Queries and Answers. 729 



3. Baldwin* s Method of growing Pines. As very few reasons are given 

 for the method Baldwin adopts, it may be well to enquire into some of these 

 reasons. Why, then, does he defer putting his plants into their fruiting 

 pots until the end of September ? Is it on account of the conveniences 

 attending that method (and these are certainly very great), or because 

 he believes it best for the plants ? If the plants thus treated can be made 

 to show fruit as early and as certainly as they do when shifted in the begin- 

 ning of August, Baldwin's method must be far the best for the plants : for 

 the new soil put to the plants in August, according to the usual method, 

 becomes somewhat exhausted by the new roots made before the end of the 

 growing season ; consequently the plant growing in the same pot during 

 the whole period of fructification cannot derive so much nourishment; 

 whereas, when shifted in the end of September, the plant grows but little 

 afterwards, and therefore the strength of the soil is reserved for the plant 

 after it has shown fruit. 



Again : Why does Baldwin defer taking his suckers and crowns out of 

 the tan until the 7th of April, instead of the middle of March, which is the 

 usual time ? It is certainly most desirable for a plant designed to fruit in 

 eighteen months, that no part whatever of the previous growing year should 

 be lost. But Speechley says, if they are shifted before the middle of 

 March, they do not root freely; and, ii' after that period, it checks them in 

 their summer's growth. How are these conflicting statements to be recon- 

 ciled ? It is true that Baldwin's plan has succeeded ; yet Speechley's seems 

 the more reasonable, for by the 7th of April the young plants will have 

 made some fine new white roots, which must by his plan be all cut off; 

 whereas, in the middle of March, these new roots would be but small, and 

 not of so much consequence. Which, then, is the best plan ; taking into 

 consideration Baldwin's method of growing them without pots and without 

 fire heat ? 



Would young suckers do as well through the winter, gi'owing in tan with- 

 out pots in a flued pit, as they do in one without flues, and heated with 

 dung, such as Baldwin used ? Would they be in any more danger of show- 

 ing fruit prematurely by having a fire flue, than if they were grown on a 

 common tan bed lined with dung V According to Baldwin, they seldom 

 or ii;?ver show untimely fruit, grown in this latter way. 



Would not a pit with a narrow walk and flue at the back, with a boarded 

 front against which hot dung is placed, and with a proper tan bed, be as good 

 a plan for a fruiting-pit as could be devised ? even better than Baldwin's, 

 which has no dung in front? for, besides the wholesome heat produced by 

 the manure, it greatly assists the tan bed in keeping up a proper heat after 

 the fires are discontinued in the summer. 



Will a tan bed, well made up in the end of September, retain its heat 

 sufficiently for fruiting plants without stirring, until the following July and 

 August, the time when the fruit ripens ? M'Phail says not ; but Baldwin 

 recommends this plan. This is a singular disagreement between two such 

 eminent cultivators of the pine, and seems to require some investigation. 

 Baldwin constantly practised it, and of course found it answer ; M'Phail 

 tried it by way of experiment, and found it did not answer. But, in looking 

 at the way in which M'Phail made the experiment, it is evident he did not 

 give it a fail- trial. He covered the surface of the tan with soil a foot thick, 

 and planted his pines in it without pots. New plants in this situation 

 would be under very different circumstances from those of Baldwin ; their 

 roots are all above the suriace of the fermenting material : when they are 

 in pots, and plunged to their rims, they are all below it. In the winter, or 

 early in spring, when Baldwin's bed began to decline in its heat, he had the 

 opportunity of filling up the interstices between th'^ pots with fresh tan, as 

 they are only half plunged at first. This recruits the heat surprisingly; 



