372 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



Pines, or pine-apples, are, as I have remarked, cultivated to a 

 large extent, and with the greatest success, in the hot-houses of 

 the affluent, where fire heat is employed j but in Cambridge 

 shire I found them cultivated, with great success, in common 

 hotbeds. The beds were formed in the usual way ; and in 

 order to keep up the heat, or renew it when it declined, addi 

 tional supplies of fresh stable manure were applied, from time to 

 time, to the sides of the bed. The plants were healthy, and 

 fruited well ; and so far as the quality of the fruit goes to ap 

 prove the mode of growing, I will say, on my own knowledge, 

 better need not be desired. 



I have one remark to make in regard to English vegetables 

 and fruits, that will not, I hope, be deemed ill-humored, which 

 is, that, though cultivated with extraordinary skill, with the 

 exceptions I have above named, they are tasteless, and without 

 that fine relish which one would like to find. I think it is 

 Voltaire who says &quot; that the only ripe fruit to be found in Eng 

 land is a baked apple.&quot; I cannot accede to a censure so sweep 

 ing ; but it is plain that their fruits and vegetables want ripeness 

 and flavor. This may arise partly from a deficiency of heat 

 from the sun, and partly from the excessive forcing of their 

 vegetables, in the vicinity of large markets, by unlimited quan 

 tities of manure. I know how difficult it must be to make an 

 Englishman believe this statement : for under the national 

 peculiarity of a large endowment of self-esteem, which their 

 Anglo-Saxon descendants over the water seem to have inherited, 

 (and sometimes, I think, with a considerable enlargement of the 

 organ, from long cultivation,) a genuine Englishman thinks that 

 nothing out of his own country can possibly be so good as what 

 is to be found in it. Now, in intellectual fruits, and the products 

 of art and science, I will not dispute their preeminence only 

 hoping that, while they are reposing upon their laurels, a young 

 and ambitious rival, in a fair and generous competition, may be 

 up with them as soon as possible, and distance them, if he can. 

 But climates and sunshine are not under human control ; and 

 the fact which I have stated is in my mind established, and not 

 the result of mere prejudice, of which, on any subject, if I were 

 conscious of it, I should be ashamed. 



