1873.] PINE -APPLE GROWING. 1G9 



PIKTE-APPIiE GROWING WITHOUT BOTTOM-HEAT. 



History repeats itself, not less in scientific Pine-apple growing than 

 in any other branch of culture. Your correspondent from Elvaston 

 Castle astonishes me by not mentioning the performances of the late 

 Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq., as he may be said to have perfected 

 the new system of growing Pine-apples without fermenting materials 

 of any kind. If Mr M'Kellar turns to the Horticultural Transactions 

 for 1829, or to the * Gardeners' Magazine' of the same date, he will 

 find Mr Knight's plan of growing the Pine-apple in detail. The late 

 Mr Loudon did not believe that Mr Knight had succeeded in accom- 

 plishing what he had reported to the Eoyal Horticultural Society, as he 

 stated that he had seen some one who told him that the plan did not 

 answer Mr Knight's expectations. 



I and some other gardeners went to Downton Castle to see the 

 said Pine-apples, and wrote to Mr Loudon, after which he was obliged 

 to acknowledge that Mr Knight's report of them was a correct one. 



As for myself I never saw a house of Pine-apples more beautiful ; 

 the kinds were chiefly Black Jamaica and the Green Olive, two of 

 the best-flavoured Pines then in cultivation. 



It appeared strange to me that Mr M'Kellar did not mention the 

 writings on the same subject of the then philosophic President of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society. 



I should have been more surprised in this case, had not a fashionable 

 writer on agriculture called upon me the other day, when in the course 

 of conversation I said, Come and I will show you the portrait of the 

 greatest philosopher and the best farmer of his generation : this is 

 Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq., of whom it was said in the 'Athenoeum' 

 newspaper, that there was not a man left in all Europe who could fill 

 the gap his death had made. The gentleman in question said, 

 This is the first time that I have ever heard of him. Therefore I 

 take it for granted that Mr M'Kellar has never heard of Mr Knight's 

 Pine-growing ; this being the case, it places Mr M'Kellar amongst the 

 philosophers, as no gardener would blindly go to work on such a busi- 

 ness who had not philosophised on the atmospheric conditions neces- 

 sary for such an accomplishment. 



One would have thought that the gardeners at Downton Castle, who 

 have lived there since Air Knight's death, would have been proud to 

 maintain that remarkable plan of cultivating the Pine-apple which 

 Mr Knight left in full force, but I understand that they have not 

 done so. The house is still in good order : a curvilinear roofed 

 house, with glass down to the curbstone, so that it receives every 

 blink of sunshine ; and the long chimney-pots (so to speak) that he 

 used to grow the Pines in stand useless at the back of the house. 



