150 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF 



unanimously pronounced them more perfect than 

 any which they had previously seen. But many 

 of the gardeners think that my mode of manage- 

 ment will not succeed in winter, and that my plants 

 will become unhealthy, if they do not perish in that 

 season ; and as some of them have had much ex- 

 perience, and I very little, I wish, at present, to 

 decline saying more relative to the culture of that 

 plant." Hort. Trans, iii. 465. 



The above information, the result of Mr. 

 Knight's experiments in 1819, was communicated 

 to the Horticultural Society in the autumn of that 

 year. On the 7th of March following, a paper was 

 read to the Society on the same plants, of which 

 the following is a transcript : 



Of those gardeners who doubted whether the 

 plants would stand the winter, it is stated, " The 

 same gardeners have since frequently visited my 

 hot-house, and they have unanimously pronounced 

 my plants more healthy and vigorous than any they 

 had previously seen : and they are' all, I have good 

 reason to believe, zealous converts to my mode of 

 culture. 



"I had long been much dissatisfied with the 

 manner in which the Pine Apple plant is usually 

 treated, and very much disposed to believe the bark- 

 bed, as Mr. Kent has stated, (Hort. Trans.m. 288.) 

 ' worse than useless,' subsequent to the emission 

 of roots by the crowns or suckers. I therefore 

 resolved to make a few experiments upon the cul- 

 ture of that plant ; but as I had not at that period, 



