STO 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



STO 



633 



the old plants, whether they be suckers from the side of the 

 plants, or crowns taken from the fruit, if they fruit the 

 succeeding year, their fruit will be small ; therefore when 

 they are properly managed, they will not produce their fruit 

 till the second year, by which time they will have obtained 

 strength to produce large fruit, in which their greatest value 

 consists : for although there are several varieties of this fruit 

 which differ, like most other fruits, in degrees of goodness, 

 yet they may all be improved in size without injuring their 

 taste. The larger and better-nourished the fruit is, the finer 

 will be its flavour. In order therefore thus to improve and 

 bring it to the greatest perfection, it will be proper to have 

 a small stove, in which the young plants may be placed, to 

 bring them forward for fruiting in the following autumn, after 

 which they ought to be removed into the larger stove for 

 ripening. The length of this larger stove must be propor- 

 tioned to the quantity of fruit desired in one season ; for as 

 M the width, that should not be much varied : the tan-bed 

 should Tiever be narrower than six, nor more than seven feet 

 wide ; for when it is more there must be difficulty in reach- 

 ing the plants in the middle of the bed, to water or clean 

 them; and if there be room enough on each side of the 

 bed for a walk a foot and half broad, it will be sufficient for 

 persons to water and do every thing which is necessary for 

 the plants. If the stove be made thirty-six feet long in the 

 clear, then the tan-bed may be thirty-three feet, leaving a 

 walk a foot and half wide at each end, which will be suffi- 

 cient to walk round, attend to, and water the plants. A tan- 

 bed of this size will easily contain eighty fruiting plants, and 

 may be warmed with one fire ; but if the stove be built much 

 larger, there must be two fire-places contrived, one at each 

 end, otherwise the air of the house cannot be sustained at a 

 proper degree of heat. The quantity of fuel required for a 

 stove of thirty-six feet long in the clear, is about three chal- 

 dron and a half of coals, or in such proportion for any other 

 sort of fuel. But coal, especially pit or Scotch coal, is the 

 best, because the Newcastle coal is very subject to melt and 

 run into clinkers when the oven is very hot; while the Scotch 

 coal burns away with a white ash, and makes but little soot, 

 and will not require the flues to be so often cleaned. The 

 next best fuel is peat, where it can be procured good ; but 

 the scent of it is often disagreeable : there are some persons 

 who burn wood, but this requires greater attendance, besides 

 consuming a much greater quantity than of any other kind. 

 The stoves intended for ripening the fruit of" the Ananas 

 should have upright glasses in their front, and the front must 

 be high enough to admit a person to walk upright under them 

 on the walk in the front of the house ; or where this cannot 

 be admitted, the front wall may be sunk one foot lower than 

 that on the back of the tan-bed, so that the surface of the 

 bed will be a foot above the walk, which will be rathe* an 

 advantage, as the plants will be so much nearer the glass ; 

 and a person may with great ease water and attend the plants 

 when they are thus raised above the walk; therefore when a 

 stove is so situated as that the raising of it high above 

 ground might be attended with inconvenience, the walks 

 quite round the 1 tan-bed might be sunk a foot or eighteen 

 inches below the top of the bed, which will admit of the 

 stove being built so much the lower; for if there is height for 

 a, person to walk under the glasses, it will be as much as is 

 required; but as the flues, when returned four times against 

 the back wall, will rise nearly seven feet, so the bottom of 

 the lower flue should be on the same level with the walk, 

 to admit room enough for the whole under the roof. Over 

 the upright glasses there must be a range of sloping glasses 

 running to join the roof, which should eome so fur from the 



back wall as to cover the flues and the walk behind the tan- 

 pit; for if the sloping glasses are of sufficient length to reach 

 nearly over the bed, the plants will require no more light; 

 therefore these glasses should not be longer than is absolutely 

 necessary, that they may be the more manageable. The other 

 stove, or Succession House, which is designed for raising 

 young plants until they are of a proper size to produce fruit, 

 need not be built so high as the former. The frames may 

 be made in one slope, without nny upright glasses in front. 

 Many persons have formerly made tan-beds with two flues 

 running through the back wall, and covered with glasses 

 made in the same manner as those for common hot-beds, only 

 larger. But as there is no passage into them, the glasses 

 must be taken off when the plants want water: the damps in 

 winter also often rise, when they are closely shut; and there 

 is also danger of the tan taking fire, if it should lie too near 

 the fires. Hence, although the small stove, or Succession 

 House, here proposed, is more expensive in building, yet being 

 greatly preferable in other respects, and the after-expense 

 being the same, it has become more general wherever the 

 Ananas are cultivated. Where there is no danger of wet 

 settling in winter about the tan, the bark-pit may be sunk 

 two feet deep in the ground, and raised one foot above the 

 surface. The only walk which is necessary in these stoves is 

 at the back of the bed, and that may be on a level with the 

 surface of the ground; hence the tan-bed will be more than 

 a foot above the walk ; and the flues beginning from the level 

 of the walk, there will be room to return them three times, 

 which will warm th^ air much more with the sume fire thau 

 when they are carried about twice the length of the stove. 

 In wet land, however, the tan-bed should be wholly raised, 

 above the level of the ground, in order to preserve the tan 

 from being chilled by moisture; and in such places the walks 

 at the back should be raised nearly two feet above the level 

 of the ground, because the tan-bed itself ought not to rise 

 much more than one foot above the level of the walk, as, if 

 it be higher, that will render it more difficurt to reach the 

 plants when they require water. The brick wall of the pit, 

 on the side next the wall, need not be more than four inches 

 thick so far as rises above the walk, but below that it should 

 be nine inches thick. The reason for reducing the wall above, 

 is to obtain more room for the walk, which would otherwise 

 be too much contracted; and if there be a kirb of Oak laid 

 upon the top of the four-inch wall, it will secure the bricks 

 from being displaced, and sufficiently strengthen the wall, 

 which being but one foot above the walk, will not be in any 

 danger of falling; while upon this kirb there may be two or 

 three upright iron bars fixed with claws, to support the crown- 

 piece of timber, which will secure it from hanging; in the 

 middle. There may be more or less of these bars according 

 to the length of the stove, but if they are about ten feet apart, 

 that will be sufficiently near ; and an inch square in thickness 

 will be strong enough to answer the design. Forcing Staves. 

 These do not differ in the manner of their being heated from 

 those already described, but only in their application. The 

 Bark Forcing Stove has a tan-pit, in which pots of Roses, 

 Pinks, Narcissus, and other bulbs, with various choice flow- 

 ers, are plunged, in order to have them early in spring. 

 Tender annual flowers may be raised in this pit, and pots of 

 Strawberries, Dwarf Cherries, Kidney Beans, &c. may be set 

 either in the pit or the sides of it, or on shelves nearer to the 

 glasses. If the stove be big enough, there may be a border of 

 earth next the back wall, and a small one in front, in which 

 fruit-trees, such as Cherries, Peaches, Nectarines, and Apri- 

 cots, may be planted in the full ground. Vines also planted 

 on the outside iu front may be trained in along the frames of 



