PINE CULTURE IN SOUTH WALES. 283 



in consequence of the root action being so vigorous and uninter- 

 rupted. Mr. B. also keeps a much lower night temperature to 

 his fruiting plants during the dark winter months than would 

 generally be considered safe ; indeed, he saj's he frequently lets 

 the temperature fall as low as 45° to 50°, and even as low as 40° 

 on very severe nights without any injury ; but he keeps the 

 bottom-heat all right, and hence the juices of the plants receive 

 no check. Pines, however, will bear a much lower temperature 

 than is generally believed. I once had a pit of succession plants 

 frost-locked for more than a week, and not a plant was injured 

 further than the tips of the leaves near the glass were a little 

 discoloured. 



Pines are also grown in excellent style at Pontypool Park 

 (C. P. Leigh, Esq.) in Monmouthshire, ^Ir. James, the present 

 gardener, having been very successful the past season at the 

 metropolitan exhibitions. The arrangements there are not of 

 modern date, the pits and pine-houses being heated with dung- 

 linings and also by hot water ; but Mr. James is doing away with 

 the former, and confining himself entirely to hot water, both for 

 top and bottom-heat. The plants here are grown both in pots 

 and planted out ; in fact, it appears to be the object to take the 

 spring crop from pots and the main summer supply from plants 

 planted in the open bed. At the time of my visit (Dec. 8) the 

 houses were undergoing repair, but the stock of plants is of a very 

 first-rate description, some Providences, Envilles, Lemon Queens, 

 and Cayennes for another season's fruiting being remarkably fine 

 and promising. The Pines here, both in pots and planted out, 

 are grown in a rich soft reddish loam very liberally intermixed 

 with charcoal in pieces of considerable size. This is one of 

 the finest loams I ever saw, and the Pines evidently like 

 it ; but Mr. James said he had tried the experiment, and he 

 found the plants produce fruit as fine in pure peat. This 

 peat, however, it must be recollected, is none of your poor 

 sandy stuff, covered with half-starved heath, and which crumbles 

 to pieces directly it is touched, but it is a rich mass of vege- 

 table matter, tough and spongy, and which when reduced 

 either by fermentation or exposure to the ameliorating influence 

 of a winter's frost, becomes light and porous as so much leaf- 

 mould ; hence the Pines produce roots as thick as the pen I am 

 writing with, and the young points several inches from their 

 extremities will be found covered with minute spongioles sucking 

 up nutriment with the greatest avidity. But it cannot be 



