260 OUR COMMON FRUITS. 



gardens, where they are suspended in the buildings or 

 hung to the balustrades of the balconies, situations in 

 which they flower abundantly, filling the air with fra- 

 grance. In accordance with this great botanist's statement 

 is the testimony of the practical gardener, Spechley, who 

 wrote a very complete treatise on the pine-apple, in which 

 it is mentioned that a large sucker will vegetate after 

 having lain six of the hottest months of the year exposed 

 to the sun in the hothouse, whereas almost any other plant 

 of the same size and substance would in that situation lose 

 its vegetative powers in less than one-tenth of that time. 

 Successful culture, however, depends greatly upon a pro- 

 per degree of humidity, and the hygrometer should be 

 considered as indispensable an instrument in the pinery 

 as the thermometer ; for, according to the learned author 

 of the Theory of Horticulture, "the skilful balancing of 

 the temperature and moisture of the air constitutes the 

 most complicated and difficult part of the gardener's art." 

 It affords a pleasant prospect, however, of future increased 

 popularity for a luxury still only to be enjoyed in perfec- 

 tion by the comparatively wealthy, to find a professional 

 pine-grower bearing witness that " this incomparable fruit 

 is more easily brought to maturity than an early cucum- 

 ber. Though liable to the attacks of insects, it is less so 

 than the peach, and is less speedily injured by them than, 

 the common cabbage. It is also subject to very few dis- 

 eases ;" the writer's testimony as to the ease with which 

 it may be cultivated being finally summed up in the ex- 

 pressive dictum, that " every one that can procure stable 

 dung may grow pines." Whatever difficulties there may 

 have been in its management have certainly only sufficed 

 to call forth all the more energy in contending with and 

 overcoming them, for to be a successful pine-cultivator 

 has long been the acme of the British gardener's ambition. 

 He might be great in grapes and admirable in asparagus, 

 his flowers might be faultless and his strawberries superb, 

 but he still held but a second-rate position if with all this 

 he were still unable to produce a perfect pine, since in 

 proportion to his ability in this respect were his services 

 valued by the rich and the noble of the land. Thus in- 



