MR. POVEY ON THE CULTURE OF THE PINE-APPLE. 145 



I prepare a small pit for suckers. I put them in pots according 

 to their strength ; the largest in pots about seven inches by six. 

 By the end of November I have generally put in as many as the 

 pit will contain. Nothing further is done to them except pay- 

 ing attention to heat and air, and occasionally giving a little 

 water, until the following April. I am under the necessity of 

 allowing them to remain here thus long in consequence of having 

 to grow them under a late house of vines during the summer 

 months ; I then put them, the largest and best, into pots 

 eleven inches in width by ten in depth ; these I never pot again. 

 The smaller ones are put into smaller-sized pots, and at a future 

 time receive another shift. The pit under the vines being pre- 

 pared they are taken there, where they never fail to make a good 

 growth, and many of them even at that age show fruit. I cut 

 one fruit in October last weighing 41bs., besides the one now 

 sent, from plants wluch were struck in October, 1844, and I have 

 at this time forty plants of the same age in fruit, some of which 

 are nearly ripe. The smallest of the plants are seldom more 

 than two years before they ripen off their fruit : the two largest 

 of the three sent are from plants of that age, and I have cut many 

 this autumn equal to them. It is, however, perhaps, right to 

 mention, that as soon as the plants show fruit they are removed 

 to the fruiting-pit, which is heated with a common flue. I have 

 no tanks for bottom heat, and I am therefore obliged to use fer- 

 menting materials. No liquid manure is employed except a 

 little weak guano water, and I seldom shade my pines, but 

 when I do a very thin canvass is thrown over the young plants 

 only. I give air freely, and to the sucker-pit I give a little every 

 fine day through the winter, but very little water. The sorts I 

 grow are the Black Jamaica, the Providence, and the Montserrat ; 

 but more of the Black Jamaica than of the other kinds. The 

 heat of my fruiting-pits in winter is 65°, and in summer 75°* 

 Air is admitted when the heat approaches 90° ; the maximum tem- 

 perature seldom exceeds 100°. 



vol,. I. 



