PINE CULTURE IN SOUTH WALES. 285 



Wales has also its amateur Pine-gi'owers, among whom I must 

 mention Mr. Williams of Swansea, the proprietor of the Cambrian 

 newspaper. Mr. Williams's Pinery is situated in the heart of 

 the town, and connected with his printing office. His news- 

 paper is printed by steam power, with one of Applegarth and 

 Cooper's cylinder machines, and the waste steam from the 

 engine is thrown into the Pinery for bottom-heat for the plants, 

 not by a bed of stones as practised by J. D. Llewellyn, Esq., at 

 Penllergare, and explained some years back in the Gardeners 

 Chronicle, but by throwing it into a chamber or vault covered by 

 close boarding, in which circular holes, the size of the pots, are 

 cut, and through which the pots are plunged into the vault 

 beneath. Mr. Williams told me that he frequently found the 

 roots protrude through the pots into the vault, a sufficient evi- 

 dence that the plants enjoy the treatment they receive; and 

 some small Queen Pines from succession plants, which had 

 started prematurely, were as bright and perfectly swelled in 

 November as could possibly be desired, and very superior to 

 hundreds which I have seen at the Metropolitan exhibitions in 

 the height of the season. Those who have steam power might 

 thus turn the tvaste to good and profitable account, and this 

 system of Pine-growing has also the advantage of being cleanly 

 and very convenient for amateur management. 



From the preceding detail it will be perceived the Welsh 

 system of Pine-growing, if not an off-shoot, bears a close resem- 

 blance to the Meudon system, and is similarly successful in effect. 

 That similar results may be obtained when the same pains in 

 management are taken is quite certain, but they must not be 

 expected the first season of growth. The fable of the " Frog and 

 the Ox" would be as likely to be realised ! With Pines of ordi- 

 nary growth, you must first induce vigorous development of the 

 young sucker; carry that vigour through to the fruiting state 

 without a single check, and then it is possible you may have a 

 sucker or two for future growth with something of the semblance 

 of life about them. They should at the time they are taken from 

 the mother plant be from a foot to eighteen inches long, as thick 

 at the base as a good-sized broom-stick, and with leaves almost as 

 broad as your hand. If, in addition to this, the suckers are taken 

 from those plants only which liave produced large and finely- 

 formed fruit, there is a probability that you will in a short time 

 establish a stock of plants from which large fruit will be the rule, 

 and not, as is too frequently the case, the exception. The narrow 



