538 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. Part III. 



Subsect. 10. Recent Improvements in the Culture of the Fine-apple. 



2924. The most recent improvements in the culture of the pine-apple consist chiefly of some 

 attempts by Knight and others to grow this fruit, as well without the aid of bottom heat 

 as with it. Knight also employed a much higher degree of solar heat during summer, and 

 much less fire-heat during winter, than is generally done by practical gardeners. Some 

 lesser improvements, such as nourishing the suckers on the parent stem after the fruit is 

 cut, are less recent, and though not mentioned in the popular manuals of gardening, are 

 yet 'frequently practised by the best cultivators. With respect to growing pine-plants by 

 the heat of dung or tan without fire-heat, there is nothing new or extraordinary in the 

 practice, as may be seen in the foregoing subsections, by the quotations from M'Phail 

 and others. 



2925. The effect of a very high temperature during the day, in bright weather, and of comparatively low 

 temperature during the night, and in cloudy weather, was tried by Knight in 1819. " A fire of sufficient 

 power only to preserve in the house a temperature of about 70, during summer, was employed ; but no 

 air was given, nor its escape facilitated till the thermometer, perfectly shaded, indicated a temperature of 

 95 and then only two of the upper lights, one at each end, were let down about four inches. The heat 

 of t'he house was consequently sometimes raised to 110, during the middle of warm and bright days, and 

 it generally varied, in such days, from 90 to 105, declining during the evening to about 80, and to 70 in 

 the night Late in the evening of every bright and hot day, the plants were copiously sprinkled with 

 water, nearly of the temperature of the external air. The melon, water-melon, Guernsey lily, fig-tree, 

 nectarine, orange and lemon, mango, Avocado pear, Mamme-tree, and several other plants, part of them 

 natives of temperate climates, grew in this hot-house so managed " through the whole summer, without 

 any one of them being drawn, or any way injured, by the very high temperature to which they were 

 occasionally subjected ; and from these and other facts," Knight continues, " which have come within 

 my observation, I think myself justified in inferring, that in almost all cases in which the object of the 

 cultivator is to promote the rapid and vigorous growth of his plants, very high temperature, provided it 

 be accompanied by bright sunshine, may be employed with great advantage ; but it is necessary that the 

 glass of his house should be of good quality, and that his plants be placed near it, and be abundantly sup- 

 plied with sand and water." In the above case liquid-manure was employed. It is added, 



2926. My house contains a few pine-apple plants ; in the treatment of which I have deviated somewhat 

 widely from the common practice; and I think with the best effects, for their growth has been exceed- 

 ingly rapid, and a great many gardeners, who have come to see them, have unanimously pronounced them 

 more perfect than any which they had previously seen. But many of the gardeners think that my mode 

 of management will not succeed in winter, and that my plants will become unhealthy, if they do not 

 perish in that season ; and as some of them have had much experience, and I very little, I wish, at 

 present, to decline saying more relative to the culture of that plant. (Hort. Trans, iii. 465.) The above 

 information, the result of Knight's experiments in 1819, was communicated to the Horticultural Society 

 in the autumn of that year. On the 7th of March following, a paper was read to the Society on the same 

 plants, of which the following is a transcript : 



2927. Gf those gardeners who doubted whether the plants would stand the winter, it is stated, The same 

 gardeners have since frequently visited my hot-house, 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 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 Kent 

 has stated {Hort. Trans, iii. 288.), " worse than useless," subsequent 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 hot-house, I deferred obtaining plants till the following 

 spring. My hot-house was not completed till the second week in June (1819), 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 tc 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. 



2928. Upon the introduction of my pine-plants into the hot-house, the mode of management, which it is 

 the object of the present communication to describe, commenced. They were put into pots of somewhat 

 more than a foot in diameter, in a compost made of thin green turf, recently taken from a river-side, 

 chopped very small, and pressed closely, whilst wet, into the pots ; a circular piece of the same material, 

 of about an inch in thickness, having been inverted, unbroken, to occupy the bottom of each pot This 

 substance, so applied, I have always found to afford the most efficient means for draining off superfluous 

 water, and subsequently of facilitating the removal of a plant from one pot to another, without loss of 

 roots. The surface of the reduced turf was covered with a layer of vegetable mould obtained from 

 decayed leaves, and of sandy loam, to prevent the growth of the grass roots. The pots were then placed 

 to stand upon brick piers, near the glass; and the piers being formed of loose bricks (without mortar), 

 were capable of being reduced as the height of the plants increased. The temperature of the house was 

 generally raised ift hot and bright days, chiefly by confined solar heat, from 95 to 105 degrees, and some- 

 times to 110 degrees, no air being ever given till the temperature of the house exceeded 95 degrees ; and 

 the escape of heated air was then only in a slight degree permitted. In the night, the temperature of 

 the house generally sunk to 70 degrees, or somewhat lower. At this period, and through the months of 

 July and August, a sufficient quantity of pigeons' dung was steeped in the water, which was given to the 

 pine-plants, to raise its color nearly to that of porter, and with this they were usually supplied twice a-day 

 in very hot weather; the mould in the pots being kept constantly very damp, or what gardeners would 

 generally call wet. In the evenings, after very hot days, the plants were often sprinkled with clear water, 

 of the temperature of the external air ; but this was never repeated till all the remains of the last sprink- 

 ling had disappeared from the axillae of the leaves. It is, I believe, almost a general custom with 

 gardeners, to give their pine-plants larger pots in autumn, and this mode of practice is approved by 

 Baldwin. (Cult, of Anan. 16.) I nevertheless cannot avoid thinking it wrong; for the plants, at this 

 period, and subsequently, owing to want of light, can generate a small quantity only of new sap ; and con- 

 sequently, the matter which composes the new roots, that the plant will be excited to emit into the fresh 

 mould, must be drawn chiefly from the same reservoir, which is to supply the blossom and fruit : and I 

 have found, that transplanting fruit-trees, in autumn, into larger pots, has rendered their next year's 

 produce of fruit smaller in size, and later in maturity. I therefore would not remove my pine-plants into 

 larger pots, although those in which they grow are considerably too small. As the length of the days 

 diminished, and the plants received less light, their ability to digest food diminished. Less food was in 

 consequence dissolved in the water, which was also given with a more sparing hand ; and as winter ap- 

 proached water only was given, and in small quantities. 



