ON THE CULTURE OF THE PINE-APPLE. 245 



symptoms of disposition to fruit prematurely. I am, however, still 

 ignorant whether any advantage will be ultimately obtained by this mode 

 of treating the queen-pine, but I believe it will be found applicable with 

 much advantage in the culture of those varieties of the pine which do 

 not usually bear fruit till the plants are three or four years old. 



I shall now offer a few remarks upon the facility of managing pines in 

 the manner recommended, and upon the necessary amount of the expense. 

 My gardener is an extremely simple labourer, he does not know a letter 

 or a figure ; and he never saw a pine-plant growing, till he saw those of 

 which he has the care. If I were absent, he would not know at what 

 period of maturity to cut the fruit ; but in every other respect he knows 

 how to manage the plants as well as I do ; and I could teach any other 

 moderately intelligent and attentive labourer, in one month, to manage 

 them just as well as he can : in short, I do not think the skill necessary 

 to raise a pine-apple, according to the mode of culture I recommend, is as 

 great as that requisite to raise a forced crop of potatoes. The expense 

 of fuel for my hothouse, which is forty feet long by twelve wide, is 

 rather less than seven-pence a day here, where I am twelve miles distant 

 from coal-pits ; and if I possessed the advantages of a curved iron roof, 

 such as those erected by Mr. Loudon, at Bayswater, which would prevent 

 the too rapid escape of heated air in cold weather, I entertain no doubt, 

 that the expense of heating a house forty-five feet long and ten wide, and 

 capable of holding eighty fruiting pine-plants, exclusive of grapes or other 

 fruits upon the back wall, would not exceed four-pence a day. A roof, 

 of properly curved iron bars, appears to me also to present many other 

 advantages : it may be erected at much less cost, it is much more durable, 

 it requires much less expense to paint it, and it admits greatly more light. 



I have not yet been troubled with insects upon my pine-plants, and 

 have not, of course, tried any of the published receipts for destroying 

 them. Mr. Baldwin recommends the steam of hot fermenting horse- 

 dung* : I conclude the destructive agent, in this case, is ammoniacal gas ; 

 which Sir Humphrey Davy informed me he had found to be instantly 

 fatal to every species of insect ; and if so, this might be obtained at a 

 small expense, by pouring a solution of crude muriate of ammonia upon 

 quicklime ; the stable or cow-house would afford an equally efficient, 

 though less delicate fluid. The ammoniacal gas might, I conceive, be 

 impelled, by means of a pair of bellows, amongst the leaves of the infected 

 plants, in sufficient quantity to destroy animal, without injuring vegetable 

 life : and it is a very interesting question to the gardener, whether his 

 hardy enemy, the red spider, will bear it with impunity. 



* Baldwin's Practical Directions, &c. page 30. 



