 should be prepared at least fourteen days before 
 the suckers are taken off, in order that the vio- 
 lence of the heat may be over : after the bed has 
 been made ten days, it should be levelled, and 
 covered eight or ten inches with tan ; and after 
 this has lain four or five days, in case the heat of 
 the bed should not be violent, the pots may be 
 plunged into it. 
 
 In respect of temperature and water, he advises 
 only a moderate heat, and not much water, during 
 the winter months ; but an increase of both, ac- 
 companied with more air, as the season advances. 
 
 There is nothing, he says, so prejudicial to 
 the Pine-apple plant, (insects and an over-heat of 
 the tan excepted,) as forcing them to grow by 
 making large fires, and keeping the hot-house warm 
 at an improper season ; which is injudiciously done 
 in many hot-houses. It is inconsistent with rea- 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 57 
 
 son, and against nature, to force a tropical plant in 
 this climate in a cold dark season, such as gener- 
 ally happens here in the months of November and 
 December ; and plants so treated will in time show 
 the injury done them : if large plants for fruiting, 
 they generally show very small fruit-buds with weak 
 stems ; and, if small plants, they seldom make 
 much progress in the beginning of the next sum- 
 mer. 
 
 As the length of the days, and power of the sun 
 increases, the plants will begin to grow, and from 
 that time it will be absolutely necessary to keep 
 them in a regular growing state ; for if young 
 plants receive a check afterwards, it generally 
 causes many of them to go into fruit. From the 
 time they begin to grow they will demand a little 
 water : once in a week or ten days, as the weather 
 may prove more or less favourable, will be suffi-. 
 cient till the middle of March, which is the most 
 eligible season to shift them in their pots. If that 
 work is done sooner, it will prevent the plants from 
 striking freely ; and if deferred longer, it will check 
 them in their summer's growth. 
 
 In this shifting I always shake off the whole of 
 the ball of earth, and cut off all the roots that are 
 of a black colour, carefully preserving such only as 
 are white and strong. I then put such plants as 
 are intended to fruit the next season into second- 
 sized pots with fresh mould entire. 
 
 The bed at this time should be renewed with a 
 Jittle fresh tan, in order to promote its heating, and 
 
dS BRITISH MODES OP CULTIVATING 
 
 the pots plunged therein immediately. The hot- 
 house should be kept pretty warm till the heat of 
 the tan begins to arise, as it will be the means of 
 causing the plants to strike both sooner and 
 stronger. As soon as the heat of the bed begins 
 to arise, it will be proper to give the plants a 
 sprinkling of water over their leaves ; and as soon 
 as they are perceived to grow, they will require a 
 little water once a week for a short time, and after- 
 wards twice a week till the next time of shifting 
 them in their pots. 
 
 During the summer months give the plants 
 plenty of air whenever the weather is warm, and 
 water properly, as has been described : let the pots 
 be kept in a regular constant heat, and clean from 
 weeds ; but above all, avoid an over-heat of the 
 tan. Some persons plunge a thermometer in the 
 tan, with the ball of its tube as deep as the bottom 
 of the Pine-pots ; and by repeated observations, a 
 point is fixed for the spirits in the part of the tube 
 above the surface of the tan, to show when the 
 pots should be raised. Whether the above, or the 
 putting watch-sticks in the tan (which is the most 
 common method) is practised, too much attention 
 cannot be had whenever there is the appearance 
 of too violent a heat in the tan. 
 
 If the above directions are strictly attended to, 
 the plants will be grown to a large size by the be- 
 ginning of August ', when they should be shifted 
 into the largest-sized fruiting-pots, with their roots 
 and balls entire. 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 59 
 
 But it ^^dll be proper here to observe, that in some 
 hot-houses it is found difficult to get plants of the 
 Antigua and Sugar-loaf kinds to fruit at a proper 
 age ; and, in that case, I advise the shaving off the 
 roots on tlie outside, and reducing the balls of 
 them at this shifting. A greater proportion of sand 
 should also be added to the compost, which will 
 be the means of bringing them into a fruiting state 
 at a proper season. 
 
 The disproportion of the second-sized and fruit- 
 ing-pots is so great, as to admit of a good quantity 
 of fresh mould at this shifting, which is absolutely 
 necessary to support the plants till their fruit be- 
 comes ripe : it also affords an opportunity of per- 
 forming, the operation of shifting the plants with- 
 out injuring their roots. As there will be a large 
 space between the ball and the side of the pot, the 
 mould may be put round the ball with great ease ; 
 whereas, when plants are shifted into pots only a 
 small size larger than those from whence they were 
 taken, they are generally much injured by the ope- 
 ration of shifting : besides, even with the greatest 
 care, there will frequently be spaces left hollow 
 between the ball and the side of the pot. 
 
 A little fresh tan should be added, and the bed 
 forked up, but not to the bottom of the pit, as the 
 tan is liable to heat violently at this season of the 
 year ; of which when there is the least appearance, 
 the pots should be raised immediately. The delay 
 of doing it one day may be attended with very bad 
 consequences. 
 
60 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 The plants will continue to grow very fast this 
 and the following month, and should therefore be 
 watered pretty plentifully, at least twice a week ; 
 and, in the summer waterings, it should be ob- 
 served, that it will be of great service to the plants 
 to be watered once a fortnight all over their leaves. 
 If the month of October be wet and cold, the 
 plants should not be watered above twice in that 
 month ; but if fine and clear, once a week : and 
 here ends the watering of the fruiting plants for 
 the season. I never give them any water in the 
 months of November and December ; and during 
 that time I keep the hot-house in a cold state, but 
 a bottom heat is always required; therefore the 
 tan should have been renewed, and the old part of 
 it screened about the end of October or beginning 
 of November : from which time the bed will gene- 
 rally retain a moderate warmth till the beginning 
 of January, when the tan should again be renewed. 
 From that time the hot-house should be kept a few 
 degrees warmer ; and, as soon as the tan begins to 
 ferment, the plants may have a little water given 
 them. 
 
 In this month (January) some of the plants will 
 appear set for fruiting, which may be distinguish- 
 ed by the short leaves in their centres ; and from 
 that time they should be moderately watered (till 
 the middle of March) and the hot-house should 
 be kept pretty warm ; a little air should, however, 
 be admitted, whenever the weather will permit. 
 
 About the middle of March it will be proper 
 
TtiE Pl!^E APPLE. 6l 
 
 to renew the tan-bed, and, at the same time, the 
 plants should be divested of a few of their bottom' 
 leaves ; the mould on tlie top of the pots should 
 be taken off as deep as can be done without injur- 
 ing the roots, and the pots filled up with fresh 
 compost-earth, which will add to the vigour of the 
 plants, a& well as give a neatness to the whole when 
 finished. 
 
 It is very injurious to the plants^ and greatly 
 retards the swelling of the fruit, to remove them 
 after this season ; therefore, in case the heat of the 
 bed should deelinCy a fresh heat may be got with- 
 out moving the plants, by taking out the tan be- 
 twixt the pots as deep as possible, and filling that 
 space up with fresh tan This method is prac- 
 tised by some even at an earlier season. 
 
 The plants at this season will demand a kind, 
 lively bottom heat ; and whenever the weather will 
 permit, a great quantity of air should be admitted 
 into the hot-house^ the want of a due proportion of 
 which would cause the stems of the fruit to draw 
 themselves weak, and grow tall ; after which the 
 fruit never swells kindly. 
 
 As the fruit and suckers begin to advance in 
 size, the plants will require plenty of water to 
 support them, which may be given them at least 
 twice, and sometimes three times a week ; but too 
 much should not be given them at one time ; it is 
 better to give them less at a time, and oftener. 
 
 Sticks should be provided to support the fruit 
 before it is grown too large j and, in tying them. 
 
6^ BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 care should be taken to leave bandage-room suf- 
 ficient, making allowance for the swelling of the 
 fruit. 
 
 When the suckers are grown to about one foot 
 in length, they should be taken off in the same 
 manner that has been described; and from that 
 time the fruit will swell very fast. As soon as the 
 fruit appears full swelled, the watering such plants 
 ks produce them should cease : but it is too gene- 
 ral a practice (in order to have the fruit as large as 
 can be got) to continue the watering too long ; 
 which causes the fruit to be filled with an insipid, 
 watery, and Hi-flavoured juice. 
 
 It is easy to know when the Pine becomes ripe 
 by its yellow colour ; yet they do not all change in 
 the same manner, but most generally begin at the 
 lower part of the fruit. Such fruit should not be 
 cut till the upper part also begins to change, which 
 sometimes will be many days after, especially in 
 the Sugar-loaf kinds. Sometimes the fruit will first 
 begin to change in the middle, which is a certain 
 indication of its being ripe : such fruit should be 
 cut immediately. 
 
 Having thus laid down tlie culture of the Pine- 
 apple plant, whether raised from seed, by crowns, 
 or suckers, to its final perfection in the fruit, I 
 shall now subjoin some hints and observations; most 
 of which, I hope, will be of use. 
 
 In treating of the culture of the Pine-apple 
 plant, some persons have recommended the shift- 
 ing of the plants, from first to last, with their balls 
 
 12 
 
tME PINE APPLE. (xS- 
 
 entire ; also the shifting of them ofitener than 1 
 have here recommended. These methods I dis- 
 approve, for the following reasons : 
 
 First, it is observable that the Pine-plant begins 
 to make its roots at the very bottom of the stem ; 
 and, as the plant increases in size, fresh roots are 
 produced from the stem, still higher and higher, 
 and the , bottom roots die in proportion : so that, if 
 a plant in the greatest vigour be turned out of its 
 pot as soon as the fruit is cut, there will be found 
 at the bottom a part of the stem, several inches in 
 length, naked, destitute of roots, and smooth. Now, 
 according to the above method, the whole of the 
 roots which the plant produces being permitted to 
 remain, on the stem to the last, the old roots decay 
 and turn mouldy, to the great detriment of those 
 afterwards produced. 
 
 Secondly, the first ball, which remains witli the 
 plant full two years, by length of time will become 
 hard, cloddy, and exhausted of its nourishment, 
 and must therefore prevent the roots afterwards 
 produced from growing with that freedom and 
 vigour which they would do in fresher and better 
 mould. 
 
 Thirdly, the old ball continually remaining after 
 the frequent shiftings, it will be too large, when 
 put into the fruiting-pot, to admit of a sufficient 
 quantity of fresh mould to support the plant till its^ 
 fruit becomes ripe, which is generally a whole year 
 from the last time of shifting. 
 
 It is an object of emulation amongst gardeners 
 
64 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATfNG 
 
 to try to excel their neighbours in the size of their 
 Pines. In order to produce very large fruit, I re- 
 commend the following method, which I have often 
 practised with great success. 
 
 In the month of April or May, it is easy to dis- 
 tinguish, in a stove of Pines, which plants promise 
 to produce the best fruit : this is not always the 
 case with the largest. A few of the most promising 
 being marked, a small iron rod, made with a sharp 
 angular point, may be thrust down the centre of 
 the sucker; which, being turned two or three times 
 round, will drill out the centre, and prevent its 
 growing. This must be performed on all the suck- 
 ers as fast as they appear. Thus the plant being 
 plentifully supplied with water, and having nothing 
 to support but the fi:uit, will sometimes grow 
 amazingly large. But this method should not be 
 practised on too many plants, as it is attended with 
 the entire loss of all the suckers. 
 
 It being a practice with some to fruit the Pine 
 by setting the pot in water ; while others produce 
 the fruit by setting the plant only in water, (in a 
 similar manner to what is often practised with Hya- 
 cinths and other bulbous roots,) the passing over 
 these methods in silence may, by some, be deemed 
 an omission : but as neither of these methods can 
 be reduced to practice with any kind of success, 
 except on fruiting plants, and just in the hot sum- 
 mer months, when the situation of the plant ought 
 to be very near to the glass, they do not seem cal- 
 culated for general practice. 
 
THE PISV. APPLE. 
 
 65 
 
 However, as some persons are inclined to sup- 
 pose that Pines raised by these methods are gene- 
 rally of superior quality, I shall just beg to say, 
 that the first method, of setting the pot in water, 
 is greatly to be preferred, and that the best time 
 for adopting it is immediately after the plants have 
 shown fruit in the spring. 
 
 Mr. Speechly is minute in his directions as to air, 
 water, the use of leaves instead of bark, the appli- 
 cation of fire, heat, &c. ; but as all these instruc* 
 tions are more to be considered as applicable to the 
 general management of the hot-house, than the 
 particular treatment of the Pine-apple, we do not 
 think it advisable to trouble the reader with their 
 perusal. 
 
 Insects, Those which more immediately infest 
 the Pine, were first described in Speechly's book. 
 They are all species or varieties of the Linnean 
 order Hemiptera, and genus Coccus. The first is 
 the broxvn turtle bug. Coccus Jiesperidum {Fig. 9.) 
 The female has at first 9 
 
 the appearance of a flat 
 scale {a) ; afterwards, 
 when depositing its eggs, 
 it becomes fixed and tur- 
 gid (b) ; these eggs (c) 
 are hatched under the 
 mother, who soon after- 
 wards dies; the young 
 insects, seen under a 
 magniiier, appear like tur- 
 
66 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 ties in miniature (d). Only the males, (e)y which 
 are few in proportion to the females, have wings ; 
 these devour nothing, and having performed the 
 office of impregnation, die. 
 
 The while scaly bug, C. hesp, var. « {fto I) bears 
 a considerable resemblance to the above ; but the 
 scale (Z^) is somewhat smaller ; the colour is white, 
 and the males or flies (J) not so large as those of the 
 brown. 
 
 The white mealy crimson-tinged bug, C. hesp, var, S 
 (n and m) differs from the former in being larger 
 and crimson-coloured. Speechly considers it as 
 viviparous. This and the former species are much 
 the most pernicious. 
 
 Mr. Speechly*s mode of destroying these and 
 other insects, being much too elaborate for modern 
 practice, it would be a waste of time to repeat his 
 processes. Simple modes are always the most effec- 
 ttial, and nothing can be more so than M*Phail's 
 mode of applying the steam of water ; or Baldwin's, 
 that of horse-dung. 
 
 Fruit produced. Mr. Speechly does not seem 
 to have had a fixed object as to the production of 
 fruit, unless it was to have it good. Some culti- 
 vators, as Justice, aim at having all the fruit ripe 
 at that season when they will attain the greatest size 
 and most flavour, viz. in August and September ; 
 others aim at having some weekly throughout the 
 , year. It would appear that the former was Speechly 's 
 object, and that he did not contemplate the other 
 as now generally practised. " Large fruiting 
 plants," he says, ** will sometimes show their fruit 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 6? 
 
 in the months of August and September, but these 
 are generally thought of no value, and, consequently, 
 thrown away. To prevent this, I frequently take 
 such plants out of the hot-house as soon as their 
 fruit begin to appear. I then set them in a shed or 
 out-house for five or six weeks ; at the expiration 
 of which time I pot them as in the month of March, 
 after shaking off their balls. After this I plunge 
 them into the tan." 
 
 What was the common weight of the Queen 
 Pines produced at Welbeck, he does not inform us ; 
 but a fruit of the New Providence, produced in 
 the gardens at Welbeck in 1794, weighed 5|lb., or 
 84 oz. He generally fruited the Queen Pine in the 
 third season, being under two years of time ; and 
 the Providence and Antigua in the fourth season. 
 
 Sect. VIT. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple hy James M^Phail, gardener to the late 
 Earl of Liverpool, at Addiscombe, in Surrey, from 1788 to 
 1808. 
 
 Mr. M'Phail, when in practice, was reckoned one 
 of the first growers of the Pine Apple in England ; 
 he grew the plants, and also fruited them chiefly in 
 pits ; the pots plunged in bark, and the bark inclos- 
 ed by a perforated wall of his invention, and heated 
 by linings of dung. He also grew them in larger 
 buildings. 
 
 Form of House, No great consequence is at- 
 tached to the construction of the house by this 
 gardener. WhereL Pines are to be grown in a hot- 
 
 F 2 
 
68 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATIKG 
 
 house along with vines in Speechly's manner,, he 
 says, " I think a good method is to make it into 
 one or more divisions of about forty feet long, six- 
 teen feet wide;" the back wall thirteen feet, and 
 the front wall nine feet, the upper four feet being 
 competed of sliding sashes. The slope in the roof 
 will, by these dimensions, be four feet, or about 
 three inches to a foot. The pit is to be surround- 
 ed by a path, which behind will be four feet higher 
 than in front, and, consequently, the end paths must 
 have steps. The fire-place being placed in the 
 back wall, and supplied from the shed behind, the 
 flue should be carried round about the inside, 
 stretching from the fire-place across the end and 
 along between the path and the front wall, leaving 
 a cavity of four or ^ve inches wide between the 
 flue and the wall, to admit the heat to rise freely, 
 and to prevent the roots and stems of the vines 
 planted in the border against the front wall from 
 being too much heated. At that end of the divi- 
 sion farthest from the fire, after going across the 
 house under the back path, the flue must rise 
 above the path, and go along close against the 
 back wall communicating with the chimney, which 
 stands at the end corner of the wall just above 
 the fire-place. The flue from the fire-place along 
 the front wall to the opposite end of the house, 
 is to be made nearly three feet deep, seven inches 
 wide, and when it riseth above the back side 
 path against the back wall to the chimney, it 
 should be about three feet feet six inches deep of 
 brick, on edge two inches thick, besides the plas- 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 69 
 
 tering, and covered with inch thick tiles closely 
 ■joined with fine mortar to prevent the smoke from 
 getting into the house among the plants. The 
 mouths of the fire-places should be about sixteen 
 inches wide, twelve inches deep, and the doors and 
 their posts may be made of cast iron. The grates 
 should be thirty inches long, and their bars of un- 
 cast iron made to take out at will.. Some have 
 the fire-places wholly of cast iron, one or more 
 inches thick, in form of a square funnel about three 
 feet in length. This appears to be a good method, 
 because they keep in repair several years, whereas 
 the sides of the fire-places built of brick generally 
 require repairing yearly. 
 
 The tan-pit need not be deeper than three feet, 
 or three feet six inches ; and the path which sur- 
 rounds it should not be narrower than twenty 
 inches ; but two feet,' or for the. back pit two feet 
 and a half, will be better. The vines are introduced 
 under the sill of the front glasses, and trained up 
 the rafters ; and Mr. M*Phail's practice is not to 
 withdraw them in the winter season as is done by 
 other gardeners. The surface of the tan-bed should 
 not be nearer the glass than five or six feet. Two 
 liouses, each forty feet in length, joined together, 
 can be kept warm with two fires, better than one 
 house of forty feet ; but in cold, exposed situations, 
 he would recommend diminishing the length. 
 
 With respect to pits, M*Phail observes, - " Suc- 
 cession Pine plants grow exceedingly well in pits 
 covered with glazed frames, linings of warm dung 
 
 F 3 
 
70 
 
 BRITISH MODES OF CLLTIVATIXG 
 
 being applied to them in cold frosty weather. The 
 north wall of a pit for this purpose had best be only 
 about four feet above the ground ; and if about two 
 feet high of it the whole length of the wall begin- 
 ning just at the surface of the ground four feet be- 
 low the height of the wall, be built in the form of 
 the outside walls of my cucumber bed, the lining 
 will warm the air in the pit more easily than if the 
 wall were built ^olid. The hnings of dung should 
 not be lower in their foundation than the surface of 
 the tan in the pits in which the plants grow (for it 
 is not the tan that requires to be warmed, but the 
 air among the plants) ; and as during the winter 
 the heat of the air in the pit . among the plants, 
 exclusive of sun heat, is not required to be greater 
 than from sixty to sixty-five degrees, strong linings 
 are not wanted : one against the north side, kept 
 up iii cold weather nearly as high as the wall, will 
 be sufficient, unless the weather get very cold in- 
 deed, in which case a lining on the south side may 
 be applied. In cold frosty weather a covering of 
 hay or of straw, or of fern, can be laid on the 
 glass above mats in the night-time. 
 
 ^gsmglSiSil 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 71 
 
 " The brick bed of my inventing, (fig. 10.) for forc- 
 ing early cucumbers, answers well for growing small 
 succession plants. A pit built on the same construc- 
 tion, but of larger dimensions, without cross flues, 
 is a suitable one for growing Pine Apple plants of 
 any size ; for by linings of dung the air in it can 
 be kept to a degree of heat sufficient to grow and 
 ripen the Pine Apple in summer, as well as it can 
 be done with fire heat, only it will require a little 
 more labour and plenty of dung. 
 
 Soil, ** The Pine Apple plant will grow very w^ell 
 in any sort of rich earth taken from a quarter of the 
 kitchen garden, or in fresh sandy loam taken from 
 a common, long pastured with sheep, &c. If the 
 earth be not of a rich sandy quality of darkish 
 colour, it should be mixed well with some perfectly 
 rotten dung and sand, and if a little vegetable mould 
 is put among it, it will do it good, and also a little 
 soot. Though Pine plants will grow in earth of 
 the strongest texture, yet I have found by expe- 
 rience that they grow most freely in good sandy 
 loam not of a binding quality. 
 
 General management, "The method which I used 
 to cultivate the Pine Apple is the following : The 
 fruit being partly over, and a cucumber brick bed 
 prepared for unstruck crowns and suckers, towards 
 the end of August or September, I planted them 
 in rich earth in pots suitable to the size of the 
 plants ; I then had the pots plunged to their rims 
 in the tan bed in which there was a good growing 
 
 F 4 
 
7^ BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 heat ; the lights were then shut down close, and as 
 great a heat kept among the plants as the heat of 
 the tan and sunshme could raise, and when the sun 
 shone long and very bright, the plants were shaded 
 a few hours in the middle of the day. The plants 
 were thus managed till they had struck root and 
 begun to grow, when a gentle watering was given 
 to them, and a little air admitted daily. About 
 the end of October or beginning of November, if 
 the state of the bed required it, a little fresh tan 
 was added, and if the plants by growth had become 
 crowded, some of them were removed into another 
 place, and the remainder plunged into the tan bed, 
 in which they continued till February or March, 
 when of course the bed required an addition of 
 fresh tan, which was given it, and the plants plung- 
 ed again into it at such distances one from the other 
 as to give them room to grow ; here they remained 
 till May or June, at which time they were shifted 
 into larger pots with the balls of earth about their 
 roots entire, and at this shifting, if the tan bed 
 wanted it, fresh tan was added to and mixed with 
 the old, which in generaL enabled it to retain a 
 sufficient heat till the month of August or Sep- 
 tember, when the plants, with their roots unhuil, 
 were shifted into pots large enough to admit earth 
 easily round their balls between their roots and the 
 sides of the pots. In these pots I let the plants 
 remain in general till the fruit was over. At this 
 time of shifting, the rotten part of the tan was 
 taken away, and a sufficient quantity of new tan 
 
THE PINE APPLE. J3 
 
 added, which generally, with an addition to the 
 upper part of it, retained its heat till the latter end 
 of February or beginning of March ; at this time 
 the plants were divested of a few of their lower 
 leaves, to let young roots spring freely out of their 
 stems, the surface of the earth in the pots cleared 
 down to the roots, and fresh earth laid on, pressing 
 it close to the stems of the plants. After this 
 dressing, the plants needed not to be moved again 
 till they ripened their fruit, unless they required 
 more bottom heat. This is the general process 
 which I used, though I found it necessary to vary 
 according to occurring circumstances, regarding the 
 heat of the tan bed, the condition of the plants, and 
 the state of the weather. 
 
 *' Some large kinds of Pine Apple plants require 
 three seasons to grow before they can bring large 
 sized fruit, such as the black Antigua, the Jamaica, 
 the Ripley, &c. ; therefore in the month of April 
 or May, after they have been planted upwards of a 
 year, it is best to take them out of the pots, and to 
 cut off all their roots close to the stem, or leave 
 only a few which are fresh and strong, and then 
 plant them- again in good earth in clean pots, and 
 plunge the pots in a tan bed with a lively heat in 
 it. After this process, a stronger heat than usual 
 must be kept in the house, till the plants have made 
 fresh roots and their leaves be perceived to grow, 
 when a little water may be given to them, which, 
 together with a good bottom and top heat, will 
 make them grow finely. 
 
74 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 ** Crowns and suckers taken from the parent plants 
 later than October, should not be planted before 
 the month of February or March ; for in the 
 winter time, probably, they would not strike root, 
 but rot : they may be hung or laid in a dry part of 
 the hot-house. By some writers on the culture of 
 the Pine it has been observed, * that any off-sets 
 from the Pine will succeed as well when planted 
 in the hour they are taken off, as if laid by to dry 
 till the wound be healed, provided the parent stock 
 received no water for the ten days preceding.' If 
 off-sets or suckers be grown to such a size, so that 
 they be easily separated from the parent plant, they 
 may be planted immediately ; for, in that case, it 
 may be seen that they had begun to push forth 
 roots, and required to be taken off and planted ; but 
 withholding water from the mother plant ten, or 
 even twenty days, will not bring its offspring to a 
 state of maturity fit for planting the day when taken 
 off. So that it is best to let unmatured young 
 suckers and crowns lie unplanted, till their natural 
 juices be so exhausted that there may be no danger 
 of their rotting after being planted. 
 
 " The brick beds of my inventing, in which I struck 
 and reared Pine Apple plants many years, were close 
 and warm, the crannies between the lappings of the 
 glass being filled up with putty ; consequently, in 
 these close frames, especially in the short days and 
 long nights in winter, when the sun has little in- 
 fluence, the moisture arising out of the tan lodges 
 on the glass, and drops from it, upon the plants ; 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 75 
 
 but, contrary to the opinion of some authors, who 
 have advised to draw the w ater out of the hearts of 
 plants when it falls into them in winter, I find, by 
 experience, that it does them no harm, if the heat 
 in the place where the plants be, is not too little. 
 Indeed, if plants be kept in a climate which suits 
 their nature, it is only reasonable to suppose that 
 they are possessed oi' properties capable of dispos- 
 ing of water which happens to fall on them by ac- 
 cident or otherwise. 
 
 " No vegetable substance that I know of retains 
 heat so long, and of a less violent nature, than oak 
 bark after being used by tanners ; and, as the 
 vapours arising out of it are of a wholesome nature 
 to plants, it is well calculated for helping to make 
 the Pine Apple plant grow vigorously. Where 
 the Pine Apple is wished to be cultivated, and tan- 
 ner's bark cannot be procured, horse-dung well 
 prepared, by shaking and breaking it small, will do. 
 If plenty of the leaves of trees can be had, they 
 are preferable to dung. When leaves cannot be 
 collected plentifully, dung and leaves may be mixed^ 
 together, and used successfully ; and if it be ascer- 
 tained that a good lively heat cannot be kept in 
 the bed for want of good materials, let the heat of 
 the flues warmed by fire, or linings of dung, be 
 close or near to the pit, which will cause the he^-t 
 in the bed to be more brisk and durable. 
 
 " If it be intended to make a bed of leaves, they 
 should be collected as soon as they have all fallen 
 from the trees, and in a wet state, and thrown to- 
 
76 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 gether in a large heap ; and after fermenting a few 
 weeks, they may be put into the pit for the pines. 
 They should be well shaken, and trodden down 
 gently when they get into a fermentation, which 
 will keep them from sinking quickly afterwards, 
 and prevent them from heating violently. When 
 the heat in the bed declines much, it may be in- 
 creased by turning and shaking the leaves over 
 with a dung-fork. 
 
 " It sometimes happens that tanner's bark heats 
 too violently ; but when that takes place, it is 
 either because there is too great a body of it put 
 together, or because the heat of the flues is too 
 close to the bed. If a tan bed get into a violent 
 heat, it wiU not keep its heat so long as if it heated 
 moderately ; for it must lose its heat as hastily in 
 proportion as it is deprived of its moisture by vio- 
 lent fermentation. 
 
 ** It frequently happens that Pine Apple plants 
 designed to bear fruit do not show their fruit early 
 enough in the spring or fore-part of summer, to 
 ripen their fruit before winter, when there is not 
 sunshine enough to give the fruit any flavour. 
 This may happen because the plants have not come 
 to a proper growth, or their roots may have been 
 injured by too violent a bottom heat, or by being 
 over- watered, or they may have been shifted 
 too late, or been put into pots too large for 
 their roots, to have filled them before the end of the 
 growing season. To make Pine plants shew their 
 fruit at an early time in the spring, some authors 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 77 
 
 have recommended the cutting off some of the 
 roots at the autumn shifting ; but Jong experience 
 has convinced me, that cutting off the roots, or des- 
 troying them by any means, instead of making them 
 show fruit, is an effectual mean to prevent them 
 from showing fruit, till they have again made long 
 roots. The fruit of the Pine Apple is formed, pro- 
 bably, not less than seven or eight weeks before it 
 appears among the leaves ; and if a plant be divest- 
 ed partially or totally of its roots, its growth is 
 stopped till it has made roots of considerable length, 
 when it will grow quickly. And, if before the 
 roots were destroyed, the fruit had been formed in 
 the hidden secret centre of the plant, the fruit will 
 grow and show itself when the leaves of the plant, 
 excepting those on the stem of the fruit, will make 
 no appearance of growing. This, perhaps, may be 
 the reason which induces some persons to think that 
 cutting off the roots of the plant causeth it to fruit 
 sooner than it would do were the roots suffered to 
 remain. 
 
 " If Pine Apple plants, intended for fruiting the 
 following year, be shifted late in the autumn into 
 pots, which their roots do not fill well before the 
 month of January, they probably will not show fruit 
 till late in the spring or summer months. For this 
 reason it is^ advisable, w^hen they cannot be shifted 
 early enough in the month of August or beginning 
 of September, so as to fill the pots with roots before 
 the winter come on, to let them remain unshifted 
 till the fruit appear, and the stem of it be grown to 
 
78 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 its full height, and then shift the plants into larger 
 pots, in the manner before directed, disturbing the 
 roots of the plants as little as can be helped. After 
 the plants are shifted, they must not get much 
 water till the fresh growth of the roots has some- 
 what exhausted the moisture of the fresh earth put 
 round them. Of two evils, it is better to give the 
 plants too little water than too much. But let it 
 be remembered, that while the fruit is in blossom, 
 and for some days afterwards, the plants should not 
 be watered all over their leaves, neither should the 
 plants be watered all over their leaves nor fruit, 
 after the fruit is fully swelled, nor should the earth 
 in which their roots are, be, after that time, kept very 
 moist, for they do not require it, because the plant 
 has nearly performed its office, which it never has 
 to do a second time — it dies and leaves its offspring 
 to succeed it. 
 
 ** Although the Pine Apple plant is of such a na- 
 ture that it will live upwards of six months without 
 earth or water, yet to bring its fruit to perfection, 
 a plentiful supply of both these is required. From 
 the time that the plants are set in earth till they 
 perfect their fruit, it should be endeavoured to keep 
 them constantly in a clean healthy growing state ; 
 and when they be thus managed, they will not fail 
 to show fruit when they be grown to a natural size. 
 For these reasons, I would advise that no methods 
 contrary to nature, but methods to assist, be used 
 to make them fruit at certain periods. If Pine 
 Apple plants be planted in rich earth, and get a 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 79 
 
 sufficiency of heat and water, they grow luxuriantly 
 to a great size, and do not show fruit so soon as 
 they do when they are planted in a poor, hungry, 
 or stiff soil. 
 
 ** If the roots of Pine Apple plants be not put in 
 too great a heat, it is a difficult matter to raise the 
 heat in a hot-house to such a degree as is able to 
 destroy the plants. In the brick bed of my in- 
 venting, a powerful heat can be raised by means of 
 the linings of dung and the sun-beams, and in it 
 the insects on Pine and on other plants may be 
 shortly destroyed by heat and water. 
 
 " Some persons may think that the Pine Apple 
 cannot bear to be watered all over its leaves in 
 winter, because it is of a succulent nature, and able 
 to live long in a hot-house without being planted 
 in earth or set in water. But, for instance, the 
 common house-leek is of a very succulent juicy na- 
 ture, and will bear the gi'eatest heat of a hot dry 
 summer on the warm tiles of a house : but it is well 
 known that this plant thrives best when it gets oc- 
 casional showers of rain» The case is exactly simi- 
 lar respecting the Pine Apple, and several other 
 plants, of a similar nature. In regard, however, to 
 the best method of cultivating the Pine Apple^ 
 there have been and will be persons who differ in 
 opinion. I here give my opinion, which is founded 
 on practice, that there i§ not the least danger in 
 watering the plants plentifully all over their leaves^ 
 in winter, or in any time of the year, provided there 
 be a sufficient heat kept up in the tan bed and in 
 
80 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 the air of the house. But remember, I do not recom- 
 mend watering the Pine Apple plants all over their 
 leaves in winter as a general rule, only when it is 
 necessary to free the plants from insects and filth ; 
 then the heat in the house among the plants must 
 be kept strong, not lower than 70 in the morning, 
 and raised to 85 or 90 in the course of the day. 
 
 It is indeed evident that some of the most able 
 writers on the culture of the Pine Apple have 
 wanted that experience which may by practice be 
 obtained. They have asserted, that it is impossible 
 to keep the Pine Apple plant throughout a severe 
 winter without the assistance of fire. But inge- 
 nious practical gardeners have ascertained, that Pine 
 Apple plants require nothing more than a gentle 
 heat in the tan bed, in which the pots of plants 
 must be plunged, and a medium heat of air of about 
 60 degrees, to keep them through the most severe 
 winters in England. To maintain this temperature 
 of heat without the assistance of fire, is no difficult 
 matter ; it can be done by the assistance of horse- 
 dung ; for a dry heat is not at all necessary to pre- 
 serve the plants, and to keep them in good health, 
 in the brick beds, in which I kept Succession Pines 
 all the year round without the aid of fire heat. The 
 sun for about two months in winter had very little 
 effect to warm or dry the leaves of the plants, so 
 that during the dull months in winter, the plants 
 were continually in a moist state, and water stand- 
 ing in the hearts of some of them, and the heat of 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 81 
 
 the air among them was from 55 to about Q5 ; and 
 I do not recollect of having any of the plants die 
 for want of heat. 
 
 Insects. By many experiments which I made, it 
 is evident, I think, that in the process of managing 
 and cultivating the Pine Apple, all injurious insects 
 may be destroyed, and prevented from breeding on 
 them, by a judicious application of the elements 
 necessary, though in a less degree in regard to heat, 
 for the production of any vegetables or fruits what- 
 ever. That this is true, may be proved by a refer- 
 ence to the state of fruits and vegetables growing, 
 either spontaneously or assisted by cultivation, in 
 every part of the kingdom, without the aid of arti- 
 ficial heat or impregnated air. For instance, the 
 strawberry, the raspberry, and some other fruits, 
 which grow naturally in some parts of this country, 
 and peas, beans, cabbage, and cauliflowers in gar- 
 dens, and the different sorts of corn and grass in 
 the fields. These, in unkind seasons, we see affect- 
 ed by blights and by insects of various kinds, which 
 prevent them from coming to good maturity, and 
 make them less productive than we wish them to 
 be. But in propitious seasons, the earth being re- 
 freshed occasionally by showers of rain, they are 
 preserved from the inroads of insects and from 
 blights, and are enabled to produce abundant crops, 
 for the use of man and beast." 
 
 Mr. M*Phail has thus the merit of being one 
 of the first practical gardeners who freed them- 
 selves from the trammels of receipts and secrets for 
 
 G 
 
82 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 destroying insects. He says, " after having studi- 
 ously observed the nature and causes of the vigor- 
 ous growth and healthfulness of plants, and of fruit- 
 trees of diiferent kinds, I have been induced to be- 
 lieve that a fruit-tree or plant of any sort requires 
 nothing but proper cultivation in good earth, and 
 in a kindly chmate adapted to. its nature, to pre- 
 vent it from being injured by insects, or by blights 
 of any kind, and to enable it to produce, of its 
 kind, abundant crops. However, I wish it not to 
 be understood that I disapprove of using means of 
 any kind to destroy insects which are injurious to 
 plants ; but I conceive that all methods used for 
 that purpose, ought to be such as are conducive to 
 accelerate the growth of vegetables, by having at 
 least a tendency to purify the air, and to make the 
 circumaimbient atmosphere about them congenial 
 to their nature, unless when the destruction of the 
 insects by the hand is effected.' ' 
 
 " Every insect has its proper plant, or tribe of 
 plants, which it naturally requires for its nourish- 
 ment, and on which it generally lays its eggs, and 
 that on the most concealed parts of the plant ; and 
 the plant, and insect which attacks it, are always 
 natives of the same climate, and therefore endure 
 the same degrees of heat and cold j consequently, 
 when plants are attacked by their natural tribe of 
 insects, it is an exceedingly nice and curious oper- 
 ation to exterminate them without injuring the 
 plants, or stopping them in their natural growth. 
 But observing that insects increase rapidly in hot 
 
THE PINE APPLE. S3 
 
 dry weather, and that they appear impatient of 
 moisture, was the means of inducing me try which 
 would bear the greatest heat and live." 
 
 " To ascertain what degree of heat a Pine Apple 
 plant can endure without destroying it, I filled four 
 vessels with hot water. The water in the first vessel 
 was 130 degrees hot ; that in the second 140 ; that 
 in the third 145; that in the fourth 150. Into 
 each of these vessels I put a few Pine plants, di- 
 vested of their roots, of their fibrous roots, and suf- 
 fered them to remain in the water about an hour. 
 The plants which had been immersed in the water 
 heated to 140 and 145 degrees, were a little hurt 
 in the ^extremities of their leaves, but after being 
 dried in the hot-house, they were planted, and grew 
 as vigorous as if they had not been put into hot 
 water ; the plants put into water 130 degrees warm 
 were not in the least injured ; but those put into 
 water heated to 150 degrees were entirely de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 " By this experiment I ascertained that a vegctf' 
 table can endure, without hurting it, ISO degrees of 
 heat, according to the degrees on Fahrenheit's 
 thermometer. I am inclined to tliink that no ani- 
 mal is able to endure such a heat and live. Un- 
 doubtedly, insects increase rapidly in hot weather 
 in the open air, especially on the peach tree, and 
 on other trees, against warm walls, both in the 
 spring and summer months; and they increase 
 most rapidly in dry weather ; but the heat in the 
 open air against walls seldom rises to 100 degrees. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 And in the hottest countries in the world, where 
 vegetables and animals exist, the heat in the shade 
 seldom rises to blood heat, which is about 97- 
 Having considered these things, and ascertained 
 that a plant can endure a heat of 130 degrees, I 
 determined to try another experiment, that is, to 
 ascertain whether heat and water would destroy 
 insects, and keep plants alive. I therefore thought 
 of, and determined to try, the following method : 
 
 " In the month of June I selected about twenty 
 large Pine plants, some of which had green fruit 
 on them, and their leaves, fruit, and roots, were 
 almost covered with insects. These plants I plung- 
 ed in a tan bed, with a very gentle heat in it. The 
 tan bed was in a brick frame designed for rearing 
 succession plants: it was nearly five feet wide, 
 twenty feet long, and the glass frames were close 
 and in good repair. These plants I w^atered fre- 
 quently and plentifully, sometimes twice a day, 
 with water not less than 70 or 80 degrees, and 
 sometimes 100, warm : in short, I kept the plants 
 constantly in a moist air, by plentiful waterings 
 without measure ; and, excepting the time of giv- 
 ing water, I kept the lights constantly close shut 
 down, even in the hottest sunshine, without shading 
 the plants. In this frame I had no thermometer, 
 but the heat was, I think, sometimes about two or 
 three o'clock' in the afternoon, upwards of 120 de- 
 grees. This great heat and much moisture caused 
 the plants to grow most vigorously ; and having 
 subjected them to the said mode of management 
 
THE PINE APPLE. . 85 
 
 for a few weeks, the insects, in the course of that 
 time, were totally destroyed, many of them lying 
 dead on the leaves and fruit. In the spring-time, 
 before this operation, the plants had been strewed 
 witli sulphur, which, at least, is a harmless dressing 
 to plants of any kind, and probably may be of use 
 in preventing insects from breeding numerously, or 
 the means of depriving them of part of their natu- 
 ral food. This circumstance, however, I just here 
 mention, because, from experiments which I have 
 tried since tlien, it is probable that the effluvia aris- 
 ing from flour of sulphur, being scattered on the 
 leaves, or about in the hot-house, in conjunction 
 with heated air and moisture, may more suddenly 
 destroy insects than heat and moisture alone ; but 
 it ought to be remembered, that if sulphur be by 
 any means set on fire in a confined place, among 
 plants of any kind, it will either totally destroy or 
 greatly injure them. 
 
 ** Being satisfied with my success in the above- 
 mentioned experiment, of having totally destroyed 
 the insects on these plants without hurting them, 
 I hesitated not to begin to water the whole of. the 
 plants under my care, whenever they wanted it, all 
 over their leaves and fruit, with water about 85 
 degrees warm. This process I continued to prac- 
 tise for several months, during which time I do not 
 recollect that the thermometer was ever below 70, 
 and in sunshine it was raised sometimes to up- 
 wards of 110 degrees. I continued this practice 
 longer perhaps than was absolutely necessary, but I 
 
 G S 
 
B6 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 was determined to destroy the whole of the insects 
 in the house, whether on the plants, or in the tan,, 
 or in any part of the house ; and this I certainly did 
 accomplish effectually. Thus, by this easy, and not 
 unnatural, mode of management, the plants became 
 perfectly free of insects ; they were perfectly cleans- 
 ed of all filth ; they grew vigorously ; and the fruit 
 swelled fine to a good size. After this I had seve- 
 ral times Pine Apple plants from abroad, and out 
 of hot-houses at home, full of insects, which, by the 
 means that I have, without reserve, described, I 
 effectually destroyed, and made the plants grow 
 very fast indeed." 
 
 «' If Pine Apple plants be kept in a strong vigor- 
 ous growing state by giving them plenty of heat, 
 and water applied occasionally all over their leaves, 
 whether they be in frames heated with dung, or in 
 hot-houses heated by a fire, a few insects will do 
 them little hurt. But if the methods which I have 
 given for cultivating the Pine Apple plant be 
 adopted, I am persuaded all sorts of injurious in- 
 sects natural to these sorts of plants will disappear 
 on them» 
 
 " When we see human creatures lean in body for 
 want of a sufficiency of wholesome food, or, for want 
 of cleanliness, lice and fleas breed upon them ; and 
 poverty in cattle for want of food has the same 
 effect on them. Similar causes in vegetables has a 
 similar effect, so that when Pine Apple plants are 
 in a state of poverty, for want of a sufficiency of 
 good earth, or of heat, or of water, insects natural 
 
THE PINE APPLE. SJ 
 
 to them, if there be any of them in the hot-house, 
 will breed rapidly on them and hurt them. Those 
 insects which naturally breed and live on the Pine 
 Apple plant, appear to delight in a dry dirty situ- 
 ation. Where Pine Apples grow naturally and 
 produce large fruit, they are not free of insects ; and 
 though plants be free of insects, they will not grow 
 well, nor produce fine fruit, unless they get enough 
 of good earth, sufficient heat, and be watered plen- 
 tifully." 
 
 Fruit produced. The green, and some other sorts 
 of Pine, Mr. M<Phail ** ripened in a shorter period 
 of time than two years after planting," (Gard. Rem, 
 87.) but some large kinds he found required three 
 seasons, as the black Antigua, Jamaica, and Ripley. 
 His object was to have his fruit come in for use be- 
 tween May and October, for he very justly re- 
 marks, that *^ the fruit of the Pine Apple, if it hap- 
 pen to appear ripe in winter, will have its flavour 
 insipid." He therefore recommends, that such 
 plants as show fruit in September or October, had 
 better be cast away, unless there be plenty of room 
 for them in the hot-house ; in that case they may 
 be retained by way of experiiBent, and to obtain 
 young plants from them. {Gard, Rem, 98.) 
 
 G 4 
 
88 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 Sect. VIII. 
 Culture of the Pine Apple in Fifeshire, by Mr, Walter NicoL 
 
 Mr. Nicol was from 1790 to 1800, the best 
 grower of the Pine Apple in Scotland; he had 
 afterwards much experience as a constructor of 
 hot-houses ; and extensive observation of the prac- 
 tice of the best gardeners of the north. 
 
 Form of House. " Pineries," he says, " are, and 
 may be, very diiferently constructed ; and we find 
 plants thriving, and plants not thriving, in all kinds 
 of stoves, pits, &c. The culture of Pine Apples is 
 attended with a heavier expense than that of any 
 other fruit under glass ; especially if they be grown 
 in lofty stoves, the erection of which is very expen- 
 sive, and the keeping up proportionally more so, 
 than that of humbler stoves, or flued pits. 
 
 " But, independently of all considerations of ex- 
 pense (which may not be valued by some, provided 
 they can obtain good fruit). Pine Apples may cer- 
 tainly be produced in as great perfection, if not 
 greater, and with infinitely less trouble and risk,, 
 in flued pits, if properly constructed, than in any 
 other way. I would therefore have the Pinery de- 
 tached from the other forcing-houses, and to con- 
 sist of three pits in a range ; one for crowns and 
 suckers, one for succession, and one for fruiting 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 89 
 
 plants. The fruiting-pit to be placed in the centre, 
 and the other two, right and left ; forming a range 
 of a hundred feet in length ; which would give 
 Pine Apples enough for a large family. 
 
 ** The fruiting-pit to be forty feet long, and ten 
 feet wide, over walls ; and each of the others to be 
 thirty feet long, and nine feet wide, also over walls. 
 The breast- wall of the whole to be on a line, and to 
 be eighteen inches above ground. The back-wall 
 of the centre one to be five feet, and of the others, 
 to be four and a half feet higher than the front. 
 The front and end flues to be separated from the 
 bark-bed by a three-inch cavity, and the back flues 
 to be raised above its level. 
 
 " The furnaces may either be placed in front, or 
 at the back, according to conveniency; but the 
 strength of the heat should be first exhausted in 
 front, and should return in the back-flues. The 
 fruiting-pit would require two small furnaces, in 
 order to diffuse the heat regularly, and keep up a 
 proper temperature in winter ; one to be placed at 
 each end ; and either to play, first in front, and 
 return in the back ; but the flues to be above, and 
 not alongside of one another ; as in that latter way 
 they would take up too much room. The under 
 one to be considered merely as an auxiliary flue, as 
 it would only be wanted occasionally. 
 
 " None of these flues need be more than five or 
 six inches wide, and nine or ten deep. Nor need the 
 furnaces be so large by a third, or a fourth part, as 
 those for large forcing-houses ; because there should 
 
A 
 
 90 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 be proper oil-cloth covers for the whole, as guards 
 against severe weather, which would be a great 
 saving of fuel. 
 
 ** The depth of the pits should be regulated so as 
 that the average depth of the bark-beds may be a 
 yard below the level of the front flues ; as to that 
 level the bark will generally settle, although made 
 as high as their surfaces, when new stirred up. If 
 leaves, or a mixture of leaves with dung, are to be 
 used instead of bark, the pits will require to be a 
 foot, or half a yard deeper. 
 
 ** It may be thought too much to insinuate, that 
 those who have large Pineries should turn them to 
 other purposes, and erect such as are described 
 above. There cannot be a doubt, however, respect- 
 ing the satisfaction that would follow, if to have 
 good fruit at an easy rate w^ere the object. I have 
 given designs for no other kinds of new Pineries 
 these six years past, but such as these ; with some 
 variations respecting extent, however, in order to 
 suit different purses." 
 
 . SoiL Vegetable mould, strong brown loam, 
 pigeons' dung, and shell-marl, are Mr. Nicol's in- 
 gredients. " The vegetable mould used is that from 
 decayed tree-leaves, and those of the oak are 
 to be preferred; but when a sufficient quantity 
 of them cannot be had, a mixture with those of 
 the ash, elm, birch, sycamore, &c. or indeed any 
 that are not resinous, will answer very well. In 
 autumn, immediately as the leaves fall, let them be 
 gathered, and be thrown together into an heap ; 
 and let just as much light earth be thrown over 
 
TH£ PINE APPLE. 91 
 
 them as will prevent them from being blown abroad 
 by the wind. In this state let them lie till May, 
 and then turn them over and mix them well. They 
 will be rendered into mould fit for use by the next 
 spring ; but from bits of sticks, &c. being among 
 them, they will require to be sifted before using. 
 Strong brown loam is the next article. This should 
 consist of the sward of a pasture, if possible ; which 
 should, previous to using, be well reduced, by ex- 
 posing it a whole year to the action of the weather. 
 Pigeon-dung, also, that has lain at least two whole 
 years in an heap, has been frequently turned, and 
 well exposed to the weather, is to be used. Like- 
 wise shell-marl. And, lastly, sea or river gravel, 
 which should he sifted, and kept in a dry place ; 
 such part of it as is about the size of marrowfat peas 
 is to be used. This is the proportion : for crowns 
 and suckers, entire vegetable mould, with a little 
 gravel at bottom, to strike in ; afterwards, three- 
 fourths vegetable mould, and one-fourth loam, 
 mixed with about a twentieth part gravel, and two 
 inches entire gravel at bottom, till about a year old. 
 For year-olds, and till shifted into fruiting-pots, 
 one-half vegetable mould, one-half loam ; to which 
 add a twentieth part gravel, and as much shell- 
 marl, with three inches clean gravel at bottom. 
 For fruiting-plants, one-half loam, a fourth part 
 vegetable mould, and a fourth part pigeon-dung ; 
 to which add marl and gravel as above, and lay 
 three or four inches of clean gravel at bottom. The 
 above compositions are what I formerly used for 
 Pine-plants with much success ; and are what may 
 
9^ BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 be reckoned good medium soils for the production 
 of Pine Apples." 
 
 General Management » Mr. Nicol plants his 
 suckers in summer and autumn as the fruit is ga- 
 thered, sticking them into the front part of the bark- 
 bed, " where they will strike root as freely as any 
 where. If a large proportion of the crop come off 
 early, the crowns and suckers may be potted at 
 once, and plunged into the nursing-pit; or they 
 may be twisted from off the stocks, and may be 
 laid by, in a dry shed or loft for a few days, till the 
 other operations in the Pinery be performed, . and 
 the nursing-pit be ready to receive them and the 
 crowns, (collected as the fruit have been gathered ;) 
 which, if rooted, may be potted, and may be placed 
 for the above time, either in a frame, or in a forc- 
 ing-house of any kind, as they will sustain no in- 
 jury, though out of the bark-bed for so short a 
 time. Such .crowns as have not struck root, may 
 be laid aside with the suckers. 
 
 " With respect to the time for taking off the 
 suckers, it is when the bottom part becomes brown ; 
 and they are then easily displaced by the thumb, 
 after having broken down the leaf immediately 
 under them. But, indeed, by the time the fruit is 
 ripe, all suckers of the stem are fit for taking oi5 
 though they will sustain no injury by being left on, 
 even for a month, but rather improve, if the stock 
 be healthy, and if it be well watered. Suckers 
 that rise from the root always have fibres, and may 
 be taken off at any time ; but, as they are tardy. 
 
 -^?9!^ 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 93 
 
 of fruiting, they should not be taken into the 
 stock, unless in a case of necessity. 
 
 " Some think it necessary to dry, or win, all 
 crowns and suckers before potting them, and for 
 that purpose lay them on the shelves, &c. of the 
 stove for a week or ten days. By this treatment, 
 they certainly may be hurt, but cannot be im- 
 proved, provided they have been fully matured 
 before being taken from off the fruit or stocks, and 
 that these have previously had no water for about 
 ten days. They will succeed as well, if planted 
 the hour they are taken off, as if treated in any 
 other way whatever ; and I only advise their being 
 laid aside as above, as being a matter of conveni- 
 ency." 
 
 In preparing the suckers and unstruck crowns 
 for potting, he twists off a few of the bottom leaves, 
 'and pares the end of the stump smooth with the 
 knife. ** Then fill pots of about three or four inches 
 diameter, and five or six inches deep, (the less for 
 the least, and the large for the largest plants), 
 with very fine, light earth, or with entire vegetable 
 mould of tree leaves, quite to the brim ; previously 
 placing an inch of clean gravel in the bottom of 
 each, and observing to lay in the mould loosely. 
 Thrust the large suckers down to within two inches 
 of the gravel, and the small ones and crowns, two 
 inches into the mould; firming them with the 
 thumbs, and dressing off the mould, half an inch 
 below the margin of the pots. Then plunge them 
 into the bark-bed, quite down to, or rather below 
 
 ^^ 
 
94 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 the brim, especially of the smaller pots. If the 
 pots be placed at the clear distance of three or 
 four inches from each other, according to the sizes 
 of the plants, they will have sufficient room to grow 
 till next shifting." 
 
 The temperature of the nursing-pit in January 
 with fire heat, he keeps as near as possible to 65** 
 mornings and evenings ; and in sunshine, on good 
 days, it may be allowed to rise to about 70°. In 
 March from 70° to 80^ ; and after newly potting 
 and plunging, unstruct crowns and suckers to 
 80^ or 850. 
 
 To save fuel, he covers up the Pine pits when 
 fires are used, every evening after sunset, either 
 with double mats, or with a thick canvas cover, 
 mounted on rollers. This cover he removes by 
 sun-rise in the morning, unless the weather be very 
 severe ; in which case he leaves it on during the 
 day. By the judicious use of this cover, he finds 
 " a considerable deal of fuel may be saved." 
 
 As to water, he says, " nurse plants require very 
 little, perhaps once in eight or ten days, or even 
 at greater intervals, if the weather be moist and 
 hazy. It is safer, in winter, to give too little, ra- 
 ther than too much water to Pine-plants ; nor 
 should they be watered over head at this season. 
 They should be watered in the forenoon of a sunny 
 day, at this time of the year, in order that any 
 water spilt on the bark, or in the hearts of the 
 plants, may be exhaled by the heat of the sun, and 
 by an extra quantity of air purposely admitted. 
 
 16 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 95 
 
 This precaution, however, is only necessary for tlie 
 sake of such crowns and suckers as have been 
 struck late last season, and are not very well 
 rooted -, such being more apt to damp off than 
 others that are better established." In summer he 
 supplies water regularly and plentifully once in 
 three days 5 giving the proper quantity at root, 
 and then a dewing over the leaves. He waters fre- 
 quently with the drainings of the dunghill. 
 
 Air he admits to the nursing-pits every good 
 day. Even in hard frost, when the sun shines, two 
 or three of the lights should be slipped down, to 
 let the rarified air escape at top. After potting 
 unrooted offsets, he gives no air till the heat begin 
 to rise in the bark-bed ; but as the plants indicate 
 their having made roots, he gives air during sun- 
 shine, so as to keep down the thermometer to 85® 
 or 80^ 
 
 Suckers planted in summer he shifts or re-pots 
 in the following March. He says, " Let them be 
 shaked out entirely ; the balls be quite reduced j 
 the roots be trimmed of all straggling and decay*- 
 ed fibres ; and let them be replaced in the same, 
 or in similar pots. The proper size of pots, how- 
 ever, in which to put crowns and suckers struck 
 last season, is about four inches inside diameter at 
 top, and six inches deep. A little clean gravel 
 should be laid at the bottoni of each pot, in order 
 to drain off extra moisture ; and this should be 
 observed in the potting of Pine-plants of all sorts. 
 I have generally observed, that if the bark heat be 
 
 W 
 
96 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 not violent, the plants will push very strong fibres 
 into this stratum of gravel, in which they seem to 
 delight. I therefore generally make it two inches 
 thick in small pots, and three or four in larger ones, 
 less or more, according to their size. From the 
 time I first adopted this mode of potting, I hardly 
 ever had an instance of an unhealthy plant ; and 
 this very particular, together with that of keeping 
 the plants always in a mild bottom-heat, is of 
 greater importance in the culture of Pines, than 
 all the other rules that have been given respecting 
 them, out of the ordinary way. The roots of Pines 
 seem to delight in gravel ; and I have been careful 
 to introduce it into the mould for plants of all ages. 
 I generally used small sea-gravel, in which was a 
 considerable proportion of shells, or chips of shells, 
 with other particles of a porous nature ; and I have 
 uniformly observed the finest fibres cling to these, 
 and often insinuate themselves through the pores, 
 or embrace the rougher particles. Therefore, if 
 sea gravel can be obtained, prefer it ; and next, 
 river gravel ; but avoid earthy pit gravel, and ra- 
 ther use sharp sand, or a mixture of pounded- 
 stone, chips, and brick-bats. The plants being 
 re-potted, plunge them in the bark-bed again, quite 
 down to the rims of the pots, keeping them per- 
 fectly level. Eight or nine inches from centre to 
 centre will be distance sufficient. When they are 
 all placed, give a little aired water, to settle the 
 earth about their roots. This need not be repeated 
 till the heat in the bed rise to the pots, after which. 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 97 
 
 as the plants will now begin to grow freely, they 
 must be watered at the root once in four or five 
 days ; and they may have a dewing over head, 
 from the fine rose of a watering-pot, occasionally, 
 if the weather be fine." 
 
 In May, Nicol again shifts, but the plants are 
 not to be shaked out at this time, but are to be 
 shifted, balls entire, into pots of about six inches 
 diameter, and eight inches deep. " If the roots be 
 anywise matted at bottom, or at the sides, they 
 must be carefully singled out ; and in potting, be 
 sure that there be no cavity left between the ball 
 and the sides of the new pot. In order the more 
 effectually to prevent which, use a small, blunt- 
 pointed, somewhat wedge-shaped, stick, to trindle 
 in the mould with ; observing that it be in a dry 
 state, and be sifted fine ; and also to shake the pot 
 well, (potting on a bench or table), the better to 
 settle the earth about the ball. Pots of this size 
 should be filled to within half an inch of their 
 brims, (the balls being covered about an inch with 
 fresh earth), as the whole will settle about as much, 
 and so leave a full inch for holding water, which is 
 enough. In preparing the plants for potting, ob- 
 serve to twist off a few of the bottom leaves, as 
 they always put out fine roots from the lower part 
 of the stem. Alsa, before letting the plant out of 
 hand, trim off the points of any leaves that may 
 have been bruised or anywise injured in the shift- 
 ing. Replunge the pots to the brim, as before, 
 observing to keep them quite level, at the distance 
 
 H 
 
98 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 of fifteen inches from centre to centre of the plants 
 on a medium ; then give a little water, which need 
 not be repeated till the heat rise to the pots." 
 
 In November, he shifls such others whose roots 
 have filled their pots, and have become anywise 
 matted. " Examine any you suspect to be so, and 
 let them be shifted into pots of the next size im- 
 mediately above those they are in ; keeping the 
 balls entire, and only singling out the netted fibres 
 at bottom. The rest should be trimmed of any 
 dead leaves at bottom of their stems, and should 
 have a little of the old mould taken from off the 
 surface of the pots ; which replace with fresh earth ; 
 filling the pots fuller than usual, as but little water 
 will be required till next shifting time in the spring. 
 The whole should then be replaced in the bark-bed 
 as before, and should be plunged quite to the rims 
 of the pots ; giving a little water to settle the earth 
 about their roots, which need not be repeated till 
 the heat rise in the bed." 
 
 Plants intended to fruit in the succeeding year, 
 are shifted finally in the August of the year pre- 
 ceding. The plants are again looked over in the 
 February following, and top dressed j but such as 
 are unhealthy, feeble, and do not stand firm in 
 their pots, he shakes out of their balls entirely, and 
 re-pots in the same, or in smaller pots. ** Any 
 plants," he says, " that have already started into 
 fruit, should also be shaken out, and be fresh 
 potted, as above ; which, by the check they re- 
 ceive, will keep them back to a better season of 
 
THE PINE APPLE, 99 
 
 ripening, and by the force of fresh earth, make 
 them swell their fruit larger than they otherwise 
 would have done. I have thus new-potted plants, 
 even in flower, with very much success, and have 
 swelled the fruit to a size far beyond my expecta- 
 tions ; of which fact any one may easily satisfy 
 himself, by fresh-potting a few plants, and compar- 
 ing their progress with others treated in the ordi- 
 nary way. Let the plants be re-plunged to the 
 brim as before, keeping the pots quite level. If the 
 plants be full-sized, and strong, they will require 
 to be set at about twenty inches apart from centre 
 to centre, on a medium. But they should be sort- 
 ed ; the smallest placed in front, and the largest 
 at back, as in arranging plants on a stage, that they 
 may have an equal share of sun and light. As soon 
 as re-placed in the bark-bed, let them have a little 
 water, to settle the earth about their roots." In 
 May he again top-dresses, " reducing an inch or 
 two of the earth from off the surface, and adding 
 some fresh mould, which will invigorate the plants, 
 cause them to push surface radicles, and so keep 
 them the more firm and steady. This needs not be 
 done, however, to plants whose fruit are nearly 
 ripe ; but chiefly to healthy plants new shown in 
 flower, past the flower, or with the fruit about half 
 grown. And with respect to any that are un- 
 healthy, and whose fruit are less than half grown, 
 do not hesitate to shift them, shaking them out, 
 trimming their roots, and retaining only healthy 
 fibres. This is a very great improvement in the 
 
 H ^ 
 
100 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 culture of Pines, which I formerly practised, have 
 since advised, and have seen followed with much 
 success." 
 
 The temperature of the finjiting-pit is kept at 
 the same degree as tliat of the succession depart- 
 ment in mid- winter. This is from 60** to 65^ ; but 
 as spring approaches, he rises gradually to 7^^ but 
 not allowing the thermometer to pass 80**. From 
 7^^ to 7«5** is his temperature for March and April. 
 In May, June, July, and August, he requires 75** 
 mornings and evenings, and 80** or 85** at noon. 
 In September, after fire-heat becomes necessary, 
 he keeps as nearly to 65** as possible, and in sun- 
 shine, by the free admission of air, to about 70® or 
 72**. In October, November, and December, he 
 lowers the temperature to 60** mornings and even- 
 ings, and 65^ in sunshine. 
 
 Air is admitted at all seasons in fine sunshine 
 weather, and freely, as the fruit approaches to ma- 
 turity, in order to enhance its flavour. 
 
 He gives water seldom in January, and not 
 oftener than once in six or eight days in February. 
 In March, " water may given oftener than hereto- 
 fore advised, and also in larger quantities ; gene- 
 rally a moderate watering at root once in three or 
 four days, and a dewing over head occasionally, to 
 refresh the leaves, and keep them clean from dust. 
 From the time the plants are out of flower, and 
 the fruit begins to swell, water must be applied in 
 a very liberal manner once in two or three days, 
 always giving the necessary quantity at root, and 
 
THE PINE itrpLE. 101 
 
 then a dewing over head. Watering to this extent, 
 however, if the fruit be not in too forward a state, 
 will seldom be necessary before the end of the 
 month, or till April." In April, "water must be 
 given in a plentiful manner, once in two or three 
 days, in order the better to swell off the fruit. 
 The roots have now much to do in sustaining it, 
 and also the suckers, which will be fast advancing 
 in growth. For this reason, water frequently with 
 dunghill-drainings, ''or with water of dung, soaked 
 on purpose ; and after each watering at root, give 
 a dewing over the leaves, as directed above." In 
 May, June, and July, " from the time the fruit be- 
 gin to colour, however, begin also to lessen the 
 quantity of water; and towards its being fit for 
 cutting, withhold water entirely, else the flavour 
 will be very much deteriorated. I shall here ob- 
 serve, with respect to the diflferent kinds of Pines, 
 that the Queen and the Sugar-loaf sorts require 
 considerably more water than the King or Havan- 
 nah, and the Antigua. The difference in the man- 
 ner of watering should be more particularly attend- 
 ed to as the fruit approach to maturity y as the lat- 
 ter-named kinds are naturally more juicy and watery 
 than the former." In August, the plants that have 
 done fruiting being removed, the succession stock 
 which replace them are to be watered freely at 
 root, and occasionally dewed over top. In Octo- 
 ber and November, the waterings are gradually 
 lessened ; and in December, once in eight, ten, or 
 twelve days, will be sufficient. 
 
 H 5 
 
102 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 Insects, " If Pine plants," Nicol observes, ** by 
 proper culture, be kept healthy and vigorous, 171- 
 sects will not annoy ^ hut leave them. This fact I 
 have repeatedly proved, both with respect to the 
 Pine, and to other plants that are liable to be af- 
 fected with the coccus, (the only insect that mate- 
 rially injures the Pine), which seems to delight in 
 disease and decay, as flies do in carrion. 
 
 " I have received into my stock, plants covered 
 with the pine-hug^ (coccus hesperidum), without 
 the smallest hesitation; made no effort whatever 
 to get rid of them ; and by next shifting time, in 
 two or three months, have seen no more of them. 
 This I have not done once, but often ; and I have 
 known my brother do the same thing. In short, I 
 never but once in my life have tried any remedy 
 for the hug ; and as I was completely successful, I 
 shall here give the recipe, which may safely be ap- 
 plied to Pine plants in any state ; but certainly best 
 to crowns and suckers at striking them, or to 
 others in the March shifting, when they are shaked 
 out of their pots at any rate. 
 
 " Take soft soap, one pound ; flowers of sulphur, 
 one pound ; tobacco, half a pound \ nux vomica, 
 an ounce ; which boil all together in four English 
 gallons of soft water to three, and set it aside to 
 cool. In this liquor immerse the whole plant, 
 after the roots and leaves are trimmed for potting ; 
 and this is the whole matter. Plants in any other 
 state, and which are placed in the bark-bed, may 
 safely be watered over head with this liquor j and 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 103 
 
 as the bug harbours most in the angles of the leaves, 
 it stands the better chance of being effectual, on 
 account that it will also there remain longest, and 
 there its sediment will settle. In using it in this 
 latter way, however, if repeated waterings be ne- 
 cessary, the liquor should be reduced in strength 
 by the addition of a third or a fourth part water. 
 
 ** The brown scaly insect, also a coccus, is often 
 found on the Pine, and other stove plants j but I 
 never could perceive that it does any other injury 
 than dirty them, and so is of less importance than 
 the other species, which eats or corrodes the leaves, 
 in so far as it leaves them full of brown specks or 
 blotches. The above liquor, however, is a remedy 
 for either, and indeed for most insects, on account 
 of its strength, and glutinous nature. 
 
 " Ants are also to be found in the Pinery ; but I 
 never could observe that they do the plants any 
 harm, though they are generally to be found in the 
 pots, and among the bark. They are most fre- 
 quently to be met with there, if the coccus be pre- 
 sent ; and seem to feed on its larvae, or perhaps on 
 its faeces." 
 
 Fruit produced. He does not state any deter- 
 minate object as to this subject ; if the object be 
 to have large fruit, he says, all suckers of the root 
 and stem must be twisted off; and to retard the 
 progress of fruit that is shown too early, he re- 
 commends re-potting the plants in February. He 
 says, " If Pine Apples be not cut soon after they 
 begin to colour, that is, just when the fruit is of a 
 
 H 4 
 
104 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 greenish yellow, or straw colour, they fall greatly 
 off in flavour and richness ; and that sharp lus- 
 cious taste so much admired, becomes insipid. 
 
 Sect. IX. 
 
 Culture of the Piiie Apple, hy Mr. William Griffiuy Gardener 
 toJ.C, Girardot, Esq. at Kelhaniyiri Nottinghamshire, andnoxu 
 to Samuel Smith, Esq. of Woodhall, in Hertfordshire. 
 
 Mr. Griffin has been a most successful culti- 
 vator of the Pine Apple ; perhaps more so for the 
 limited means which he possessed at Kelham, than 
 either M*Phail or Baldwin. 
 
 Form of House, This is so nearly that of 
 Speechly, that we do not consider it necessary to 
 give the details. 
 
 Soil. Mr. Griffin laughs at those who prescribe 
 " many different strange ingredients for composts ;" 
 adding, that, " after numerous experiments made 
 with mixtures of deers', sheeps*, pigeons', hens', 
 and rotten stable-dung, with soot, and other ma- 
 nures, in various proportions and combinations with 
 fresh soil of different qualities from pastures and 
 waste lands, I can venture with confidence to re- 
 commend the following : Procure from a pasture, 
 or waste land, a quantity of brown, rich, loamy 
 earth, if of a reddish colour the better, but of a fat- 
 tish mouldy temperature ; that by squeezing a 
 handful of it together, and opening your hand, it 
 will readily fall apart again : be cautious not to go 
 
 17 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 105 
 
 deeper than you find it of that pliable texture ; 
 likewise procure, if possible, a quantity of deers'- 
 dung: if none can be conveniently got, sheeps'-dung 
 will do, and a quantity of swines'-dung. Let the 
 above three sorts be brought to some convenient 
 place, and laid up in three different heaps ridge- 
 ways, for at least six months ; and then mix them 
 in the following manner, covering the dung with a 
 little soil before it is mixed : four wheelbarrows of 
 the above earth ; one barrow of sheep's-dung, and 
 two barrows of swine's-dung. This composition," 
 he adds, ** if carefully and properly prepared, will 
 answer every purpose for the growth of Pine-plants 
 of every age and kind. It is necessary that it should 
 remain a year before applied to use, that it may 
 receive the advantage of the summer's sun and 
 winter's frost ; and it heed not be screened or sifted 
 before using, but only well broken with the hands 
 and spade, as when finely sifted it becomes too com- 
 pact for the roots of the plants." 
 
 General management. In rearing the young 
 plants, he generally plants the crowns in the bark till 
 they have struck root ; but the suckers he pots at 
 once, unless they are small and green at bottom, 
 when he treats them like the crowns. The pots he 
 uses for both crowns and suckers are five inches 
 diameter, and four inches deep, unless the suckers 
 are very strong, when he puts them in pots seven 
 inches and a quarter wide, by six and a half inches 
 deep. The plants are shifted in the March follow- 
 ing into pots nine inches in diameter, by eight inches 
 
106 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 deep, " turning each singly out of its present pot, 
 with a ball of earth entire around its roots, unless 
 any appear unhealthy or any ways defective, when 
 it is eligible to shake the earth from the roots, and 
 trim off all the parts that appear not alive. He 
 plunges them in the bark (refreshed as at each 
 shifting) eighteen inches from plant to plant in the 
 row, and twenty inches distance row from row.'* 
 
 Mr. Griffin shifts for the last time in the October 
 of the year preceding them in which the fruit is ex- 
 pected ; the pots he uses are twelve inches in 
 diameter, and ten inches deep. He plunges them 
 in the bark-bed, about twenty inches plant from 
 plant, and two feet distance from row to row. He 
 says, " place the first row eighteen inches from the 
 kirb, angling them in the rows as you go on." 
 
 It is of some consequence to remark, that Grif- 
 fin's practice in not divesting the plants at any one 
 shifting of their balls of earth, differs from that of 
 Speechly, Nicol, and most other practitioners, ex- 
 cepting Baldwin. It appears highly probable, that 
 by not disturbing the balls of healthy plants, they 
 will produce their fruit both earlier and of a larger 
 size ; for the cutting off the roots must produce a 
 check in the growth of the plant, and their renewal 
 must occupy its chief energies for some time, and 
 thus lessen the vigour of the leaves; since the 
 leaves and roots of all plants assist each other al- 
 ternately as occasion requires. 
 
 Those who advocate the practice of shaking off 
 the balls of earth, and cutting off the roots of 
 
THE riNE APPLE. 107 
 
 Pines in the second year's spring shifting, say, that 
 though, at first sight, it has an unnatural appear- 
 ance, yet, on more minute enquiry, it will be 
 found congenial to nature. In the first place, they 
 say that they only cut away the lower decaying 
 roots, and preserve all the others, unless they are 
 bruised by the shaking off the ball ; or injured by 
 disease, or otherwise. In the next place, they 
 state, that on attentively examining the Pine- 
 plant, it will be found, that, in its mode of 
 rooting, it may be classed with the strawberry, 
 vine, and crowfoot, which throw out fresh roots 
 every year, in part among, but chiefly above, the 
 old ones. This done, the old ones become torpid 
 and decay, and to cut them clear away, if it could 
 be done in all plants of this habit, would, it is said, 
 be assisting nature, and contribute to the growth 
 of the new roots. At the same time, it is to be ob- 
 served, that encouraging, in any extraordinary de- 
 gree, the production of roots, though it will ulti- 
 mately increase the vigour of the herb and fruit, 
 will retard their progress to maturity. 
 
 Speechly has the following judicious observations 
 in allusion to those who recommend always shift- 
 ing with the balls entire. 
 
 " First, It is observable, that the Pine-plant be- 
 gins to make its roots at the very bottom of the 
 stem, and as the plant increases in size, fresh roots 
 are produced from the stem, still higher and high- 
 er; and the bottom- roots die in proportion: so 
 
108 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 that, if a plant in the greatest vigour be turned 
 out of its pot as soon as the fruit is cut, there will 
 be found at the bottom a part of the stem, several 
 inches in length, naked, destitute of roots, and 
 smooth : now, according to the above method, the 
 whole of the roots which the plant produces being 
 permitted to remain on the stem to the last, the 
 old roots decay and turn mouldy, to the great de- 
 triment of those afterwards produced. 
 
 " Secondly, The first ball which remains with 
 the plant full two years, by length of time will be- 
 come hard, cloddy, and exhausted of its nourish- 
 ment, and must, therefore, prevent the roots after- 
 wards produced from growing with that freedom 
 and vigour, which they would do in fresher and 
 better mould. 
 
 " Thirty, The old ball continually remaining 
 after the frequent shiftings, it will be too large 
 when put into the fruiting-pot, to admit of a suf- 
 ficient quantity of fresh mould to support the plant 
 till its fruit becomes ripe, which is generally a 
 whole year from the last time of shifting." 
 
 In giving air and water, Mr. Griffin differs no- 
 thing from Nicol ; he waters moderately in winter, 
 and more liberally in the growing season, from 
 March till October ; want of water to keep the 
 plants moist, he considers one of the reasons of 
 their showing fruit prematurely. He never waters 
 over the leaves in any stage, nor gives much at the 
 roots in damp weather. 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 109 
 
 With respect to temperature, this author differs 
 from most others who have written on the Pine, 
 but not from many very successful practitioners. 
 He recommends 60^ as the heat proper for tlie 
 Pine in every stage, not exceeding five or six de- 
 grees over or under. The bottom heat, which he 
 considers proper, is from 90^ to 100^. Treatise on 
 the Pine Apple, p. 60. and ijQ, 
 
 Insects. After many trials and experiments, he 
 found the following the most effectual wash for 
 destroying insects on Pines : — 
 
 *« To one gallon of soft rain-water, add eight 
 ounces of soft green soap, one ounce of tobacco, 
 and three table spoonfuls of turpentine ; stir and 
 mix them well together in a watering-pot, and let 
 them stand for a day or two. When you are going 
 to use this mixture, stir and^mix it well again, then 
 strain it through a thin cloth. If the fruit only is 
 infested, dash the mixture over the crown and 
 fruit, with a squirt, until all is fairly wet ; and what 
 runs down the stem of the fruit will kill all the in- 
 sects that are amongst the bottom of the leaves. 
 When young plants are infested, take them out of 
 their pots, and shaking all the earth from the roots,^ 
 (tying the leaves of the largest plants together,) 
 and plunge them into the above mixture, keeping 
 every part covered for the space of five minutes ;^ 
 then take them out, and set them on a clean place, 
 with their tops declining downwards, for the mix- 
 ture to drain out of their centre. When the plants 
 
110 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 are dry, put them into smaller pots than before, 
 and plunge them into the bark-bed." 
 
 Fruit produced, Mr. Griffin's object seems to have 
 been to produce large fruit in the proper season. 
 In the year 1802, when gardener to J. C. Girardot, 
 Esq. at Kelham, near Nottingham, he cut twenty 
 Queen Pines, which weighed together eighty-seven 
 pounds seven ounces. In 1803, one weighing five 
 pounds three ounces. In July, 1804, one of the 
 New Providence kind, weighing seven pounds two 
 ounces. In August, 1804, one of the same kind, 
 weighing nine pounds three ounces. And in 1805, 
 he cut twenty-two Queen Pines, which weighed 
 together one hundred and eighteen pounds three 
 ounces. 
 
 Sect. X. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple, by Mr. Thomas Baldwifi, Gardener 
 to the Marquis of Hertford, at Ragley, in Warmckshire,Jrom 
 1805 to the present time, 
 
 Mr. Baldwin is reputed the first Pine cultivator 
 in England ; he has given some account of his 
 practice in a tract of a few pages, which, being sold 
 much above the usual price of printed books, never 
 obtained so much circulation as manuscript copies 
 of it, which were handed about among the principal 
 Pine-growers near London. 
 
THE PINE APPLE. Ill 
 
 Form of House, The succes- 
 sion, or nursing pits, according 
 to Mr. Baldwin's plan (fig. 11.), in 
 
 which the young plants are to re- '"'iB % 
 
 main both winter and summer, should be con- 
 structed of timber, seven feet wide, and seven 
 feet three inches high at the back, the front being 
 in the same proportion. The method of prepar- 
 ing the bed is as follows : — " Sink your pit (S.) 
 three feet three inches deep, as long as you re- 
 quire, and sufficiently broad to admit of linings on 
 each side (1,1.); make a good drain at the bottom 
 of the pit to keep it dry ; then set posts, about the 
 dimensions of six inches square, in the pit, at con- 
 venient distances, (say about the width of the top 
 lights,) and case it round with one inch and a 
 half deal wrought boards, above the surface, and 
 below with any inferior boards or planks. The 
 dimensions of my succession-bed or frame, are 
 thirty-nine feet long, and seven feet wide ; contain- 
 ing two hundred and seventy-three square ieet, 
 which will hold three hundred and fifty suckers, 
 from the end of September till the seventh of 
 April.'* 
 
 Soil, *< From old pasture or meadow ground 
 strip off the turf, and dig to the depth of six or 
 eight inches, according to the goodness of the soil; 
 draw the whole together to some convenient place, 
 and mix it with one-half of good rotten dung ; fre- 
 quently turn it over for twelve months, and it will 
 
112 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 be fit for use. This is the only compost dung for 
 young and old plants." 
 
 General management. The general practice 
 of Mr. Baldwin is to take the suckers from the 
 fruiting plants about the end of September, and 
 lay them in a warm place for about three days ; 
 he then pulls off a few of their bottom leaves, 
 which makes them ready for planting. " In mak- 
 ing your bed, he says, lay three-fourths of new tan 
 at the bottom of the pit, and lay old tan upon that, 
 to reach within three inches of the top ; on the 
 surface of this sift old tan to the thickness of three 
 inches, beating it down well with the spade, then 
 plant the suckers in the tan about four or five 
 inches apart, according to the size of the plants, 
 placing the tallest in the backside of the frame, 
 and the shortest in the front. In this situation let 
 them remain till the month of April following; 
 then take up the plants out of the tan-bed, and di- 
 vest them of all their root ; and remember that at 
 any future transplanting the roots must not be 
 taken off. Plant them in pots of five, six, and 
 seven inches diameter, according to the size of the 
 plants, but before planting let the pots be filled 
 with the prepared compost already mentioned. 
 About the middle of June following, when the pots 
 are beginning to be filled with roots, take out the 
 plants with their balls whole, and plant them in 
 pots about nine inches in diameter, being filled 
 with the same rich compost, replanting them into 
 the bed, and let them remain there till the end of 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 113 
 
 September. Be careful at each transplanting, 
 while the plants are out of the beds, to have the 
 beds put into a proper state by the addition of 
 fresh tan, &c. 
 
 *' When the plants are out of the stoves in the 
 month of September, prepare the pits in the same 
 manner as directed for the succession-beds, with 
 three-fourths of new tan at the bottom, &c. ; then 
 shift the plants into pots about fourteen inches dia- 
 meter at the top, and plant them at suitable dis- 
 tances for fruiting ; plunge the pots at first half- 
 way into the tan, till the heat diminishes to a safe 
 temperature, then fill up the interstices between 
 the pots with tan, and as the plants are now sta- 
 tioned, let them so remain till they are fruited off 
 for the table. The plants, young and old, had 
 best be near the glass, and small stoves are to be 
 preferred, because they require less fire. The glass 
 should be closely puttied, to keep out the cold 
 air, and to retain the warm. 
 
 " The fruiting-house during the winter should be 
 kept at about seventy of Fahrenheit's scale. It 
 may be left in the evening about seventy-five, and 
 it will be found in the morning about sixty-five, so 
 that no attendance during the night will be neces- 
 sary. 
 
 " There should be no water given to the young 
 suckers from September till April, while they re- 
 main in the tan without pots. After they are potted 
 they require to be watered two or three times a 
 week during the summer, according as the temper^ 
 
114 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 ature may be. When they are removed into the 
 fruiting-house in September, they should be wa- 
 tered cautiously till towards February, and as the 
 spring advances they will require a large supply. 
 Never water the plants in the common broad-cast 
 method, over their heads and leaves. 
 
 " Give air in the stoves and frames, both in sum- 
 mer and winter, when the weather will permit, from 
 the back and ends, but not from the roof. 
 
 <* Ea:peditious cultivation. The New Providence, 
 Black Antigua, Jamaica, and Enville, and the other 
 large sorts of Ananas, will require the cultivation 
 of three years to bring them to perfection, but the 
 Old Queen and the Ripley's New Queen may be 
 brought to perfection in fifteen months. To effect 
 this, it must be observed, that some of the plants 
 will fruit in February, or the beginning of March, 
 and consequently that the suckers may be taken 
 off in June,^ or the beginning of July ; make then 
 a good bed of tan with linings of litter round the 
 outside to keep in the tan ; make the bed to fit a 
 large melon frame ; put the suckers into pots of 
 about nine inches diameter, filled with the com- 
 post ; plunge them into the bed prepared in regular 
 order, and throw a mat over them in hot weather 
 for shade till they have taken root ; let them re- 
 main till the end of September, and then shift them 
 into pots of about twelve inches diameter, and 
 plunge them in the fruiting-house." He has had 
 fine crops of Pines raised fi'om these suckers, many 
 o£ them four pounds each, from plants only fifteen 
 
 18 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 115 
 
 months old. «< This method, in point both of time 
 and expence, has greatly the advantage of the 
 common plan of raising Pines in three years by 
 fires, when the fruit at last is frequently small and 
 ill-flavoured.'' 
 
 " It is a peculiar recommendation of this plan, 
 that the plants reared in frames without fire, the first 
 year seldom or never run to fruit ; whereas, on the 
 contrary, when stoves are used first for a nursery 
 for young plants, and next for succession plants, 
 and lastly, for plants for the fruiting-house, it 
 is seldom that one-third of the plants come to 
 the forcing-house, because so many of them 
 have run to fruit ; and even those that stand 
 are necessarily dried and stunted, being subject- 
 ed to the attacks of various insects ; not to men- 
 tion the enormous care and expence attendant 
 upon a three years' cultivation. The above ap- 
 pears to me to be the most easy and economical 
 plan to raise Pines ; one-third of the coals are suf- 
 ficient, and less than one-half of the labour and 
 buildings required for that purpose." Culture of the 
 Aiianas, p. 28. 
 
 Insects. After, as usual, many fruitless attempts, 
 he at last discovered the following method : " Take 
 horse-dung from the stable, the fresher the better, 
 sufficient to make a hot-bed three feet high, to 
 receive a melon frame three feet deep at the back ; 
 put on the frame and lights immediately, and 
 cover the whole with mats to bring up the heat. 
 When the bed is at the strongest heat, take some 
 
 I 2 
 
116 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 faggots, open them, and spread the sticks over 
 the surface of the bed on the dung, so as to keep 
 the plants from being scorched ; set the plants or 
 suckers bottom uppermost on the sticks ; shut 
 down your lights quite close, and cover them over 
 well with double mats, to keep in the steam. Let 
 the plants remain in this state one hour, then take 
 out the plants and wash them in cold water previ- 
 ously brought to the side of your bed, set them in 
 a dry place with their tops downwards to drain, 
 and afterwards plant them. This treatment is sure 
 to kill every insect. You will observe likewise, that 
 if your suckers are kept in the frames all the win- 
 ter, stuck in the tan without soil or fire, the effluvia 
 from the linings are sure to kill all the bugs." Cul- 
 ture of the Ananas, p. 33. 
 
 Fruit Produced , The general crop is produced 
 in the usual season, viz. from June to September, 
 or October ; but some are produced every month in 
 the year. The large sorts, as the New Providence, 
 &c. require three years to bring them to perfection, 
 but the Old Queen, and Ripley's New^ Queen, may 
 be brought to perfection in three months ; though 
 from the circumstances requisite to render this practi- 
 cable, viz. plants fruiting in February, or the be- 
 ginning of March, it must be considered more a 
 matter of accident or curiosity than of any real ad- 
 vantage. It is evident, at all events, that it can 
 never become general ; for certainly no gardener 
 would desire all his plants to come into fruit in 
 February or March. Mr. Baldwin grows his fruit 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 117 
 
 to a very considerable size even when produced in 
 so short a period. " At a meeting of the Horticul- 
 tural Society of London, held in October, I8I7, 
 T. Baldwin, gardener to the Marquis of Hertford, 
 at Ragley, presented a Queen Pine of great beauty 
 and superior flavor. It measured sixteen inches in 
 circumference, seven inches in lengh, and weighed 
 four pounds. The plant on which it was produced 
 was little more than fifteen months old.'* H(yrt, Tr. 
 vol. iii. p. 118. 
 
 Remarks, The following judicious remarks on 
 Mr. Baldwin's plan are by Mr. M*Phail. ** Mr. 
 Baldwin's method," he says, *' appears to differ no- 
 thing in principle from the methods I practised ; 
 but we differ a little in practice, that is, in the 
 manner of the application of the elements neces- 
 sary to make the plants grow fast and vigorous, and 
 to produce fine fruit ; and likewise in the mode of 
 disrooting and planting, which difference I conceive 
 to be of little consequence. He grows his plants 
 in good earth, enriched with plenty of well-rotted 
 manure. He keeps the plants in a strong heat, and 
 gives their roots plenty of water. He sets his fruit- 
 ing plants in a bed of tan in the month of Septem- 
 ber, and there it appears they are stationed till the 
 fruit be ripened the following summer. Now, I 
 think, a bed made up in September, is not able to 
 retain a sufficient heat for the growth of the Pine 
 Apple plant for so long a period of time. 
 
 ** Once, by way of experiment, in a small hot- 
 house, I made up a bed in the pit of it in the month 
 
 I 3 
 
118 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 of October, and laid upon the surface of the bed 
 one foot thick of good earth, and turned out of 
 their pots fine Pine Apple plants, intended to fruit 
 the succeeding year, and I set the plants into the 
 earth on the surface of the bed with the balls of 
 earth about their roots undisturbed. In this situa- 
 tion they grew exceedingly well, and shewed fruit 
 very strong, but the heat in the bed under them 
 became too faint in the month of April : and with 
 all the atmospherical heat that I could give them, 
 the fruit did not ripen well for want of heat to the 
 roots of the plants ; and I was not able to contrive 
 any method to recruit it, which required to be done 
 in the month of March or April. 
 
 «* According to the foregoing account, this cele- 
 brated and experienced gardener plants the suckers 
 of die Pine Apple in the latter end of September, 
 and he divests them of all their roots in the month 
 of April. In this method of process I must differ 
 from him, because the young plants have only six 
 months (being the slowest growing months of the 
 year) to make roots, and then these roots are en- 
 tirely cut off, which considerably retards the plants 
 in their growth. And, accorcHng to his method, 
 and mine also, the queen and some other sorts of 
 the Pine, ripen their fruit in a shorter period of 
 time than two years after planting. He says, he 
 never waters his Pine plants in the broad-cast way 
 over their heads and leaves. In this I also differ 
 with him, for I think, giving the plants water all 
 over theii: leaves occasionally, especially in hot 
 
THE PINE APPLE. IIQ 
 
 weather, is of service to them, and which indeed is 
 only imitating nature. ♦ 
 
 ** I say not that Pine Apple plants will not do wefl 
 without giving them water all over their leaves, for 
 if hot-houses be kept in a good state of temperature 
 for the growth of the Pine Apple, the great evapor- 
 ation of the tan-bed, and of the moist earth about 
 the roots of the plants, may supply the leaves suffi- 
 ciently with water, especially in houses managed in 
 the way this real practical gardener says he man- 
 ciges his Pine plants ; that is, his hot-houses are 
 very close, and he admits no au' at the roof, so that 
 the moist air which ascends up is thrown back 
 among the plants. I would here remark, that 
 when Pine Apple plants are watered all over their 
 leaves when in fruit, the water should not be suf- 
 fered to stand long in the heart of the crowns on 
 the fruit, which it will seldom do if the heat in the 
 house be good, but with a little care the plants may 
 be watered all over their leaves, without letting it 
 fall on the fruit, or the crowns of them. 
 
 " He recommends that beds for the culture of 
 the Pine Apple be built of wood : excepting it be 
 oak, which is dear, other sorts of timber will not 
 last long in such a situation ; and therefore, for 
 this and other reasons, (given in Section VJI. page 
 67), I think beds built of brick, in a similar way to 
 the one I invented, are preferable, and in the end 
 cheaper than those of wood. 
 
 " With regard to the method which this gardener 
 UB«th to destroy insects on Pine Apple plants, it is 
 
 I 4 
 
120 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 a troublesome operation, and can be practised only 
 on young plants, and indeed, according to his own 
 account, insects on the Pine Apple may be destroy- 
 ed in the course of their culture, which coincides 
 exactly with the methods I used and recommend 
 to be carried into practice by those who have the 
 management of Pine Apple plants, and are troubled 
 with insects. I have no doubt but his method of 
 laying young plants in a hot-bed of rank dung, will 
 effectually destroy the insects, though I think, how- 
 ever, they had best remain in the bed longer than 
 one hour ; but perhaps remaining even an hour, 
 or a longer time, in such a dreadful situation, where 
 I conceive no animal could long exist, might hurt 
 the plants, if not destroy them. But let it be re- 
 membered, that if Pine plants be perfectly free of 
 insects, if they are put into a hot-house where the 
 scale or the bug insects are in the tan, or in any 
 part of the house, the insects will find their way to 
 creep to the Pines and breed upon them ; for 
 these insects are natural to the plant." 
 
 Sect. XI. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple as given in Abercrombies Practical 
 Gardener, edited hy Mr. James Mean, head gardener to Sir 
 Abraham Hume, Bart, at Wormleybury, in Hertfordshire, 
 
 The culture of the Pine Apple was given by 
 John Abercrombie, in his ** Every man his own 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 121 
 
 Gardener," when that work was originally published 
 in I78O ; but we prefer taking it from the work 
 above cited, as giving the modern practice. It is 
 proper to observe, however, that the directions in 
 the " Practical Gardener" are much less to be de- 
 pended on than those given by M'Phail and Bald- 
 win ; for as the first of these authors observes, in 
 his preface to the Gardener's Remembrancer, the 
 Practical Gardener has been evidently dressed up, 
 and in some parts rather affectedly, by some man 
 who knew little of the practice of gardening. As 
 to what Mr. Mean may have done in revising the 
 book, it is more certain that he has not done enough, 
 than that he has done any thing, for there are many 
 passages, besides those pointed out by M*Phail, that 
 appear quite ridiculous as coming from a practical 
 gardener. Notwithstanding these faults, however, 
 which would have escaped unnoticed in a less 
 valuable book, " The Practical Gardener" is the 
 best book of its kind extant. 
 
 Form of House, ** The fruiting-house," he says, 
 " need not be higher than five feet in front, and 
 eight feet six inches at the back wall j or, whatever 
 be the breadth of the house, the difference between 
 the height in front and in rear, need not exceed 
 one-third of the breadth." By this means the 
 chamber of air to be heated will be materially re- 
 duced. To give a full command over the tem- 
 perature of this air, let the lappings of the panes 
 of glass be closed with putty. 
 'vXhe roof of the succession-house may be four or 
 
122 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 six inches lower than that of the fruiting-house ; 
 and the roof of the nursing-pit may be a foot lower 
 than that of the fruiting-house. 
 
 SoiL The soil recommended is nearly the same 
 as that used by Nicol. It consists of: — " 1. Ve- 
 getable mould; 2. The top-spit earth from an 
 upland pasture, loamy, friable, and well reduced ; 
 3. Hard-fed dung, rotted and mellowed by at least 
 a year's preparation ; 4». Small, pearly river-gravel ; 
 5. White sea-sand ; 6. Shell-marl. 
 
 " If no vegetable mould has been provided, light 
 rich earth, from a fallowed part of the kitchen gar- 
 den, may be substituted : there is no difference of 
 any account between one and the other, further 
 than this : The vegetable mould is sure to be virgin 
 earth, from which no aliment has been extracted^ the 
 mould from the kitchen garden, however you may 
 trench, and rest, and enrich it, cannot but contain 
 many particles which have given out their fertilizing 
 qualities to previous crops. Dung perfectly decom- 
 posed comes to the same thing as vegetable mould j 
 therefore that one of them which is most attainable, 
 oi: b,QS^t, prepared, may fitly serve instead of the 
 
 " Of the first three take equal quantities; making 
 three-fourths of the intended compost. Constitute 
 the remaining fourth' thus: Let river-gravel^ sea- 
 sand,, and shell-marl, furnish each a twelfth part. Thsi 
 sm9,ll gravel is to afford something for the roots to:^ 
 lay hold of; the sea-sand, to promote lightness and: 
 dryness; thp shell-midj, the better to support the 
 
THE yiNE APPLE. 123 
 
 growth of fibres and integuments and parts not 
 pulpy. Mix with the whole a fortieth part soot, to 
 offend and repel worms. Incorporate the ingre- 
 dients fully ; and turn the heap two or three times 
 before using it." 
 
 General management, " As soon as either crowns 
 or suckers are detached from the parent plant, 
 directions are given to twist off some of the leaves 
 about the base ; the vacancy, thus made, at the 
 bottom^ of the stem, is to favour the emission of 
 rpot|s. Pare the stump smooth; then lay the in- 
 tended plants on a shelf in a shaded part of the 
 stove, or of the green-house, or of any dry apart- 
 ment. Let crowns and fruit off-sets lie till the part 
 that adhered to the fruit is perfectly healed ; and 
 root-suckers, in the same manner, till the part which 
 was. united to the old stock is becomte dry and 
 fijcmp They will be fit to plant in five or six days. 
 As to the prolonged period for which they may re- 
 main out of cultui'e : Pine-plants have been kept 
 six months without mould, in a moderately warm 
 dry statq, and the only injury has been loss of time. 
 Crowns or suckers coming off before Michaelmas 
 should be planted without any unnecessary delay,^ 
 to get established bef bre^ the winter* When late- 
 fruiting plants do not afford off-sets till softer Mi- 
 chaelmas, it is best to keep them in a dormant state 
 during the months least favourable to artificial cul- 
 ture : therefore, as you obtain these late off-sets, 
 hang them up in the house, not too near the flues, 
 to rest till March." 
 
124 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 Insects. Mr. NicoPs method, and also that by 
 M*Phail, are both quoted with approbation. The 
 following wash is directed to be applied exclusively 
 to the building, and by no means to the plants. 
 " At the annual cleansing of the house, if insects 
 are supposed to breed in the building, introduce 
 the wash with a brush into the cracks and joints of 
 of the wood- work, and the crevices of the wall. 
 
 Recipe for the Wash. " Of sulphur vivum take 
 2 oz. soft soap, 4 oz. Make these into a lather, 
 mixed with a gallon of water that has been poured 
 in a boiling state upon a pound of mercury. The 
 mercury will last, to medicate fresh quantities of 
 water, almost perpetually." 
 
 Fruit produced. To ripen eminently large fruit, 
 he directs the removal or destruction of suckers; to 
 retard the progress of fruit that have appeared too 
 early, he shifts in Nicol's manner ; and when fruit 
 is ripening too fast, or too many advancing to a 
 ripe state together, he retards a part of the plants 
 by setting them into a dry airy place, affording both 
 shade and shelter. " Give no water as long as you 
 wish to suspend their progress. For the same pur- 
 pose, others may be set out green ; but whilst the 
 excitment of these is lowered, they must be kept in 
 a growing state." Practical Gardener, 643. 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 125 
 
 Sect. XII. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple by Mr. James Andrews, commercial 
 mrdener, Vauxhall. 
 
 t>' 
 
 Mr. Andrews has been considered the best 
 grower of Pines in the neighbourhood of London 
 for many years ; his principal object is to grow 
 fruit for the market ; but the demand for^ the 
 plants by private gardeners, and others, has generally 
 been so great, that he can seldom keep the plants 
 till the last stage of their growth. 
 
 Form of House. Both pits and larger houses are 
 used ; but there is nothing particular in the form 
 of either. Mr. Andrews seldom erects new work, 
 but generally purchases old hot-houses and sashes 
 at the sales of decayed gentlemen, or bankrupt 
 tradesmen. In this respect he follows the practice 
 of Mr. Lee of Hammersmith, and both have gene- 
 rally a stock of old sashes and rafters on hand ready 
 to put up when wanted. But though the form of 
 Mr. Andrews' houses may be said to be in a great 
 degree matter of accident, yet the arrangement of 
 the flues within is his own. These generally en- 
 ter at the front corner of one end, pass to the op- 
 posite end, return along the back wall, where they 
 sometimes serve as a path, and at other times are 
 placed at one side of the path, occasionally a re- 
 turn is made, and the chimney-top is formed in the 
 back wall, at the opposite end to that in which the 
 fire enters j when this is not the case, the smoke 
 
126 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 passes off by the back wall at the same end. The 
 width of the pit depends on the room left by the flue; 
 to increase it no path is formed at the ends or in front, 
 and that along the back wall does not exceed two 
 feet in width. The depth of the pits is from two 
 feet and a half to three feet deep, and their distance 
 from the glass from four to six feet. Vines are 
 trained up the rafters and over the back path. 
 The sashes in front open in various ways, and air 
 is given by them, and by the sliding sashes of the 
 roof. On the whole, Mr. Andrews' best houses 
 greatly resemble those of Mr. Gunter, to be des- 
 cribed in the following section. 
 
 In the pits there is nothing uncommon in the 
 construction ; they are, in general, sunk deep in the 
 ground, which being dry at bottom, is a great sav- 
 ing of heat. In some the tan is enclosed by brick 
 walls^ in others by a frame of wood; some are 
 without flues, but the greater number have a flue 
 in front, or a steam tube, or both. 
 
 In the year 1817, Mr. Andrews tried the effect 
 of steam, and was so much satisfied with it, that in 
 the following year, he put up an extensive appa- 
 ratus in the centre of his forcing department, 
 from which branch-pipes proceed in all directions, 
 and heat the air in the whole of his hot-houses, 
 pits, and frames. 
 
 SoiL As near as possible that oi Baldwin's, or 
 M'Phail's; — a rich loam, rendered sufficiently free 
 by coarse sand, to admit the ready passage of the 
 water. 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 127 
 
 General management. The crowns and suckers, 
 when they are detached at irregular seasons, as 
 in winter, or very early in spring, are planted in 
 any spare corner of the bark bed, till a number is 
 collected, when they are planted in pots, according 
 to their sizes, and plunged in common hot-beds, 
 or pits. Mr. Andrews has no particular months 
 for shifting, no fixed sizes of pots, and no prede- 
 termined manipulation as to shaking the plants out 
 of their balls, or otherwise. He is present at every 
 operation himself, and acts as the case requires. 
 He encourages forward plants, by giving them 
 larger pots than the rest ; sometimes he looks over 
 the nursing-pits, and selects the most vigorous 
 plants, shifts them, and puts them into a stronger 
 heat, leaving the others for some weeks longer : 
 the balls of earth he does not disturb, if they do 
 not appear hard, the roots injured, or the plant 
 enfeebled. Sometimes he takes off the bottom of 
 the ball, and the bottom roots, paring off any part 
 of the stump of the plant which may appear de- 
 caying y at other times, he contents himself with 
 removing the surface-mould, and top-dressing. In 
 general, he places the plants somewhat deeper in 
 the pots at each shifting. 
 
 The plants which he removes to the fruiting- 
 houses are shifted, for the last time, about nine 
 months before the fruit is expected ; their pots are 
 generally twelve or fourteen inches in diameter ; 
 but not of the usual proportion in depth, to lessen 
 the risk of overheating from the tan. The depth 
 
1^8 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 is generally the same as the width. The pots are 
 plunged up to their rims, unless the heat be very 
 violent, and are liberally supplied with heat, air, 
 and water. Mr. Andrews does not fear 90^ or 100^ 
 degrees of heat in the bark bed, even when the 
 air of the house by fire-heat is not above 60^ or 
 65^ In summer, he allows the thermometer to 
 rise to 90® or a 100® before he gives air, and he 
 often leaves some at the top-lights all night. 
 • Insects. On this subject nothing new can be 
 gathered from the practice of Mr. Andrews, for 
 he has never had any worth destroying by a regu- 
 lar process. His practice affords an ample proof 
 that regimen and cleanliness will never allow in- 
 sects to increase to an injurious degree. 
 
 Fruit produced. We have already noticed the 
 circumstance of Mr. Andrews' plants being often 
 sold before they arrive at the stage for fruiting. 
 His stock, however, has been lately greatly in- 
 creased by the erection of additional houses, and 
 the easy mode of heating them from the steam 
 apparatus ; he now, therefore, sends a number to 
 market, and chiefly in the winter season, and early 
 in spring, when the price is highest. Their fruit 
 weigh from one to four pounds, and are almost 
 exclusively of the Queen Pine. 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 1^9 
 
 Sect. XIII. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple^ as practised hy Mr. Gunter, at 
 Earlscourty near Kensington ; Mr, Grange, at Kingsland ; 
 and Mr. Wilmot, of Isleivorth. 
 
 The family of Mr. Gunter have long possessed 
 the very extensive gardens of Earlscourt, and 
 grown in them kitchen vegetables, excellent hardy 
 fruits, and melons, for the London market ; but it 
 is only within the last seven years that they have 
 commenced the culture of the Pine Apple for the 
 same purpose. This Mr. R. Gunter has done on 
 the most liberal and extensive scale, and with great 
 and merited success. 
 
 Forrni of House. Like Mr. Andrews, Mr. Gun- 
 ter uses both pits and large houses ; in the pits he 
 both nurses the plants, and fruits them, and in the 
 large houses he fruits the Pine Apple, and produces 
 very early grapes at the same time. 
 
 The large houses (Rg, IS.J) are, in what may be 
 
 K 
 
150- BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 called the usual form ; they differ from M'Phad's, 
 and the houses built by Speechly, and originally 
 by Nicol, in not having a path in front ; and from 
 those of Mr. Alton, erected in the royal gardens 
 at Kensington, in the pit being farther from the 
 glass. They are about fourteen feet wide inside 
 measure; the pit is ten feet three inches wide, 
 three feet deep, three and a half feet from the 
 glass in front («), and about six feet and a half 
 behind ( Z> ). The back path ( c ) is a border regu- 
 larly dug and manured, to encourage the roots of 
 the vines, which pass under the bark bed to the 
 front border. Each house is forty feet long, and 
 has a flue proceeding from the back wall to the 
 front, and along the front to the opposite end, re- 
 turning to the back wall in the usual manner. As 
 the houses are all heated by steam, however, these 
 flues are erected' merely by way of security, in 
 case of any accident happening to the boiler or 
 the pipes ( c?, e ), and are therefore seldom used. 
 Besides the vines trained over the back path, there 
 are others which are led up the rafters ; both root 
 into excellent soil, and their shoots are withdrawn 
 in autumn to give them three months' rest in the 
 open air. TTiose at the back wall are withdrawn 
 through an opening in the angle of the upper sash ; 
 those in front through an angle of the front sash. 
 
 The pits are sunk in the ground to the sill of 
 the sashes in front, and within eighteen inches, or 
 two feet of the sill behind. In all of them, the 
 tan is inclosed by brick walls; they are generally 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 131 
 
 about seven feet wide within walls, but some are 
 as wide as fourteen feet, with the front wall six 
 inches above ground, and the back wall two feet 
 ten inches. The sashes in these broad pits are in 
 two lengths, as in hot-house roofs ; none of them 
 have any flues, being all heated together, with the 
 hot-houses, and various other descriptions of pits, 
 by an extensive steam apparatus. This apparatus 
 was erected by Mr. Mainwaring, of Blackfriars, 
 and is one of the most complete of its kind, ex^ 
 cepting in the circumstance of the steam-pipes 
 having what are technically called spigott and 
 faucet joints, which, it is alleged, are more apt, 
 by their contraction and expansion, to allow the 
 escape of the steam than iho^ Jianched ]omi^. The 
 advantage of the former mode of jointing is, that 
 the steam-tube contracts and expands in parts ; 
 and, of course, that this contraction and expan- 
 sion must be very trifling on every part ; whereas, 
 when iron tubes are joined by flanches, they be- 
 come, in effect, one tube ; and the contraction, 
 or expansion, takes place throughout their whole 
 length. 
 
 Soil. Good garden earth, enriched with well- 
 rotted hot-bed dung ; the soil of the open garden 
 at Earlscourt, is a rich black loam, and seems to 
 suit the Pine Apple as well as virgin earth brought 
 from a distance. 
 
 General management. Much the same as that of 
 Mr. Andrews. Mr. Gunter tried to substitute the 
 heat of steam for that of tan, as a bottom heat, but 
 
 K ^ 
 
132 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 did not succeed. He formed a chamber, or va- 
 cuity of about six inches in depth, and covered it 
 with perforated oak-plank ; on this he placed the 
 earth, in which, in some cases, he turned the plants 
 out of the pots ; and, in others, plunged the pots 
 in the earth, or in rotten tan. The steam was 
 admitted to fill the chamber ; the quantity of heat 
 imparted to the earth was very great, but, contrary 
 to his expectation, no vapour ascended into the 
 mould, which became excessively dry and husky ; 
 nor was he able, by frequent waterings, to keep it 
 in a state fit for vegetation ; the roots of the plants 
 in it, in spite of every precaution, become shriv- 
 elled and dry. 
 
 Insects, None of any consequence have yet ap- 
 peared at Earlscourt, nor is it likely they will ever 
 become numerous there, while steam is used. Were 
 they to become ever so abundant, keeping the air 
 of the house filled with steam for two or three 
 days together, would effectually destroy them. 
 
 Fruit produced. The object of every commer- 
 cial gardener is to have some fruit ripening in 
 every month of the year, but especially in winter, 
 when the price is high. In summer great numbers 
 are imported, or sent in from the hired-out gar- 
 dens of country gentlemen, which greatly reduces 
 the market value below the real value, or actual 
 cost of production. 
 
 The Pine Apple is extensively cultivated by Mr. 
 Grange, of Kingsland, and Mr. Wilmot, of Isle- 
 worth, in nearly the same manner as by Mr. 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 133 
 
 Andrews and Mr. Gunter. Those of Mr. Wilmofs 
 are, at present, in the most luxuriant and pros- 
 perous state ; Mr. Grange's are also in a very re- 
 spectable condition. In both, the plants are grown 
 and fruited in pits, and larger houses, which re- 
 semble those of Earlscourt (^g, 12.) as nearly as 
 possible ; in both, also, the heat is communicated by 
 steam. 
 
 Sect. XIV. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple, hy Mr. Isaac Oldacre, gardetier to 
 Lady Banks, at Spring-grove, Middlesex. 
 
 Mr. Oldacre is an excellent kitchen-gardener, 
 and an ingenious and curious man. He was se- 
 veral years head-gardener at one of the Emperor 
 of Russia's residences near Petersburg, and has 
 the merit of having introduced from that country, 
 the German mode of rearing mushrooms. Having 
 returned to this country about the year 1813, for 
 his health, he some years afterwards became gar- 
 dener to Sir Joseph Banks, in whose gardens he 
 has cultivated the Pine Apple with moderately 
 good success, and we have introduced this Section 
 on purpose to notice some peculiarities of treat- 
 ment which he adopts, and some strange opinions 
 which he holds, or lately held. 
 
 Form of House. The plants are brought for- 
 ward in dung, or tan-frames, or hot-beds, and 
 also in flued-pits \ but generally fruited in houses 
 
 K 3 
 
134 
 
 BRITISH - MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 combining the culture of the Vine and the Pine. 
 Mr.Oldacre has two of these houses, one is built of 
 timber, in the usual way, (fig. 13.) and the other is 
 
 of the same form, but roofed with copper sashes. A 
 full command over the air of these houses is obtained 
 by the returns made by the flue in the back path 
 ( « ) ; the curb of the pit is about three feet from 
 the glass in front ( ^ ); and about five feet from it 
 behind (c); vines are trained up the rafters, but 
 none are grown in the back path (e), which is 
 paved. 
 
 In addition to the flues, steam is also employed 
 as a medium of communicating heat. But the ap- 
 paratus was erected chiefly as matter of patriotism, 
 when steam first came in vogue, and is on a very 
 imperfect plan, and of little real use. The boilers 
 are placed over the furnaces, and the same fire 
 which heats the water of the boiler, passes along 
 the flue f the steam tube of the boiler is laid on 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 135 
 
 tlie top of the flue, and extends no farther than it 
 extends. It is evident, therefore, that scarcely any 
 advantage can result from the use of the boiler, 
 unless it be that the heat is thus sent more effectu- 
 ally to the opposite end of the house to that at 
 which the fire enters, or that the vapour is very 
 readily admitted from the steam-pipe to fill the air 
 of the house. None of these advantages, however, 
 will compensate the expense of the apparatus ; the 
 first is hardly wanted where houses are placed in 
 a connected range, as the two outside ends of the 
 houses are kept warm by the flues entering there ; 
 and in the other houses a warm end is placed 
 against a cold one. 
 
 Soil. At first, Mr. Oldacre used good sound 
 loam and dung, with a little sand, when he found 
 it necessary ^ but he has for the last four years 
 grown his fruiting plants chiefly in powdered 
 bones, in which he thinks they thrive better, and 
 produce more highly-flavoured fruit. We have not, 
 however, been able to discover any thing in the 
 appearance of either fruit or plants, to lead us to 
 suppose that powdered bones are more congenial 
 to the Pine plant than good loam and dung ; his 
 plants are certainly not equal to Mr. Baldwin's, nor 
 superior to those grown by Mr. Andrews, or Mr. 
 Alton. We, therefore, consider their thriving 
 in this compost a proof more of the hardy nature 
 of the Pine, than of any thing else 5 we have nq 
 doubt it would grow in powdered granite, or 
 
 K 4 
 
136 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 coal, or almost any powder, not even excepting 
 gunpowder, if a due proportion of well-rotted 
 manure were added, and water, heat, light, and 
 air, duly supplied. 
 
 General management. In this, Mr. Oldacre has 
 nothing particular; he is careful not to let the 
 temperature of either frames or pits, containing 
 Pine plants fall under 60^ in winter, but is not 
 afraid of a heat of 90<^ or 100<* in summer. After 
 shifting, and occasionally during very hot weather, 
 he shades the plants in the frames and succession- 
 pits, well knowing that the want of abundant and 
 extended roots must lessen that supply of moisture 
 essential to the vigour of plants, during high sun- 
 shine, when evaporation is so powerful. His fruit- 
 ing-plants he keeps in large pots, rather broad 
 than deep, and so liberally supplies them with 
 water, that evaporation and transpiration go on 
 even in the hottest sun-shine, without injuring the 
 plants. He waters often with liquid manure, ge- 
 nerally the drainings of dunghills; frequently 
 steams the house by watering the paths and flues 
 when the steam apparatus is not at work ; some- 
 times he waters the plants over the top ; and at 
 all times he keeps up a good bottom heat. 
 
 It may be further noticed, that in the hottest 
 weather, from June to September, he permits the 
 temperature of the atmosphere of the house to rise 
 to upwards of 100 degrees during the day, but 
 leaves sufficient number of sashes open during the 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 137 
 
 night, to lower the heat of the air within very 
 nearly to that of the air without. This is perfectly 
 natural treatment, consistent with what takes place 
 in those countries where the Pine Apple is grown 
 in the open air, and consonant with the practice of 
 Mr. Knight. 
 
 Insects, These he keeps off by regimen, water- 
 ing with clear water, and filling the house with 
 steam. In short, Mr. Oldacre's opinions and prac- 
 tices, as far as circumstances have required prac- 
 tice, are in perfect unison with Mr. M*Phail's : and 
 it is not, perhaps, too much to assert, that experi- 
 ence will bring every gardener to the same result. 
 
 Fruit produced, Mr. Oldacre considers that the 
 fruit he produces in the copper-roofed house is 
 never so high-flavoured as that grown in the other 
 with a timber roof, though the treatment be in all 
 other respects the same. This certainly appears a 
 very singular circumstance, and not to be account- 
 ed for in the present state of human knowledge. 
 The bars of iron, or copper sashes, might possibly 
 (but not probably) make some difference in the 
 electrical state of the air of the house, but this is 
 the utmost degree of variation we can conceive a 
 metallic roof capable of making. If it admits more 
 light, or abstracts more heat, these are effects easily 
 counteracted, if desired, and must have been so, 
 if they existed in any degree, as Mr. Oldacre 
 asserts the culture in both houses was exactly 
 alike. 
 
138 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 On the whole, we must suspend our opinion on 
 this subject; or rather conclude that it is more 
 probable, Mr. Oldacre is mistaken in thinking the 
 culture he gives to the plants in both houses the 
 same, than that the single circumstance of a metal- 
 lic roof on one of them, should make such differ- 
 ence in its produce. This report, which had been 
 made current at the Horticultural Society, excited 
 the attention of Sir Thomas Baring, who, having 
 an extensive range of metallic hot-houses, at East 
 Stratton Park, his seat in Hampshire, soon after- 
 wards sent a very fine Pine Apple to the Society, to 
 be tasted at one of their meetings. At this meeting 
 we were present, but though we tasted of this Pine 
 Apple, yet not having sufficient opportunity of 
 comparing it with any other, we could not discern 
 any difference. When a great many fruits are 
 tasted in rapid succession, and of each such small 
 portions as hardly to afford its real taste, the im- 
 pression on the palate is evanescent; or at any rate, 
 it is not, perhaps, too much to say, that under such 
 circumstances, it is difficult to form a solid judg- 
 ment. 
 
 Sect. XV. 
 
 Culture of the Pine Apple, by William Townsend Aiton, Esq, 
 gardener to the King, at Ketv and Kensington. 
 
 It is only within the last four years, that the 
 Pine culture, in the royal gardens, has been above 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 139 
 
 mediocrity ; before I8I7, and as far back as we 
 have had an opportunity of observing, they were 
 in a very poor state, those at Kew more particu- 
 larly. At present, the Pines in both the gardens 
 mentioned, are equal to any within ten miles of 
 London ; and, with the exception of the New 
 Providence, Black Antigua, and some other sorts, 
 are not surpassed, even by those of Mr. Baldwin. 
 The culture pursued in the royal gardens, is as 
 simple as it is successful ; and as economical as if 
 the fruit were grown for the market by a commer- 
 cial gardener. The whole does the highest credit 
 to Mr. Aiton, and those whom he employs. 
 
 Form of House, The plants are struck, and 
 brought forward in pits, or frames, (fig. 14.) con- 
 
 structed exactly in Mr. Baldwin's manner, with 
 this difference, that the sub-soil at Kensington 
 being moist, they are raised on a small platform 
 ( a . . . ^ ) above the surface, instead of being sunk 
 under it, as Baldwin's are. They have, also, the 
 addition of a gutter in front ( c ), which, though at 
 first sight it may appear trifling, yet, in practice, 
 is of very material consequence, by keeping the 
 lining dry, and not chilling and interrupting the 
 
140 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 heat in the very part where it should penetrate to 
 the interior of the pit. 
 
 Occasionally some plants are fruited in these 
 pits, especially at Kew, but, in general, they are 
 removed to a low house (fig, 15.) of a most econo- 
 
 15 
 
 mical and judicious construction, and calculated 
 both for the growth of Pines and Vines. This house 
 is fifteen feet wide within walls ; the pit ( « ), is nine 
 feet wide ; the back path ( Z» ), forms a border for 
 the roots of the Vines ; the pit is surrounded by a 
 flue (Cy d); the curb, or plate is two feet three 
 inches from the glass in front ( ^ ), and four feet 
 eight inches from it behind (/") ; the Vines are 
 planted in the back border ( ^ ), and trained under 
 the roof directly over it and over the back flue ; 
 and others are planted in the front border (g)'y 
 and trained up the rafters. 
 
 The length of the houses in the royal gardens at 
 Kensington, varies from thirty- three to fifty feet 
 (fig. 16.) : each house has two furnaces, one for 
 constant use, and another for giving an extra sup- 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 141 
 
 ply of heat in very severe weather. The first ( a ), 
 proceeds directly to the front corner ( Z> ), thence 
 along the front to the opposite end (c), then along 
 the back of the pit (d, e ), passing under the back 
 path, or border, and terminating in a chimney (^) 
 beside the furnace. 
 
 The other furnace is placed at the opposite end 
 of the house ( ^ ) ; has a short flue under the back 
 path, which conducts it to the back course of the 
 principal flue (at d), which it joins, and the smoke 
 of the two fires moves in the same tunnel, ( from d 
 to ^ ) and passes out by the same chimney. When 
 this second furnace is not in use, its connection 
 with the flue of the first is cut off by* a damper at 
 the point of junction (d), A very small fire made 
 
142 
 
 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 in this furnace in severe weather, not only adds to 
 the heat of the house by its own power, but by 
 increasing the draught, or rate of burning, of the 
 fire in the other furnace. 
 
 In addition to the fire heat, a steam apparatus 
 has been lately erected, and the tubes conducted 
 round the houses on the tops of the flues ( ^g. 15. 
 d, e); this is found to give a great command of 
 heat, and also to admit of filling the house with va- 
 pour at pleasure. The height of the house from 
 the ground to the top of the back wall, is only nine 
 feet (^g, 170? the rafters of the loof are placed 
 
 about four feet apart, centre from centre ; or about 
 twenty-four sashes are given to every hundred 
 feet ; the front sashes ( « ), are only eighteen 
 inches high, and slide past each other ; the middle 
 end sash (b), also slides ; the sill of the door ( c ), 
 and the back path, or border, are on a level with 
 the outer surface of the ground, to admit the easy 
 wheeling in of tan, &c. ; the front border ( c? ), is 
 raised considerably above it, on account of the 
 wet bottom ; the back sheds are low and neat, and 
 the furnaces sunk three feet below, the surface 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 143 
 
 ( %. 16, h h ) to give them a better draught ; and 
 this also serves to drain the back border. 
 
 The houses are placed in pairs, the furnaces for 
 general use at the extreme ends of the range, and 
 the auxiliary ones in the middle, where the steam- 
 boiler is also placed, but worked by a fire apart. 
 
 On the whole, no plan of Pine-stove that has 
 yet appeared, is more simple, neat, economical, 
 and complete than this ; the only fault we have 
 to them, is, that owing to the great thickness of 
 wood employed on the bars of the sashes, they are 
 rather dark and gloomy within ; but this might 
 easily be remedied by the substitution of light iron 
 rafters, with wooden framed sashes sliding in them, 
 but the bars of the sashes formed of iron. It is 
 true, gloomy as these houses are, the Pines thrive 
 in them as well as can be wished, but probably by 
 having more light, they might thrive, so as to sur- 
 pass all expectation. 
 
 Soil, Good yellow loam, with a third of rotten 
 dung, and some road grit to serve as sand. This 
 is well mixed together, and passed through a wide 
 screen, and the pots are well drained with three 
 or four pieces of potsherd. 
 
 General management. This differs in little or 
 nothing from that of Mr. Andrews ; and only from 
 that of Mr. Baldwin in the crowns and suckers 
 being struck in pots, instead of the bark, as is 
 Mr. Baldwin's practice. Supposing the crowns and 
 suckers potted in September, they are not dis- 
 turbed till the following March j such as are very 
 
144 BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATING 
 
 forward, are shifted at once into large pots, and 
 will show fruit in the course of that autumn, or 
 within the year, and ripen their fruit in November 
 or December, very desirable periods for the royal 
 table, equally expeditious, as in Mr. Baldwin's 
 mode, and more so than in Cuba or Jamaica. The 
 plants which are in a less forward state are dis- 
 rooted entirely, put into pots according to their 
 sizes, nursed all the summer in the pits, and moved 
 to the larger houses in autumn, where they show 
 fruit at various periods, during the winter, and in 
 the following season ; thus ripening their fruit at 
 different periods, from eighteen months to two and 
 a half years, from the time they were taken from the 
 parent plants. The pots in which these plants 
 are fruited, seldom exceed twelve inches in dia- 
 meter. 
 
 Insects. Various modes of getting rid of these 
 was attempted both at Kew and Kensington ; that 
 which was finally successful was steeping for two 
 or three hours in strong tobacco- water, as recom- 
 mended by Miller; then washing in pure water 
 two or three times — drying, planting, shading, 
 and applying a brisk bottom heat, a moist atmo- 
 sphere, and giving a little air. This recovered the 
 plants, and future regimen continued them in the 
 vigorous state of health in which they now are. 
 
 Fruit produced. The object, and it is most suc- 
 cessfully attained, is to have handsome Pines on 
 the royal table every day in the year ; they cannot, 
 of course, be very high-flavoured in the winter 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 145 
 
 and spring months ; but appearance, in ^ome cases, 
 is every thing — they look well, the golden hue 
 of the Apple, mimic grandeur of the crown, and 
 the presence of such a rare fruit at an uncommon 
 season, accords well with the pomp and splendour 
 of a royal table. As to flavor, indeed, by the time 
 the desert appears on great occasions, the palate is 
 generally seasoned with wine, and a few drops of 
 alchohol are already transferred to the ventricles 
 of the brain ; when that is the case, every fruit has 
 just what flavor it ought to have ; for the fine 
 phrensy of a warmed imagination knows no degree 
 of merit but the superlative. 
 
146 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 CHAR V. 
 
 IMPROVEMENTS RECENTLY ATTEMPTED IN THE CUL- 
 TURE OF THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 The Pine Apple has never been so generally cul- 
 tivated in this country as it might have been, from 
 an idea that its culture is attended with more diffi- 
 culty and expense than that of all other fruits ; and, 
 also, from the circumstance of the greater number 
 of gardeners being ignorant of its cultivation. 
 With respect to the difficulty of cultivating this 
 fruit, every gardener, who knows any thing about 
 it, knows it is much easier grown and fruited than 
 the cucumber early in spring, or the melon at 
 any period of the year. In short, with the single 
 difference of requiring an artificial temperature, it 
 is as easy, or easier to grow than a common cab- 
 bage : — it is not nearly so liable to insects as that 
 plant is in dry seasons ; and of two plantations, the 
 one of crowns or suckers of Pines, and the other of 
 seedling cabbages, we may venture to assert, that 
 more of the former will perfect their fruit than 
 those of the latter will perfect their loaf or head. 
 
 With respect to the expense of cultivating the 
 Pine Apple, it must be acknowledged that it is 
 greater than that required to cultivate any otlier 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 147 
 
 fruit ; from the length of time requisite to bring it 
 to perfection ; the keeping up a high temperature 
 during the winter months, and the unremitting at- 
 tention required throughout the year. Another 
 source of expense, and in some cases of difficulty, 
 has been the procuring of tan, or other materials, 
 to supply a bottom heat ; and the last one that may 
 be mentioned is, that gardeners who undertake to 
 cultivate the Pine Apple, generally are paid a 
 higher remuneration than those who confine them- 
 selves to the other fruits. 
 
 These circumstances have lately induced some 
 amateurs, and also some practical gardeners, to 
 devise means of simplifying the culture of the 
 Pine Apple, and lessening the expenses attending 
 it. The principal amateurs are T. A. Knight, 
 Esq. the President of the Horticultural Society, 
 and Peter Marsland, Esq. of Woodbank, near 
 Stockport; the principal practical gardeners are 
 Mr. Gunter, of Earlscourt, Mr. Hay, a Horticul- 
 tural architect in Edinburgh, and some others, 
 who have made less extensive trials. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 Sect. I. 
 
 Of the hn-provements in the culture of the Pine Apple^ proposed 
 by T. A. Knight, Esq. F.R.S. P.H. S., of Doxv7iton- Castle, 
 Herefordshire, 
 
 Mr. Knight's improvements consist chiefly in 
 the disuse of bottom heat, and in the appHcation 
 of a much higher temperature during sunshine at 
 all seasons, but especially in the summer season, 
 and a much lower temperature during winter, and 
 during the night, at all times, than is generally 
 adopted by gardeners. 
 
 Mr. Knight had no experience in the culture of 
 the Pine Apple till the year 1819. In that year, 
 he informs us (in a paper published in the third 
 volume of the Horticultural Transactions) that he 
 tried the effect of a very high temperature during 
 the day, in bright weather, and of comparatively 
 low temperature during the night, and in cloudy 
 weather. A fire of sufficient power only to pre- 
 serve the house in a temperature of about 70^ dur- 
 ing summer, was employed ; but no air was given, 
 nor its escape facilitated, till the thermometer, per- 
 fectly shaded, indicated a temperature of 95^ and 
 then only two of the upper lights, one at each end, 
 were let down about four inches. The heat of the 
 house was, consequently, sometimes raised to 110^ 
 during the middle of bright days, and it generally 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 149 
 
 varied in such days from 90*^ to 105^ declining 
 during the evening to about 80®, a;nd to 70^ in the 
 night. Late in the evening of every bright and hot 
 day, the plants were copiously sprinkled with 
 water, nearly of the temperature of the external 
 air. The melon, water-melon, Guernsey lily, fig- 
 tree, nectarine, orange and lemon, mango, Avo- 
 ado-pear, Mammee-tree, and several other plants, 
 part of them natives of temperate climates, grew 
 in this hot-house so managed «* through the whole 
 summer, without any one of them being etiolated, 
 or any way injured, by the very high temperature to 
 which they were occasionally subjected ; and from 
 these and other facts," Mr. Knight continues, 
 " which have come within my observation, I think 
 myself justified in inferring, that in almost all cases 
 in which the object of the cultivator is to promote 
 the rapid and vigorous growth of his plants, very 
 high temperature, provided it be accompanied by 
 bright sunshine, may be employed with great ad- 
 vantage ; but it is necessary that the glass of his 
 house should be of good quality, and that his plants 
 be placed near it, and be abundantly supplied with 
 sand and water." In the above case liquid- 
 manure was employed. 
 
 It is added, ** My house contains a few Pine 
 Apple plants, in the treatment of which I have 
 deviated somewhat widely from the common prac- 
 tice ; and I think with the best effects, for their 
 growth has been exceedingly rapid, and a great 
 many gardeners, who have come to see them, have 
 
 L 3 
 
150 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 unanimously pronounced them more perfect than 
 any which they had previously seen. But many 
 of the gardeners think that my mode of manage- 
 ment will not succeed in winter, and that my plants 
 will become unhealthy, if they do not perish in that 
 season ; and as some of them have had much ex- 
 perience, and I very little, I wish, at present, to 
 decline saying more relative to the culture of that 
 plant." Hort, Trans, iii. 465. 
 
 The above information, the result of Mr. 
 Knight's experiments in 1819, was communicated 
 to the Horticultural Society in the autumn of that 
 year. On the 7th of March following, a paper was 
 read to the Society on the same plants, of which 
 the following is a transcript : 
 
 Of those gardeners who doubted whether the 
 plants would stand the winter, it is stated, ** The 
 same gardeners have since frequently visited my 
 hot-house, and they have unanimously pronounced 
 my plants more healthy and vigorous than any they 
 had previously seen : and they are all, I have good 
 reason to believe, zealous converts to my mode of 
 culture. 
 
 "I had long been much dissatisfied with the 
 manner in which the Pine Apple plant is usually 
 treated, and very much disposed to believe the bark- 
 bed, as Mr. Kent has stated, (Hort, Trans, iii, 288.) 
 * worse than useless,' subsequent to the emission 
 of roots by the crowns or suckers. I therefore 
 resolved to make a few experiments upon the cul- 
 ture of that plant ; but as I had not at that period, 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 151 
 
 (the beginning of October,) any hot-house, I de- 
 ferred obtaining plants till the following spring. 
 My hot-house was not completed till the second 
 week in June (1819,) at which period I began my 
 experiment upon nine plants, which had been but 
 very ill preserved through the precedhig winter by 
 the gardener of one of my friends, with very ina- 
 dequate means, and in a very inhospitable climate. 
 These, at this period, were not larger plants than 
 some which I have subsequently raised from small 
 crowns, (three having been afforded by one fruit,) 
 planted in the middle of August, were in the end 
 of December last ; but they are now beginning to 
 blossom, and in the opinion of every gardener who 
 has seen them, promise fruit of great size and per- 
 fection. They are all of the variety known by the 
 name of Ripley's Queen Pine. 
 
 " Upon the introduction of my plants into the 
 hot-house, the mode of management, which it is 
 the object of the present communication to de- 
 scribe, commenced. They were put into pots of 
 somewhat more than a foot in diameter, in a com- 
 post made of thin, green turfj recently taken from 
 a river-side, chopped very small, and pressed close- 
 ly, whilst wet, into the pots ; a circular piece of 
 the same material, of about an inch in thickness, 
 having been inverted, unbroken, to occupy the 
 bottom of each pot. This substance, so applied, 
 I have always found to afford the most efficient 
 means for draining off superfluous water, and sub- 
 sequently of facilitating the removal of a plant 
 
 L 4 
 
152 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 from one pot to another, without loss of roots. 
 The surface of the reduced turf was covered with 
 a layer of vegetable mould obtained from decayed 
 leaves, and of sandy-loam, to prevent the growth 
 of the grass-roots. The pots were then placed to 
 stand upon brick-piers, near the glass ; and the 
 piers being formed of loose bricks (w^ithout mor- 
 tar), were capable of being reduced as the height 
 of the plants increased. The temperature of the 
 house was generally raised in hot and bright days, 
 chiefly by confined solar heat, from 95^ to 105^, 
 and sometimes to 110^, no air being ever given till 
 the temperature of the house exceeded 95^ ; and 
 the escape of heated air was then, only in a slight 
 degree permitted. In the night, the temperature 
 of the house generally sunk to 70^, or somewhat 
 lower. At this period, and through the months of 
 July and August, a sufficient quantity of pigeons' 
 dung was steeped in the water, which was. given to 
 the Pine plants, to raise its colour nearly to that 
 of porter, and with this they were usually supplied 
 twice a day in very hot weather ; the mould in the 
 pots being kept constantly very damp, or what 
 gardeners would generally call wet. In the even- 
 ings, after very hot days, the plants were often 
 sprinkled with clear water, of the temperature of 
 the external air ; but this was never repeated till 
 all the remains of the last sprinkling had disap- 
 peared from the axillae of the leaves. 
 
 " It is, I believe, almost a general custom with 
 gardeners, to give their Pine plants larger pots in 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 153 
 
 autumn, and this mode of practice is approved by 
 Mr. Baldwin. (Cult, of Anan, 16,) I nevertheless 
 cannot avoid thinking it wrong ; for the plants, at 
 this period, and subsequently, owing to want of 
 Hght, can generate a small quantity only of new 
 sap ; and consequently, the matter which composes 
 the new roots that the plant will be excited to emit 
 into the fresh mould, must be drawn chiefly from 
 the same reservoir, which is to supply the blossom 
 and fruit : and I have found, that transplanting 
 fruit-trees, in autumn, into larger pots, has ren- 
 dered their next year's produce of fruit smaller in 
 size, and later in maturity. I therefore would not 
 remove my Pine plants into larger pots, although 
 those in which they grow are considerably too 
 small. 
 
 "As the length of the days diminished, and the 
 plants received less light, their ability to digest 
 food diminished. Less food was in consequence 
 dissolved in the water, which was also given with 
 a more sparing hand ; and as winter approached, 
 water only was given, and in small quantities. 
 
 " During the months of November and Decem- 
 ber, the temperature of the house was generally 
 little above 50^ and sometimes as low as 48^ and 
 once so low as 40^. Most gardeners would, I be- 
 lieve, have been alarmed for the safety of their 
 plants at this temperature ; but the Pine is a much 
 hardier plant than it is usually supposed to be ; and 
 I exposed one young plant in December to a tem- 
 perature of 32^ by which it did not appear to sus- 
 
154 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE 01^ 
 
 tain any injury. I have also been subsequently 
 informed by one of my friends, Sir Harford Jones, 
 who has had most ample opportunities of observ- 
 ing, that he has frequently seen, in the east, the 
 Pine Apple growing in the open air, where the 
 surface of the ground, early in the mornings, 
 showed unequivocal marks of a slight degree of 
 frost. 
 
 " My plants remained nearly torpid, and without 
 growth, during the latter part of November, and 
 in the whole of December ; but they began to grow 
 early in January, although the temperature of the 
 house rarely reached 60^ ; and about the 20th of 
 that month, the blossom, or rather the future fruit, 
 of the earliest plant, became visible ; and subse- 
 quently to that period their growth has appeared 
 very extraordinary to gardeners who had never 
 seen Pine plants growing, except in a bark-bed or 
 other hot-bed. I believe this rapidity of growth, 
 in rather low temperature, may be traced to the 
 more exciteable state of their roots, owing to their 
 having passed the winter in a very low temperature 
 comparatively with that of a bark-bed. The plants 
 are now supplied with water in moderate quanti- 
 ties, and holding in solution a less quantity of food 
 than was given them in summer. 
 
 «« In planting suckers, I have, in several in- 
 stances, left the stems and roots of the old plant 
 remaining attached to them ; and these have made 
 a much more rapid progress than others. One 
 strong sucker was thus planted in a large pot 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 155 
 
 upon the 20th of July, (1819 ;) and that is (March 
 1820) beginning to show fruit. Its stem is thick 
 enough to produce a very large fruit ; but its leaves 
 are short, though broad and numerous ; and the 
 gardeners who have -seen it, all appear wholly at a 
 loss to conjecture what will be the. value of its pro- 
 duce. In other cases, in which I retained the old 
 stems and roots, I selected small and late suckers, 
 and these have afforded me the most perfect plants 
 I have ever seen ; and they do not exhibit any 
 symptoms of disposition to fruit prematurely. I 
 am, however, still ignorant whether any advantage 
 will be ultimately obtained by this mode of treat- 
 ing the Queen Pine ; but I believe it will be found 
 applicable with much advantage in the culture of 
 those varieties of the Pine, which do not usually 
 bear fruit till the plants are three or four years old. 
 " I shall now offer a few remarks upon the faci- 
 lity of managing Pines in the manner recommend- 
 ed, and upon the necessary amount of the ex- 
 pense. My gardener is an extremely simple la- 
 bourer, he does not know a letter or a figure ; and 
 he never saw a Pine plant growing, till he saw 
 those of which he has the care. If I were absent, he 
 would not know at what period of maturity to cut the 
 fruit ; but in every other respect he knows how to 
 manage the plants as well as I do ; and I could teach 
 any other moderately intelligent and attentive la- 
 bourer, in one month, to manage them just as well 
 as he can : in short, I do not think the skill neces- 
 sary to raise a Pine Apple, according to the mode> 
 
156 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CtJLTURE OF 
 
 of culture I recommend, is as great as that requi- 
 site to raise a forced crop of potatoes. The ex- 
 pense of fuel for my hot-house, which is forty feet 
 long, by twelve wide, is rather less than sevenpence 
 a-dayhere, where I am twelve miles distant from coal- 
 pits : and if I possessed the advantages of a curved 
 iron-roof, such as those erected by Mr. Loudon, 
 at Bayswater, which would prevent the too rapid 
 escape of heated-air in cold weather, I entertain no 
 doubt, that the expense of heating a house forty- 
 five feet long, and ten wide, and capable of hold- 
 ing eighty fruiting Pine plants, exclusive of grapes 
 or other fruits upon the back wall, would not ex- 
 ceed fourpence a day. A roof of properly carved 
 iron bars, appears to me also to present many 
 other advantages : it may be erected at much less 
 cost, it is much more durable, it requires much 
 less expense to paint it, and it admits greatly more 
 light." Hort. Trans, iv. 7^. 
 
 Mr. Knight adds, " I have not yet been trou- 
 bled with insects upon my Pine plants (having 
 only had nine plants for about as many months), 
 and have not, of course, tried any of the published 
 receipts for destroying them. Mr. Baldwin recom- 
 mends the steam of hot fermenting horse-dung : I 
 conclude the destructive agent, in this case, is am- 
 moniacal gas ; which Sir Humphry Davy informed 
 me he had found to be instantly fatal to every 
 species of insect ; and if so, this might be obtain- 
 ed at a small expense, by pouring a solution of 
 crude muriate of ammonia upon quick-lime j the 
 
THE PINE APPLE, 
 
 157 
 
 stable, or cow-house, would afford an equally ef- 
 ficient, though less delicate, fluid. The ammoniacal 
 gas might, I conceive, be impelled, by means of a 
 pair of bellows, amongst the leaves of the infected 
 plants, in sufficient quantity to destroy animal, 
 without injuring vegetable life : and it is a very in- 
 teresting question to the gardener, whether his 
 hardy enemy, the red spider, will bear it with im- 
 punity." 
 
 In the year 1820, in June, Mr. Knight had such 
 a house as he has hinted at, erected. Its general 
 appearance (fig. 18.), is simple, and the roof ad- 
 
 18 
 
 mits as much light, as any roof that can be con- 
 structed in the present state of knowledge, in the 
 combination of wrought iron and common glass. 
 The plan of this house, or pit (^g. 190> is fifty 
 
 feet in length, and ten feet wide ; the furnace (a) 
 
158 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 is placed at one end ; the flue proceeds from it di- 
 rectly to the front parapet ( Z> ), and passing along 
 close under it to the opposite end, there terminates 
 in a chimney ( c ). Instead of a pit, a curious 
 stage is constructed, by forming cross walls ( d ), 
 or rather piers, connected by arches, and finished 
 by a gradation of flat surfaces, or steps, on which 
 the pots are placed, so as to stand as near the glass 
 as possible (fig. 20.) 
 
 Air is admitted by shutters, which open out- 
 wards, immediately under the stone plinth of the 
 parapet (fig. 20. a), in which the lower ends of the 
 iron bars are fixed ; and allowed to escape by simi- 
 lar shutters, opening outwards, immediately under 
 the stone coping of the back wall (^), in which the 
 upper ends of the same bars are leaded in. The 
 path behind is on a level with the exterior surface ; 
 the width of the cross walls the length of a brick, 
 or nine inches, and they are finished with foot 
 tyles; the width between them is about fifteen 
 inches, by which means, any ordinary sized person 
 may pass from the back path to the front flue, and 
 water or examine the plants on each side. 
 
 19 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 159 
 
 This house being finished, was immediately 
 stocked with Pines, some figs, and various other 
 plants, all of which, Mr. Knight stated verbally, in 
 May 1821, to various members of the Horticul- 
 tural Society, succeeded admirably ; but by neglect 
 of the gardener, or rather labourer, who attend- 
 ed them, they were killed by an over-heat in Mr. 
 Knight's absence from home. * 
 
 The house was again stocked with plants, which 
 Mr. Knight, in a paper read to the Horticultural 
 Society, in November last (1821), stated to be 
 in a most thriving condition ; and a friend of ours 
 who had made an extensive gardening tour in the 
 North and West of England, and who saw the Pine 
 plants at Downton Castle, also in November, de- 
 clares they appeared the most magnificent he had 
 seen on his journey 5 ** the plants," he says, " were 
 stocky, and the leaves long, broad^ and green ; the 
 largest were in pots fourteen inches in diameter, 
 and their leaves reached to the glass." 
 
 In the paper alluded to, Mr. Knight goes on to 
 say, "I possess more than sufficient evidence to 
 enable me to assert with confidence, . that, in the 
 culture of the Pine Apple, the bark bed, or other 
 hot-bed, if the plants be plunged intoit, is worse 
 
 * The poor man had probably overheated himself, and com- 
 paring by his feelings the temperature of the Pinery with his 
 own, found the latter much in its usual state ; not knowing 
 *' a letter or a figure," of course, he could not take a hint from 
 the thermometer. 
 
160 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 than useless, after the scions, or crowns, have 
 emitted roots; and that the Pine Apple, when 
 treated in the manner I have recommended, is a 
 fruit of most extremely easy culture. 
 
 " It is contended, in favour of the bark-bed, that 
 the soil in inter-tropical climates is warm, and that 
 the bark-bed does no more than nature does in the 
 native climate of the Pine Apple. And if the 
 bark-bed could be made to give a steady temper- 
 ature of about ten degrees below that of the day 
 temperature of the air in the stove, I readily admit 
 that Pine plants would thrive better in a compost 
 of that temperature, than in a colder. But the 
 temperature of the bark-bed is constantly subject 
 to excess, and defect, and I contend, and can prove, 
 that the above-mentioned temperature is very 
 nearly given in my stove. For the temperature of 
 the day being about 90^ or 95^, and that of the 
 night 70^> the mould in the pots will necessarily 
 acquire nearly the intermediate temperature of 80^. 
 It is true, that two disturbing causes are in action 5 
 the evaporation from the mould, and porous sur- 
 face of the pots, and the radiant heat of the sun. 
 But these causes operate in opposition to each other, 
 and probably nearly negative the operation of each 
 other, as far as respects the temperature of the 
 mould in the pots. 
 
 '^ A very great number of gardeners have within 
 the last twelve months visited my garden. Some 
 of these were at once convinced of the advantages 
 of the mode of culture which they saw 5 others 
 
TftE PINE APPLE. l6l 
 
 have paid a second, or third visit 5 but every one 
 has ultimately declared himself a zealous convert. 
 I have never yet seen plants of the same age equally 
 strong, nor any producing fruit better, nor indeed 
 so well swelled; nor any equal in richness and 
 flavour. But I have never taken off, nor shortened 
 a root, nor taken any other measures to retard the 
 period of fructification, with the prospect of obtain- 
 ing larger fruit ; and my plants have almost always 
 showed fruit when fourteen or fifteen months old, 
 though propagated from small and young suckers, 
 or crowns. A great part of my Queen Pines (I 
 have hitherto scarcely ever cultivated any other 
 varieties) have, however, at that age, shown fruit 
 with eight, and some with nine rows of pips ; and 
 I often see fruit of less weight growing upon plants 
 of nearly double that age. Whether I shall be 
 able to retard the period of fructification, or not, I 
 have yet to learn ; but I believe, I shall succeed by 
 crowding my plants close together, so that each 
 may receive less light. 
 
 " Pine plants will, however, grow perfectly well 
 in composts of different kinds ; but I have found 
 that they have succeeded best when the materials 
 have been fresh, and retaining their organic form, 
 particularly if the pots be large, relatively to the 
 size of the plants, which, I think, they always ought 
 to be, for the mode of culture recommended. I 
 have used, with advantage, the haulm of beans cut 
 into lengths of about an inch. 
 
 '* Very contrary to the conclusions which I should 
 
 M 
 
l6^ IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 have been led to draw from writings upon the cul- 
 ture of the Pine Apple, I have constantly found 
 that my plants succeed best in the part of my house 
 where the flue first enters,- and where the temper- 
 ature is very high, varying from about 85^ to 105% 
 and the air excessively dry. I have pointed out 
 this circumstance to every gardener, whom I have 
 seen in my house, and all have expressed their 
 astonishment at the circumstance. I expected that 
 this excess of heat would have occasioned the 
 plants to show fruit prematurely, but this has not 
 occurred in a single instance. What would be the 
 quality of the fruit, if it were to be ripened in so 
 high a temperature, I have not yet had an oppor- 
 tunity of knowing. 
 
 " In raising young plants, I have deviated from 
 the ordinary mode of practice by breaking off the 
 suckers when ve^ young ; that is, when they are 
 not more than four or five inches long. The fruit 
 is much benefited by their absence ; and the cut- 
 tings, if placed very close together in a hot-bed, are 
 made to emit roots with little trouble, and afford 
 -better plants than they do when they are suffered 
 to remain long upon the parent stem. When the 
 whole are removed at an early period, one or more 
 very strong suckers usually spring outbelowthe level 
 of the soil ; and from these, suffering only one to re- 
 main attached to the parent stem, and preserving the 
 roots as entire as possible, I have propagated with 
 much advantage, and have obtained plants which 
 showed fruit strongly at seven months, dating from 
 
THE PINE APPLET l6S 
 
 the period at which the sucker appeared, Uke a 
 strong head of asparagus, at the surface of the 
 soil. 
 
 ** The success of my experiments, in the first house 
 which I erected, (and to which the foregoing ac- 
 count exclusively refers,) led me to erect another 
 house (figs. 18. 19. and 20.) in the summer of 1850- 
 In this I attempted to obtain the greatest possible 
 influence of light, and command of solar heatj 
 inferring, from having observed Pine Apples to 
 ripen tolerably well with very little light, that I 
 should be able to ripen them in perfection late in 
 the autumn, and early in the spring, particularly 
 at the latter period, in which, alone, I set a very 
 high value upon the species of fruit. The height 
 of the back wall (fig. 20.) of this house is eiglit 
 feet six inches, and that of the front wall is one 
 foot six inches, and its breadth ten feet, inside 
 measure, with an iron curviliar roof, (fig. 18.) of 
 the kind of bar invented by Mr. Loudon, of Bays- 
 water. This house is fifty feet long, (^g, 19.) and 
 capable of containing two hundred fruiting Pine 
 plants. The curvature of the roof rises just one 
 foot in twelve. The glass is laid in a composition 
 of two parts white lead, with oil, and three of 
 flint sand, and the overlaps of the glass are 
 closely filled with the same material. It is, con- 
 sequently, very nearly air-tight ; and no means 
 are given for the air to enter, or escape, except 
 by apertures immediately under tUe copings of 
 
 M 2 
 
164 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 the front and back wall, {a and by fig. 20.) which 
 can be efficiently closed at any time. It is, conse- 
 quently, an instrument of very great power, and 
 requiring, of course, much attention to ventilation : 
 of which I had rather a lamentable proof in the last 
 spring, when my plants were all burned, and spoil- 
 ed in a few hours ; the person who had the care of 
 them having left them in a bright day closely shut 
 up. The fault was not, however, in any degree in 
 the house, for the plants were, previously, much the 
 strongest, and the best I ever saw ; and I believe, 
 they would have afforded most beautiful fruit. I 
 furnished the house again with plants as expedi- 
 tiously as I could, chiefly in July ; and I have since 
 kept the temperature of it nearly between 70^ and 
 95^ with a wish to make the plants show fruit and 
 blossom in the present month (October.) In this, 
 I have in part succeeded, though many of my 
 plants have flowered a fortnight or three weeks 
 sooner than I wished. The fruit is swelling well, 
 and, I believe, will receive sufficient light through 
 the winter to enable it to ripen in much per- 
 fection. The excellence of a few Pine Apples, 
 which ripened in this house in the last winter, 
 leads me almost to doubt, whether the fruit 
 in it will not ripen better, early in the spring, 
 than in the middle of the summer, for I have 
 observed that this species of plant, though ex- 
 tremely patient of high temperature, is not, by any 
 means, so patient of the action of very continued 
 bright light, as many other plants : and much less 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 165 
 
 SO than the Fig and Orange tree : possibly, having 
 been formed by nature for inter-tropical climates, 
 its powers of life may become fatigued, and ex- 
 hausted by the length of a bright English summer's 
 day in high temperature. Being a plant of low 
 stature, nature has also probably given it the power 
 to ripen its fruit and seed, in the shade of other 
 plants, in its native climate ^ and I discovered in 
 the last summer, that it possesses the power to ripen 
 its fruit perfectly in a lower temperature than I 
 previously thought it capable of growing in. 
 
 " In the month of June, I gave a couple of Pine 
 plants, which had shown fruit at six months old, 
 and were of small size, and no value, to a child of 
 one of my friends, to be placed in a conservatory, 
 in which no fires were kept during the summer. 
 In July, a storm of hail destroyed nearly, or fully, 
 half the glass of the conservatory ; and its temper- 
 ature, through the summer and autumn, had been 
 so low, that the Chasselas grapes in it were not ripe 
 in the second week in September. In the second 
 week of the present month (October) one of the 
 Pine Apples became ripe, having previously swollen 
 to a most extraordinary size, comparatively with the 
 size of the plant ; and upon measuring accurately 
 the comparative width of the fruit, and of the stem, 
 I found the width of the fruit to exceed that of the 
 stem in the proportion of seven and three-quarters 
 to one. The fruit had, of course, been propped 
 during all, th^ latter part of the summer, the stem 
 
 M 3 
 
166 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 being wholly incapable of supporting it. The taste 
 and flavour of this fruit were excellent, and the ap- 
 pearance of the other, which is not yet ripe, and is 
 of a larger size, is still more promising. I purpose 
 to profit by this result in the next summer ; and I 
 hope to be able to communicate some further infor- 
 mation to the Society in the autumn. I feel per- 
 fectly confident, that if the roots of these plants 
 had grown in a hot-bed of any kind, their sap 
 would have been impelled into other channels ; and 
 that their fruit would not have attained, in any 
 degree, the state of perfection which I have de- 
 scribed." 
 
 This is the latest printed account of Mr. Knight's 
 experiments on the Pine Apple, It would be 
 premature to draw any general conclusions in so 
 early a stage of their progress, and might ex- 
 cite prejudice to anticipate the final result. That 
 the Pine plant will grow and thrive without what 
 is technically called bottom heat, is an obvious 
 truth, since no plant in a state of nature is found 
 growing in soil warmer than that of the superin- 
 cumbent atmosphere. But to imitate nature, is 
 not always the best mode of culture ; for the more 
 correct the imitation, the less valuable would be 
 the greater part of her products, at least as far as 
 horticulture is concerned. What would our celery, 
 cabbage, and apples be, if their culture were copied 
 from nature ? Though the Pine Apple will grow 
 w^ell without bottom heat, it may grow with bottom 
 
THE EINE APPLE. 167 
 
 iaeat still better ; and though the heat of the earth, 
 in its native country, may never exceed that of 
 the surrounding atmosphere, it does not follow that 
 earth heated to a greater degree may not be of ser- 
 vice to it, in a state of artificial culture. But ad- 
 mitting, for the sake of argument, that the Pine plant 
 could be grown equally well with, as without bottom 
 heat 5 still it appears to us that the mass of material 
 which furnishes this heat, will always.be a most de- 
 sirable thing to have in a Pine stove, as being a per- 
 petual fund of heat for supplying the atmosphere of 
 the house, in case of accident to the flues or steam 
 apparatus. Besides it appears from nature, as well 
 as from observing what takes place in culture, that 
 the want of a steady temperature and degree of 
 moisture at the roots of plants is more immediately 
 and powerfully injurious to them than atmospheric 
 changes. Earth, especially if rendered porous and 
 spungelike by culture, receives and gives out air and 
 iieat slowly ; and while the temperature of the air 
 of a country, or a hot-house, may vary twenty or 
 thirty degrees in the course of twenty-four hours, 
 the soil at the depth of two inches would hardly 
 be found to have varied one degree. With respect 
 to moisture, every cultivator knows, that in a pro- 
 perly constituted and regularly pulverized soil, what^ 
 ever quantity of rain may fall on the surface, the 
 Boil is never saturated with water, nor, in times of 
 great drought, burnt up with heat. The porous 
 texture of the soil and sub-soil being at once favour- 
 
 M 4 
 
168 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 able for the escape of supei-fluous water, and ad- 
 verse to its evaporation, by never becoming so much 
 heated on the surface, or conducting the heat so 
 far downwards as a close compact soil. 
 
 These properties of the soil relatively to plants 
 can never be completely attained by growing 
 plants in pots, and least of all by growing them in 
 pots surrounded by air. In this state, whatever 
 may be the care of the gardener, a continual suc- 
 cession of changes of temperature will take place 
 in the outside of the pot, and the compact material 
 of which it is composed being a much more rapid 
 conductor of heat than porous earth, it will soon 
 be communicated to the web of roots within. 
 
 With respect to water, a plant in a pot surround- 
 ed by air is equally liable to injury. If the soil be 
 properly constituted, and the pot properly drained, 
 the water passes through the mass as soon as poured 
 on it, and the soil at that moment may be said to 
 be left in a state favourable for vegetation. But as 
 the evaporation from the surface and sides of the 
 pot, and the transpiration of the plant goes on, it 
 becomes gradually less and less so, and if not soon 
 re-supplied, would become dry and shrivelled, and 
 either die from that cause, or be materially injured 
 by the sudden and copious application of water. 
 
 Thus, the roots of a plant in a pot surrounded 
 by air, are liable to be alternately chilled and 
 scorched by cold or heat, and deluged or dried up 
 by superabundance or deficiency of water, and no- 
 
THE PINE APPLE. l69 
 
 thing but the perpetual care and attention of the 
 gardener to lessen the tendencies to these extremes 
 could at all preserve the plant from destruction. 
 
 To lessen the attention of the gardener, therefore, 
 to render the plant less dependent on his services, 
 and, above all, to put a plant in a pot as far as pos- 
 sible on a footing with a plant in the unconfined 
 soil, plunging the pot in a mass of earth, sand, 
 dung, tan, or any such material, appears to us a most 
 judicious part of culture, and one that never can be 
 relinquished in fruit-bearing plants with impunity. 
 Even if no heat were to be afforded by the mass in 
 which the pots were plunged, still the preservation 
 of a steady temperature which would always equal 
 the average temperature of the air of the house, 
 and the retention, by the same means, of a steady 
 degree of moisture, would, in our opinion, be a 
 sufficient argument for plunging pots of vigorous 
 growing, many-leaved, or fruit-bearing plants. 
 
 Such are the observations that we think may be 
 made relatively to Mr. Knight's plan, without pre- 
 judice to whatever new lights he may throw out 
 on the subject. Had it been brought forward by 
 a less eminent horticulturist, it would not have 
 claimed so much attention, as the plan of growing 
 Pines without bottom-heat is generally considered 
 to have been tried first by M. Le Cour, and sub- 
 sequently by various others, and abandoned. In 
 Mr. Knight's hands, however, whether it fail or 
 succeed, it is certain of doing good, by the obser» 
 
lyO IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 yations it will elicit from the fertile and ingenious 
 mind of so candid and philosophical a horticul- 
 turist. 
 
 Sir William Edward Rous Boughton has erected 
 a house or pit at Downton Hall, similar to that of 
 Mr. Knight, but rather wider. * Pines are grown 
 in it on Mr. Knight's plan, but the plants were 
 not in a thriving state in November last. Charles 
 Holford, Esq. of Hampstead, is also a disciple of 
 Mr. Knight as to the culture of this fruit, but he 
 has not yet been very successful. 
 
 Sect. II. 
 
 Of other Improvements in the Culture of the Pine Apple, by 
 different persons. 
 
 We shall first notice the improvements which 
 respect bottom-heat, and begin with noticing an 
 attempt made by Mr. Thomas Jenkins, of the Port- 
 man Nursery, London, to warm both the pots in 
 which the plants are grown, and the air of the 
 house, by the heat generated by fermenting stable- 
 dung placed in a vault beneath. 
 
 It is only within the last three years that Mr. 
 Jenkins has begun to grow the Pine Apple to any 
 
 * The roofs, both of this house and that of Mr. Knight, were 
 furnished by Messrs. W. & D. Bailey, of Holborn, London. 
 
TUB PINE APPLE. 
 
 171 
 
 jextent ; he brings forward the plants in hot-beds 
 and deep frames, inclosing beds of tan, and heat- 
 ed by linings of dung. As an economical part of 
 the construction, we may mention that he substi- 
 tutes wattled hurdles for the lower part of the 
 frame, in contact with the tan, by which means a 
 saving in the first cost is effected, and the heat of 
 the dung penetrates much more readily to the tan. 
 Most of the plants are fruited in these pits, but 
 some are fruited in a house, (^Jig* 21.) which 
 
 «« though furnished with flues, yet these have been 
 very little used. The heat imparted to the plants 
 is produced by the fermentation of stable-dung in 
 a pit below the plants, the top of which is covered 
 by tiles supported by iron rafters, with the joints 
 closely cemented, to prevent the passage of steam 
 into the house. The pots are neither bedded in 
 tan, nor in mould, but stand on the tiles, and the 
 interstices between them warm the air of the house." 
 
172 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CUXTURE OP 
 
 The dung is managed as in West^s pit {Jig* S2.), 
 22 
 
 but with the addition of being watered after it is 
 thrown in, which is found to promote fermentation, 
 and the intensity of the heat. 
 
 One of the earhest instances of steam being used 
 as a bottom-heat with which we are acquainted, 
 was that by Mr. Butler, gardener to the Earl of 
 Derby, at Knowlesly, near Liverpool, in or about 
 1792. It had been used twenty years before, but 
 chiefly for other purposes. Speechly, in 1796, 
 knew only two instances in which steam was applied 
 as bottom-heat; and, with M*Phail, does not think 
 it will finally answer as a substitute for tan. 
 Instances in which it is adopted, are now much 
 more numerous ; but time sufficient has not elapsed, 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 173' 
 
 and the opinions of gardeners are yet too unsettled 
 on its merits to enable us to recommend it for 
 adoption in general practice. For heating the at- 
 mosphere of hot-houses, there seems little (or at 
 least much less) doubt of its being preferable to 
 fire-heat. 
 
 Count Zubow, at St. Petersburg, employed steam 
 to heat a pit or cistern of water, over which, at about 
 three inches distance, a frame, covered with fag- 
 gots, was placed^ and on this was laid the earth, in 
 which his Pines and other exotics were planted with- 
 out being in pots. The plan is said to have suc- 
 ceeded, and a wholesome temperature to have been 
 obtained and communicated to the mould above 
 the faggots. 
 
 Mr. Gunter, as before observed, (Chap. IV. 
 sect. 13.) had already tried the use of steam as a 
 bottom heat without success. 
 
 Mr. John Hay, horticultural architect, tried the 
 use of steam so early as 1794, when gardener at 
 Preston Hall, near Edinburgh, and he gives the 
 following account of his apparatus and success in 
 the Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural So- 
 ciety. " The application of steam to forcing- 
 houses early caught my attention. The first that 
 I designed and executed in Scotland on this plan, 
 were at Preston Hall in Mid-Lothian, in the year 
 1794. The fruiting Pine-stove, which is in the 
 general suite of houses, with two peach-houses on 
 the west, were originally adapted to steam. I en- 
 
17^ IMPROVEMENTS IN TttE CULTURE OF 
 
 tertained the hope, that steam thrown into a cham- 
 ber, in the bottom of the plant pit, would act as a 
 proper substitute for bottom heat in place of tan, 
 as none of that substance was to be found nearer 
 than four miles distant, and when wanted was 
 often difficult to be procured. Other more gene- 
 ral considerations also made me desirous of procur- 
 ing some substitute, particularly the necessity of 
 repeatedly shifting the plants to renew the heat, 
 when the bark in the plant-pit gets cold: these 
 shiftings, besides the trouble, often retard, the 
 growth of the plants. Again, if the heat of the 
 fermentation of the tan rise much above ninety-six 
 degrees, (which it often does), and if the pots be 
 fully plunged in the tan at such a time, many in- 
 stances have been known of the roots of the plants 
 being burned, and some of them being destroyed 
 altogether. This, indeed, may be considered as 
 one of the principal reasons why so many are un- 
 successful in the culture of this fine fruit. With 
 the view of obviating the above difficulties, the 
 bottom of the fruiting Pine-pit was constructed 
 with a chamber below, into which steam was intro- 
 duced by means of copper and lead pipes from a 
 boiler placed in the shades behind : the top of the 
 chamber was constructed of rafters, on which were 
 placed broad grey slates, laid -on loose, without fill- 
 ing up the vacancies between them. The not 
 making them close, I afterwards found to be an 
 error ; for the moisture, from the condensation of 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 175 
 
 the steam, penetrating through the openings at the 
 joining of the slates, communicated too much wet- 
 ness to the bottom of the pots ; but I found, that 
 there was a sufficient quantity of heat to be obtain- 
 ed from the steam for heating the plant-pit, pro- 
 vided the bottom were close. I therefore discon- 
 tinued this plan ; and I had not an opportunity of 
 making any farther experiment on the subject in 
 this place. From the same boiler, I conducted into 
 the two peach-houses adjoining, a range of pipes 
 furnished with steam-cocks. They passed the 
 whole length of the houses, (101 f. 6 in.). By 
 means of these, the peach-houses were regularly 
 steamed near one hour a-day in the evening, in the 
 time of flowering and of frUit-setting. Steaming, 
 it may be remarked, is very important at these 
 times. In after periods, when I had not an ap- 
 paratus for the purpose, I always steamed the 
 peach-house with a large piece of cast-iron, made 
 red hot in one of the furnaces, and put into a 
 white-iron pail nearly full of water; the whole 
 water thus evaporating inta steam. I was always 
 successful, while in practice as a gardener, in rais- 
 ing a full crop of peaches ; and think that much 
 was owing to attention to steaming. 
 
 " I afterwards erected Pine-stoves for John Her- 
 vey, Esq. of Castlesemple, to be heated by steam y 
 and one of the plant-pits had a chamber below, 
 with a close bottom, into which chamber, steam 
 was thrown by means of cast-iron pipes. About 
 
176 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 the same time, I was applied to by Sir Hew Ha- 
 milton Dalrymple, Bart, (through Mr. James 
 Dodds, his gardener), to examine his Pine-stoves 
 at Bargany, and to report whether I thought they 
 eould be improved, as he hitherto had not been so 
 successful in Fine-Apples as he expected. One 
 principal cause was, the difficulty of obtaining tan. 
 Upon my report, it was to be determined, whether 
 to give up the Pine- Apple culture altogether^ or 
 endeavour to improve the stoves. 
 
 ** Upon examining, I advised the heating of the 
 atmosphere of the houses with steam ; and in place 
 of using tan, the heating of the bottom of the plant- 
 pit with steam also." This advice was adopted, 
 and eighteen months after the plan was executed, 
 the gardener, Mr. James Dodds, gives the follow- 
 account of his success. 
 
 " It is now eighteen * months since I first began 
 to heat the Pine-stoves here with steam. I have 
 thus been enabled to give it a fair trial, and I am 
 fully satisfied that it is superior to the old method 
 of heating by fire-flues. I have found the plants 
 to grow more luxuriantly, and perfectly clean of 
 any kind of insects. The moist heat arising from 
 steam is well known to be hostile to all kinds of 
 vermin. It is, besides, more economical : our Pine- 
 stoves here are seventy feet long, it formerly took 
 two fires to keep up the heat of the atmospheric 
 air of the house, whereas in the new method of 
 heating by steam, one fire to heat the boiler is suf- 
 
, THE PINE APPLE. 177 
 
 ficient, except in very cold nights, when I have 
 found it necessary to light a very small fire to the 
 flue, to meet the decline of the steam in the morn- 
 ing, and this only to the fruiting-house in the 
 spring months, when the Pines begin to show their 
 fruit. In short, I have found no difficulty in keep- 
 ing up the heat of the house to sixty degrees, by 
 making up the fire to the boiler at ten o'clock at 
 night, and at six o'clock in the morning. 
 
 " With regard to the bottom heat for the Pine- 
 plants, by steam from the same boiler, I find, by 
 allowing the steam to remain in the chamber be- 
 low the plants about two hours a day, the pit is 
 kept constantly at the temperature of from ninety 
 to ninety-five degrees, which I have found to be as 
 high as the roots of the plants are able to bear. I 
 would, therefore, say ninety degrees to be the stand- 
 ard height, which I have myself adopted^ allowing 
 it to fluctuate down. If our succession Pine-pit 
 had been altered to have been heated by steam, as 
 the fruiting one is, which the boiler is perfectly 
 able to do, the saving in tan alone would more than 
 pay the interest of all the money laid out on erect- 
 ing the whole steam apparatus. 
 
 *' The above is my candid opinion on the sub- 
 ject, as far as my practice has enabled me to speak. 
 I am, &c. 
 
 ** James Dodds." 
 
 The best stoves for combining the culture of the 
 Pine and Vine in Scotland, have been constructed 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 by Mr. Hay, of which fine examples occur at Lord 
 Duncan^s, Lundie-house, near Dundee, and the 
 Earl of Roseberry's, at Dulmeny-park {Jig, S3.), 
 near Edinburgh* 
 
 As substitutes for tan, leaves are the common 
 resource, but any vegetable matter of slow putre- 
 faction may be employed,, as chopped spray of 
 hedges or copse, wood-shavings, saw-dust, &c. and 
 in Scotland, it has been found that flax-dressers' re- 
 fuse keeps up a moderate heat for a longer period 
 than any other material. 
 
 The mode of employing the vigour remaining 
 in the old stock or plant after the fruit is cut, to 
 nourish, for a certain time, the sucker or suckers 
 which may be growing on it, was practised by 
 Speechly ; but scarcely to the extent which it has 
 been carried lately. This, we think, a considerable 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 179 
 
 improvement, if kept within certain limits ; but, if 
 carried too far, what might be gained by the sucker 
 coming earUer into fruit, would be lost by the re- 
 tardation of the plant's own suckers. 
 
 On Nov. 3. 1818. " A Queen Pine, grown by 
 Peter Marsland, Esq. of Woodbank, near Stock- 
 port, was exhibited to the Horticultural Society. 
 It weighed three pounds fourteen ounces, measured 
 seventeen inches in circumference, and was pecu- 
 liarly well-flavoured. The singularity of this Pine 
 was its being the produce of a sucker which had 
 been removed from the parent-root only six months 
 previous to the time the fruit was cut. The plant 
 on which the sucker grew had produced a fruit, 
 which was cut in October, 1817; the old stem, 
 with the sucker attached, was allowed to remain in 
 the Pine-pit till May, 1818 ; at that time the sucker 
 was broken off, potted, and plunged into a fresh 
 pit ; it soon after showed fruit, which, in the course 
 of four months, attained to the weight and size 
 above stated. Mr. Marsland is in the practice of 
 producing Pines in this way with equal success and 
 expedition. His houses are all heated by steam." 
 Hort. Trans, iv. 52. 
 
 On the 17th of Oct. 1819, specimens of the 
 New Providence, globe, black Antigua, and En- 
 ville, were exhibited, all which were produced in a 
 similar manner to the above. P. Marsland con- 
 siders, that " though not of the largest description, 
 yet as far as beauty of form and richness of flavour 
 are concerned, they would not yield to fruit of 
 
 N 2 
 
180 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OP 
 
 more protracted growth." The success which has 
 attended this gentleman's mode of " treating the 
 Pine, so as to insure the production of fruit within 
 twelve months from the cutting of their previous 
 produce, has been perfectly satisfactory ;" and the 
 following is his account of it. " In November, 
 1819, as soon as the fruit had been cut from the 
 Pine plants, which were then two years old, all the 
 leaves were stripped off the old stocks, nothing 
 being left but a single sucker on each, and that 
 the strongest on the plant ; they were then placed 
 in a house where the heat was about sixty degrees, 
 and they remained till March, 1820. At this period 
 the suckers were broken off from the old stocks, 
 and planted in pots from eight to twelve inches 
 in diameter, varying according to the size of the 
 sucker. It may be proper, however, to observe, 
 that the length of time which the young sucker is 
 allowed to remain attached to the mother plant, 
 depends in some degree upon the kind of Pine ; 
 the tardy fruiters, such as the black Antigua, and 
 others, require to be left longer than the Queen, 
 and those which fruit readily. 
 
 '* After the suckers had been planted, they were 
 removed from the house, where they had remained 
 while on the old stock, to one in which the tem- 
 perature was raised to seventy-five degrees. Im- 
 mediately upon their striking root, the largest of 
 the suckers showed fruit, which swelled well, and 
 ripened between August and November, being, 
 on the average, ten months from the time the fruit 
 
 15 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 181 
 
 was cut from the old plant, and seven months from 
 the time the sucker was planted. The fruit so 
 produced, though, as may be expected, not of the 
 largest description, I have invariably found to be 
 richer and higher flavoured than that grown on older 
 plants. The suckers of inferior strength will not 
 show fruit in the same season, but in the following 
 they will yield good fruit, and sti'ong suckers for a 
 succeeding year's supply. Those suckers are to- 
 be preferred which are produced on plants that 
 have ripened their fruit in November, for those 
 taken from plants whose fruit is cut in August, or 
 earlier, are apt to show fruit in January or Febru- 
 ary, while yet remaining on the mother-plant. But 
 whenever this happens, the sucker should be 
 broken off immediately upon being perceived, and 
 planted in a pot so as to form a root of its own, to 
 maintain its fruit." Hort, Trans, iv. 392. 
 
 This experiment shows what can be done ; 
 though it must be obvious that a considerable part 
 of the saving in time is lost by the small size of the 
 fruit. Mr. Baldwin, in our opinion, has hit on the 
 proper use of this mode, the principle of which, as 
 already observed, consists in the employment of 
 the otherwise lost vigour of the old stock. He 
 contrives to produce tolerably sized fruit, and 
 to have such a degree of vigour in his suckers, as 
 that they are able, in their turn, to throw out 
 other vigorous suckers to succeed them. In aid 
 of this, he often earths up the old stock, so as to 
 cover the lower end of the sucker ; and partially 
 wrenching it off, he, by these means, obtains for it 
 
182 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 
 
 a good Stock of roots before he renders it an inde- 
 pendent plant. 
 
 Where heat is to be suppHed from fermenting horse- 
 dung, we should recommend for trial a pit invented 
 by J. West, of Castle Ashby, in Northamptonshire. 
 ^fiS' ^^0 Nine years' experience enable its in- 
 ventor to recommend it for neatness of appearance, 
 the power of regulating the heat to the greatest 
 nicety, and for forcing asparagus, strawberries, and 
 the most delicate kinds of cucumbers. By raising 
 the walls of the pit higher above the earth, it is 
 evident it would answer equally well for growing 
 Pines, or forcing shrubs or tall growing plants. 
 
 The dung is placed in a chamber (e) three feet 
 and a half deep, being about eighteen inches below 
 the surface-line; the walls (g) which surround 
 it are nine-inch brick- work ; both on the front and 
 at the back of the chamber are two openings (a), 
 about to feet six inches square each, with move- 
 able doors, through which the dung is introduced ; 
 the doors fit at bottom into grooves (b), and are 
 fastened by a wooden pin and staple at top. In 
 front of the doors, is a small area (c) sunk in the 
 ground, surrounded by a curb of wood, by which 
 the introduction or removal of the dung is facili- 
 tated. Along the centre of the chamber is a bar 
 (d), which serves as a guide for packing the dung ; 
 and across the top, at intervals of twelve inches, 
 are placed, on their edges, cast-iron bars (h), two 
 inches wide, and three quarters of an inch thick, 
 to support a layer of small wood, bushes and leaves 
 (i), over which is laid the soil for the plants (k). 
 
THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 183 
 
 Just below the level of the bars all round the dung- 
 chamber, are holes (f), passing in a sloping direc- 
 tion through part of the wall into a cavity (g) in 
 the upper part of the wall at the back front and 
 both ends of the pit. In the exterior part of the 
 back wall, are holes with plugs (l), to let out the 
 steam and heat at discretion. 
 
 At the commencement of forcing, half the cham- 
 ber is filled longitudinally with dung, and if the 
 doors are kept shut, this will afford sufficient heat 
 from twelve to eighteen days. As the heat de- 
 clines the other half of the chamber is filled, and 
 the temperature is kept up by additions to the top 
 of the dung, on either or both sides, as it settles. 
 When the united heat of the two sides ceases to be 
 sufficient, the side first filled must be cleared out, 
 and mixed with fresh dung and replaced, and so 
 on, adding and turning as circumstances require. 
 Hort. Trans, iv. 220. 
 
 As an improvement on the construction of this 
 pit, we would suggest the perforation of the whole 
 of the side walls {Jig, 24. a), in order to admit the 
 
 24 
 
 steam more readily than it can find admittance by 
 the single range of openings adopted by Mr. West. 
 
ISi IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE, &C. 
 
 Where pits on Mr. West's plan are already built, 
 a substitute for this perforation in the side walls 
 may be found in the application of a wattled 
 hurdle against them (Jig. 24. h), as has been adopt- 
 ed by Mr. J. B. Mackay, in the Comte de Vande's 
 garden at Bayswater. 
 
 Remarks, — All the schemes of improvement de- 
 tailed in this section, are either of a nature never 
 to become general, if they do succeed, as that of 
 Count ZubofF; or not yet sufficiently proved by 
 experience to be recommended for adoption, as the 
 application of steam as a bottom heat by Mr. 
 Hay. We therefore leave them to work their way 
 with the public ; and, in the mean time, till these, 
 as well as Mr. Knight's experiments have esta- 
 blished something better, we recommend all those 
 who wish to grow the Pine Apple in the first style 
 of excellence, and at a moderate expence, to adopt 
 the pits and houses of Mr. Baldwin or Mr. Aiton ; 
 and to imitate their practice, or that of Mr. 
 Andrews. 
 
 THE END, 
 
 LoNsow : 
 Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoodc, 
 New- Street- Square. 
 
 
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 375 The different modes of cultivating the-^, 
 
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