298 Transactions of the HoriicuUural Society. 



during the long and bright days of summer, from ten o'clock in the morn- 

 ing to three in the afternoon, or the fruit will ripen with injurious rapidity 

 at that season. For tliis purpose I en)ploy a net, of the kind I use to 

 cover cherry trees, doubled. 



" The gardener who has never cultivated pine-apples in a dr}' stove should 

 bear in mind that, in giving water, he should put as much at once into each 

 not as will moisten the mould to the bottom of it, and avoid watering very 

 frequently. 



" There are, in different parts of England, enormous heaps of coal-dust 

 lying at the tops of the pits, of no value whatever, and in situations where 

 pine-apples might be conveyed within three days to London, by water- 

 carriage ; and 1 am perfectly confident that these may be raised by the 

 mode of culture recommended in this and former communications, at less 

 than half the expense now incurred ; and 1 do not entertain the slightest 

 doubt that as large, and even larger, pine-apples may be raised without than 

 with a hotbed of any kind. Nothing can be more easy than the act of 

 giving a more regular and uniform wariDth to the roots than that which can 

 be given by the ever-varying heat of a bark bed ; and a sufficiently humid 

 state in the atmosphere of the house may be regularly produced by many 

 different means.* 



'• Some gardeners, however, have, as I have been informed, wholly failed 

 in attempts to cultivate pine-apples without the aid of a bark bed ; and 

 one case of this kind has come within my own observation. In this 

 (and probably in all others) the failure obviously arose from want of suffi- 

 cient humidity in the atmosphere of the house; for the plants not only 

 grow best, but the fruit acquires, I think, its highest state of perfection 

 when ripened in damp air, provided that there be a sufficient change of it, 

 and that too much water be not given to the roots of the plants. A very 

 dry state of the air in the stove is noxious, I believe, to almost every species 

 of plant, and particularly to the pine-apple.f 



" Whenever it is wished that pine-apples should be produced of very large 

 size, it will obviously be necessary to restrain the plants from bearing fruit 

 till they have acquired a greater age than mine have ever been permitted 

 to acquire ; and in such case it will be beneficial to remove the plants 

 annually into larger pots. This, when the pots, as well as the plants, are 

 large, will not very easily be done without danger of injury to the roots. It 

 has been my custom to remove melon plants of large size; and, to preserve 

 the roots from injury in transplanting, I have had baskets, of loose texture 

 and coarse workmanship, and consequently of very low price, made to fit the 

 pots from which the melon plants were to be removed; if such baskets were 

 to be introduced into the pots in which the pine-apple plants were placed 

 in the autumn of one year, they would remain sufficiently sound till the 

 following autumn, to enable the gardener to remove plants of the largest 

 size without any danger of injury to their roots. It will also be necessary, 

 when fruit of the largest size is required, to place the plants, at all periods 

 of their growth, at considerable distances from each other, because the 

 leaves of the pine-apple plants act less efficiently in the generation of sap, 

 in proportion as they are made to take a perpendicular direction ; and this 

 direction they are compelled to take when they are laterally much shaded; 



" * Any person who may be disposed to profit by the foregoing suggestion 

 is at full liberty to inspect my pine stoves, and shall receive any information 

 which I can give ; and I can, with perfect confidence, promise him success. 



" f Very dry air appears to me to be particularly injurious, when it is 

 made to come into contact with the roots through the sides of a porous 

 and unglazed earthen pot ; I suspect, owing to causes pointed out by M. 

 Dutrochet: see L'' Agent hnmediatdu Mouvenient vital; and Kouvc/les Rc- 

 cherclics sur P Endosmose ct FExosmose. 



