242 



XL. UPON THE CULTURE OF THE PINE-APPLE, WITHOUT BARK, OR 



OTHER HOT-BED. 



[Read before the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, March 7th, 1820.] 



IN a communication which I had the honour to send to the Horticul- 

 tural Society in the last autumn, upon the effects of very high temperature, 

 when accompanied by very bright sunshine, upon some species of plants, 

 I mentioned that I had made a few, apparently very successful, experiments 

 upon the culture of the pine-apple : but I declined, at that period, to describe 

 the means I had used; because several experienced gardeners in the vicinity 

 were of opinion that my plants could not be made to survive, in health 

 at least, the winter. The same gardeners have since frequently visited 

 my hothouse, 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 no intention whatever to attempt to raise pine-apples till the 

 autumn of 1818, when I received from one of my friends in this vicinity, 

 Mr. Ricketts, of Ashford Hall, some seeds of the mango, and soon after- 

 wards some more seeds of that, and other tropical fruit-trees, from one 

 of our members, Mr. Pallmer. I then resolved to erect a hothouse, 

 chiefly for the purpose of attempting to cultivate the mango ; but 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 it in our Transactions*, " worse than useless," subse- 

 quently to the emission of roots by the crowns or suckers. I therefore 

 resolved to make a few experiments upon the culture of that plant ; but 

 as I had not at that period, the beginning of October, any hothouse, I 

 deferred obtaining plants till the following spring. My hothouse was 

 not completed till the second week in June, at which period I began my 

 experiment upon nine plants, which had been but very ill preserved 

 through the preceding winter by the gardener of one of my friends, with 

 very inadequate means, and in a very inhospitable climate. These, at 

 this period, were not larger plants than some which I have subsequently 

 raised from small crowns, (three having been afforded by one fruit,) 

 planted in the middle of August, were in the end of December last ; but 

 they are now beginning to blossom, and, in the opinion of every gardener 

 who has seen them, promise fruit of great size and perfection. They are 

 all of the variety known by the name of Ripley's Queen Pine. 



Upon the introduction of my plants into the hothouse, the mode of 

 management, which it is the object of the present communication to 



* Horticultural Transactions, Vol. III. page 288. 



