304 ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE PINE-APPLE. 



had a pine-apple which has weighed quite four pounds *. But I possess 

 at the present moment succession plants of the greatest excellence, and 

 such as I could cause to bear fruit of very great weight, if I chose to 

 give them age and space ; for comparatively with the age and spaces 

 allotted to the plants in my fruiting-house, the fruit of my older plants is 

 of very large size, and in every respect exceedingly perfect. I also obtain 

 a regular succession of produce without having ever many pine-apples 

 ripe at the same period of the year ; and I can venture confidently to 

 assert that I could without difficulty, in properly constructed stoves, 

 cause crops of pine-apples to ripen regularly, and without failure, at any 

 appointed period of the year. Some varieties of the pine-apple appear 

 to me to be capable of acquiring a very high state of perfection under a 

 curvilinear iron roof in the most unfavourable seasons of the year ; and 

 the most excellent fruit of the species, in my estimation, which I have 

 ever seen has been that of the St. Vincent's or green olive in the middle 

 of winter : and my guests have, in more than one instance, unanimously 

 coincided with me in opinion. 



I have raised as many succession plants as I have wanted (and I have 

 used a very large number comparatively with the extent of my stoves), 

 by placing my suckers and young plants to take root and grow over the 

 flues between the larger plants ; but crowns and suckers never emit roots 

 more freely, nor afford better plants, than they do when placed in a 

 common hotbed. 



I often plant suckers without detaching them from the roots and stems 

 of the parent plants; and for the purpose of receiving such roots and long 

 stems, I employ pots which vary in depth from eighteen to twenty-two 

 inches with a cylindrical diameter of eleven inches only. Much time is 

 thus gained ; for plants thus raised, if properly managed, will afford 

 good fruit at a year old ; and they are capable whilst young of being 

 very closely packed together. 



Under a curvilinear iron roof, it will be necessary to shade the pine- 

 apple plants during the first bright days of the spring, or the healthful 

 verdant colour of their leaves will be tarnished ; and also to shade the 

 plants during the long and bright days of summer from ten o'clock in 

 the morning to three in the afternoon, or the fruit will ripen with 

 injurious rapidity at that season. For this purpose I employ a net, of 

 the kind I use to cover cherry-trees, doubled. 



* Since the above was written, I sent a black Jamaica pine-apple to the Horticultural Society, 

 the produce of a plant which was some months less than two years old, and which was confined 

 to the space above mentioned, which exceeded 4^ Ibs. in weight ; but I have had no other 

 quite so heavy. 



