416 CULTURE OF THE PINE-APPLE. 



are expected to keep for some months, are kept on shelves singly, 

 or in shallow drawers, or packed in boxes, jars, or pots, with dried 

 fern or dry sand. New garden-pots are found to answer remark- 

 ably well for keeping fruit, any damp being readily absorbed by 

 the dry, porous, unglazed materials of which they are usually com- 

 posed. Fruits which are thus packed do not require to be examined 

 till the time when they are expected to be fit for the table, which 

 should always be marked, along with the name, on the label attached 

 to the jar or box; but fruits exposed to the air on the open shelves 

 require to be examined almost every day, in order to remove those 

 which exhibit symptoms of decay. Walnuts, sweet chestnuts, and 

 filberts, may be kept in boxes or casks, placed in the fruit-cellar on 

 account of its low but uniform temperature. Summer fruit, such as 

 peaches, nectarines, plums, are seldom kept more than a day or two in 

 the fruit-room, but they are sometimes kept in the ice-house for a 

 week or more, which causes some loss of flavour. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

 THE FORCING DEPARTMENT. 



THE principles of constructing houses for plants, together with their 

 culture in artificial climates, having been already given, we proceed to 

 show their applicatioA to the pinery, vinery, peach- house, fig-house, 

 cherry-house, cucumber and melon pits and frames, and the forcing in 

 frames and pits of such culinary vegetables as it is desired to have pro- 

 duced out of season. We have already seen that artificial heat may 

 be applied in plant-structures by dung or other fermenting substances, 

 by hot water, by steam, or by smoke-flues; or by two or more of 

 these modes of heating combined. Fermenting substances are almost 

 always the safest, and hot water generally the best ; but the same 

 result may be obtained by smoke-flues, and is still obtained in many 

 parts of the country, though not without extra care on the part of the 

 gardener. With respect to the form of house where low plants, 

 such as pines, melons, cucumbers, strawberries, or kidney-beans are 

 to be grown or forced, low structures, such as pits or frames, are 

 most eligible ; but where trees, such as the vine, peach, fig, &c., are to 

 be grown, houses of the ordinary height of garden-walls are preferred, 

 at least for general crops. The reasons are obvious in both cases. 



Culture of the Pine-apple, and Management of the Pinery. The 

 pine-apple has long been considered the king of the dessert. It also 

 makes an admirable sweet preserved in sugar, or made into a jam. In 

 the East Indies it takes the place of our common apple or other fruits ; 

 and pine-apple sauce and fritters are as common in Calcutta as apples 

 are in England. Its fibre is made into thread, twisted into cordage, 

 or woven into linen. 



