MONTHLY CALENDAR. 719 



grape, when you can get it, but 'provdkingly 'barren would be its proper name, 

 as it is certainly its true character. 



2254. Pines. — Keep fruiting pines almost entirely dry if you wish them to 

 start in January. Maintain a day temperature of 70° ; night, 60° to 63°. 

 This dr3mess may be necessary to throw the plants into bloom. Nothing 

 does this more effectually than a check, although the check must neither be 

 too severe nor too long-continued. Beware of moisture settling upon any 

 pines that may now be in flower, as it often prevents the proper fructification 

 of the blossoms ; and deformed, or not formed, fruit is the consequence. 

 Embrace every opportunity of admitting air when the external atmosphere 

 will permit, and keep the plants within one foot of the glass. Succession 

 plants, if kept tolerably dry, may be wintered in pits, at a temperature of 

 60°, with perfect safety. Beware of an excess of heat, or any sudden change 

 of temperature, lest you cause premature growth or start them into fi'uit. 



C255. At one time pines were the greatest luxury of the upper ten thousand ; 

 now, throiTgh the numerous quantities imported, they are brought within the 

 reach of all ; perhaps chiefly for this reason, they are not so generally grown 

 as formerly'-. There is also a very prevalent idea that their cultivation is most 

 diflBcult and expensive. The formidable treatises published on their culture have 

 frightened many from undertaking it ; and yet few plants are more easily cul- 

 tivated. There is also about as much resemblance between a well-ripened 

 English-grown pine and an imported one as there is between a mouse and an 

 elephant. The former is generally a right royal, luscious fruit ; the latter is very 

 often not equal to a sweet turnip. Occasionally, however, good foreign pines 

 may be had ; but they can never compete for dessert on the tables of the 

 wealthy with English ones ; and there is no reason in cultural difficulties nor 

 expense of production why every lover of this regal fniit should not grow 

 his own. Houses for their culture have already appeared in this work. No 

 I^eculiarity of stnicture is necessary. Doubtless the nearer the light thej'- 

 can be placed the better, although I have seen excellent pines grown under 

 the shade of vines at least a yard from the roof. The most convenient, and 

 ultimately the cheapest mode of supplying bottom-heat, is by hot water ; I 

 care not whether it is applied in tanks, open gutters, troughs, &c., or pipes ; 

 I believe pipes, and a hot-air chamber under the bed, are best, and least liable 

 to accident. The bed to grow pines in should he four feet deep, to allow of the 

 introduction of a sufficiency of plunging material to cover the highest pots, 

 or the introduction of sufficient soil to plant the pines out in the bed. Doubt- 

 less this is the best, cheapest, and most efficient mode of growing pines. Pre- 

 pare the bed thus : — Place six inches of rough brickbats for drainage, then a 

 layer of broken bones two inches thick ; on this a layer of rich loam, in 

 whole pieces, with the turf inverted on the drainage, in solid pieces one foot 

 square and two to three inches thick. Then fill up to within eight inches of 

 the top, with this soil chopped into pieces about four inches square, mixed 

 with broken bones and pieces of charcoal, and broken freestone instead of 

 sharp sand. This is positively the compost that has frightened you so — with 



