THE PINE APPLE. L5Q 



This house being finished, was immediately 

 stocked with Pines, some figs, and various other 

 plants, all of which, Mr. Knight stated verbally, in 

 May 1821, to various members of the Horticul- 

 tural Society, succeeded admirably ; but by neglect 

 of the gardener, or rather labourer, who attend- 

 ed them, they were killed by an over-heat in Mr. 

 Knight's absence from home. * 



The house was again stocked with plants, which 

 Mr. Knight, in a paper read to the Horticultural 

 Society, in November last (1821), stated to be 

 in a most thriving condition ; and a friend of ours 

 who had made an extensive gardening tour in the 

 North and West of England, and who saw the Pine 

 plants at Downton Castle, also in November, de- 

 clares they appeared the most magnificent he had 

 seen on his journey ; " the plants," he says, " were 

 stocky, and the leaves long, broad ? and green ; the 

 largest were in pots fourteen inches in diameter, 

 and their leaves reached to the glass." 



In the paper alluded to, Mr. Knight goes on to 

 say, " I possess more than sufficient evidence to 

 enable me to assert with confidence, . that, in the 

 culture of the Pine Apple, the bark bed, or other 

 hot-bed, if the plants be plunged intoit, is worse 



* The poor man had probably overheated himself, and com- 

 paring by his feelings the temperature of the Pinery with his 

 own, found the latter much in its usual state ; not knowing 

 " a letter or a figure," of course, he could not take a hint from 

 the thermometer. 



