Book I. PINERY— GENERAL CULTURE. 5:31 



them out green, into a cooler place, to keep them back : and when you wish to ripen them, take them into 

 the house, and plunge them in the tan again." 



2838. Size of the fruit. Three pounds may be considered the average size of the queen pine-apples 

 brought to market or sent to table, but occasionally they grow much larger, attaining four and rive 

 pounds ; and the Providence, with Speedily and Griffin, has weighed seven and nine pounds. Griffin ap- 

 pears to have been particularly successful in growing large fruit. At Kelham, near Nottingham, while 

 gardener to J. C. Girardot, Esq. he cut, in the year 1802, twenty queen pines, which weighed together 

 eighty-seven pounds seven ounces ; in 1803, one weighing five pounds three ounces; in July, 1804, one of 

 the New Providence kind, weighing seven pounds two ounces; in August, 1804, one of the same kind, 

 weighing nine pounds three ounces ; and in 1805, he cut twenty-two queen pines, which weighed together 

 one hundred and eighteen pounds three ounces. 



2839. Baldwin, at a meeting of the Horticultural Society of London, held in October, 1817, presented a 

 queen pine of great beauty and superior flavor. It measured sixteen inches in circumference, seven inches 

 in length, and weighed four pounds. The plant on which it was produced was little more than fifteen 

 months old. (Hort. Tr. iii. 118.) 



2840. At the anniversary dinner of the society on the -ith of June, 1822, four New Providence pines were re- 

 ceived from Baldwin, which together weighed 32 lbs. 10± ounces ; the largest 8 lbs. 14| oz. ; the next 8 lbs. 

 5 oz. ; the third 8 lbs. 2 oz. ; and the fourth 7 lbs. 5 oz. (Hort. Tra?is. v. 20o\) 



2841. On the 11th July, 1821, Wm. Buchan, gardener to Lord Cawder, at Stackpool Court, Pembrokeshire, 

 produced a pine which weighed 10 lbs. 8oz. and was 10§ inches high, exclusive of the crown and stalk. 

 This was larger than any pine which had been exhibited to the society, and with the exception of a few 

 which have been grown by Baldwin, is the heaviest, as far as has been ascertained, that has been 

 fruited in this country. Buchan fruited three other Providence pines, of extraordinary weight, in 

 the same season ; one weighed 10 lbs. 6 oz. ; another lOlbs. 2 oz. ; and a third 9 lbs. 8 oz. making the total 

 weight of the four, 40 lbs. 8 oz. (Hort. Trans, v. 264.) 



Subsect. 8. General Directions common to the Three Departments of Pine-apple 



Culture. 



2842. That which is general in the culture of the pine-apple chiefly respects the bark-pit, 

 air, water, and insects. 



2843. Management of the bark-pit. The first point deserving attention here is the 

 preparation of the tan, after it is brought from the tan-vats ; but this has been already 

 described. (See 1974.) 



2844. Formation of the bed. M'Phail says, "Pits for tan need not be made deeper 

 than three feet six inches ; if they be very wide, three feet will do ; and to admit large 

 fruiting pine-plants, the surface of the tan-bed will require to be five or six feet from the 

 glass above it. When a pine-pit is to be filled wholly with new tan, if it be late in the 

 autumn or winter, the tan had best lie in a state of fermentation for some time before 

 the pots be plunged in it. If pine-plants in pots be plunged in wet tan, it is apt to affect 

 their roots, and if the roots be hurt, the plant must suffer." 



2845. Abercrombie says, " It is desirable on the first formation of a bed, to mix new and old tan together ; 

 in which case the quantity of new bark to be brought into the pit will depend upon the goodness of the bark 

 and the bottom heat required. As much new tan as will fill two third parts of the bark-pit, with a mix- 

 ture of old, rotten almost to earth, will produce a bottom heat of about 85°. When old tan with higher 

 remains of strength is used to modify the new, the same heat may be produced, if the quantity of new be 

 not more than half the capacity of the pit. This is said of a new pit. After a bark-bed has been in ac- 

 tion, partial renewals of bark, to keep up the heat, are frequently sufficient in the reduced proportion of 

 one third, one sixth, one twelfth, or less. At intermediate stages between the partial renewals, the bed re- 

 quires only to be excited into a brisker fermentation by forking-up. About five sevenths of the pit from 

 the bottom should be occupied by the new and old tan as a fermenting body of bark : and about two 

 sevenths from the top, or a little more than the depth of the pots, whatever that may be, should consist 

 of old tan incapable of heating so as to burn the roots of the plants ; at least such should be the ordinary 

 distribution of the tan ; but where peculiar circumstances require a speedy augmentation of heat, without 

 displacing the pots, as when fruit is to be swelled off in the last stage, the earthy tan at top may be taken 

 away, and new tan substituted." 



2846. M'Phail has found, " that when a tan-pit is about six feet wide, and three feet deep, filled with good 

 new and old tan in nearly equal quantities, it is enough to raise and retain a sufficient heat for the growth 

 of the pine-apple for about half a year, with the addition of as much new tan as will keep it up to its ori- 

 ginal height; at the expiration of which time, the exhausted part of the tan is to be taken out, and the 

 bed recruited with new bark. When tan gets too dry, pour water into it now and then between the 

 pots ; this will cause a fine moist heat to arise among the plants to help to nourish them, and it will like- 

 wise enable the tan to retain its heat longer than if it were suffered to become dry, for no body of veget- 

 ables will continue to ferment and generate heat after the moisture in them is evaporated. " (Gard. 

 Reman.) 



2847. Temperature of the bed. The general practice is to keep this from five to ten 

 degrees higher than that of the air of the house in the winter months ; somewhat higher 

 in spring and autumn ; and about the same temperature in summer. M'Phail and Griffin 

 prefer rather a higher degree of bottom heat. One hundred degrees, these authors re- 

 commend, or " about milk-warm, at the bottom of the pots, is heat enough for the roots 

 of the pine-apple plant to grow in ; therefore the depth, whether of tan, leaves of trees, or 

 dung put into the pit, should be proportioned according to the qualities of the materials 

 in regard to raising heat. If the air in the house be kept up to a proper degree of heat, 

 the roots of the plants will grow in a heat of eighty degrees, so that it is safer to have the 

 pots stand for a time in such a gentle heat than in a heat of upwards of a hundred ; but 

 let it be remembered, that the heat of the bed, especially from its surface to eight or nine 

 inches downward, is liable to increase and decrease in a uniformity, though not so 

 quickly, with the variations of the heat kept up in the atmosphere of the house. But be 

 this as it may, the heat of the tan at the bottom of the pots when the roots are there, had 

 best not be warmer than about milk-warm, especially in winter, when, if the roots at the 

 bottoms of the pots be destroyed, there is not at that season of the year a kindly natural 



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