44-4" Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural Society. 



of horse droppings ; and, when settled, bore holes 4 in. in 

 diameter, and 12 in. apart, through to the rubbish; when all 

 danger from burning is over, fill these holes with fresh horse 

 droppings a little dried ; then spawn the bed, and cover the 

 whole with earth 3 in. deep. Mulch with hay of a soft 

 nature, or with straw, and water lightly as occasion requires, 

 with water at 60°, or not exceeding 75°, which ought to be 

 the maximum heat of the bed. 



Rhubarb. — Cover in the open ground with boxes or pots, 

 and around these lay leaves or hot dung, as in forcing sea- 

 kale. 



20. On the ripening of Fruit by artijicial Heat, after heiiig taken 

 .from the Tree. By James Howison, Esq., of Crossburn House. 



Pears gathered some weeks before they were ripe, " owing 

 to the danger of their being stolen from the trees," were 

 placed in the drawers of a book-case in a room where a fire 

 was constantly kept, and the temperature from 58° to 68°. 

 After 10 or 12 days the jargonelle, and after a month the 

 moorfowl egg^ were found ripe, and better flavoured than if 

 matured in the open air. Melons gathered in the end of 

 October and supposed useless were, after lying in the same 

 room till the end of December, " found nearly as high-fla- 

 voured and juicy as those ripened in the frames. In 1816, 

 when wall-fruit in the upper ward of Lanarkshire did not 

 even arrive at its usual size, fire heat bad the effect of ren- 

 dering such fruit more eatable than any which Mr. Howison 

 tasted," ripened on the tree in one of the warmest situations 

 of Scotland. " From the foregoing it would appear, that the 

 organic elaborations of the constituent parts of fruit are all 

 finished in the early stage of their growth, or "when arrived at 

 their full size, and that their ripening is a process of chemical 

 changes similar to fermentation, which, with a sufficient and 

 regular application of heat, goes on, in some degree, inde- 

 pendent of the living principle." 



Hawthorndean apples, gathered in the end of October, 1816, 

 were, on the 27th of May, 1817, as fresh and plump as when 

 taken from the tree, which Mr. Howison conjectures to be 

 owing to the great quantity of unconverted acid contained in 

 the unripe fruit. 



{To 1)6 continued in Vol. VI.) 



