24 FOREIGN MODES OF CULTIVATING 



who cultivate the Pine Apple in pits as in Holland ; 

 and crowns and suckers are forwarded in this way 

 by them, and also by the British gardeners settled 

 in that country. 



SECT. IV. 



Culture of the Pine Apple in France* 



THE culture of the Pine Apple does not appear 

 to have been commenced in France till after the 

 middle of the eighteenth century, and then only in 

 the royal gardens at Versailles, in those of the 

 Duke of Orleans at Mousseaux, and one or two 

 others. It has never been cultivated by above a 

 dozen persons in that country ; nor is it grown by 

 so great a number at the present time. The best 

 are in the garden of M. Boursault, within the 

 boundary of Paris ; and the next those of the king 

 at Trianon and Versailles, and of the banker La- 

 fitte, at his country-seat, a few leagues from the 

 capital. 



M. Boursault grows them in low houses, which 

 may be termed pits, being without glass in the 

 front or ends ; the plants are plunged in tan, and 

 kept as near the glass as possible ; and the soil 

 used is good garden earth, or free soil (terre- 

 framhe), with about half its bulk of poudrette, or 

 desiccated nightsoil. M. Boursault tried them 

 formerly in the poudrette alone, but found they 

 did not succeed so well as when a smaller quantity 



