64< BRITISH MODES OF CULTIVATfNG 



to try to excel their neighbours in the size of their 

 Pines. In order to produce very large fruit, I re- 

 commend the following method, which I have often 

 practised with great success. 



In the month of April or May, it is easy to dis- 

 tinguish, in a stove of Pines, which plants promise 

 to produce the best fruit : this is not always the 

 case with the largest. A few of the most promising 

 being marked, a small iron rod, made with a sharp 

 angular point, may be thrust down the centre of 

 the sucker; which, being turned two or three times 

 round, will drill out the centre, and prevent its 

 growing. This must be performed on all the suck- 

 ers as fast as they appear. Thus the plant being 

 plentifully supplied with water, and having nothing 

 to support but the fruit, will sometimes grow 

 amazingly large. But this method should not be 

 practised on too many plants, as it is attended with 

 the entire loss of all the suckers. 



It being a practice with some to fruit the Pine 

 by setting the pot in water ; while others produce 

 the fruit by setting the plant only in water, (in a 

 similar manner to what is often practised with Hya- 

 cinths and other bulbous roots,) the passing over 

 these methods in silence may, by some, be deemed 

 an omission : but as neither of these methods can 

 be reduced to practice with any kind of success, 

 except on fruiting plants, and just in the hot sum- 

 mer months, when the situation of the plant ought 

 to be very near to the glass, they do not seem cal- 

 culated for general practice. 



