CuHure of the Pine-apple. 593 



my progeny, but are only cousins-german, with whom I have no 

 wish to be associated. Trusting, honoured Sir, that you will 

 relax a little from your other numerous and more important 

 pursuits, and again take me and mine under the wing of your 

 patronage ; and that you will duly instruct the public how to 

 estimate our good qualities, so that we may not again suffer 

 wrong by having our long-faced cousins classed with us, or, what 

 is worse, preferred to us for their length of visage; I remain 

 your very much obliged servant, Viola. 



Perth, Aticr. 2. 1836. 



Art. XI. On the Culture of the Pine-apple. By Mr. Alexander 



Forsyth. 



For Soil, I recommend turf of loam, cut as if it were to be 

 used for turfing a plot in a lawn or flower-garden. This turf 

 should be stacked in narrow tiers for a year or two, without 

 any process whatever, neither cutting nor turning, both being 

 injurious. When wanted for use, it may be chopped, or torn 

 to pieces by the hand (but by no means bruised, pounded, or 

 reduced to a powder, as is too often done); and enriched, by 

 adding a portion, say one fourth, of the following ingredients, 

 mixed; or any of them that can most conveniently be got: — 

 blood, ground bones, animal remains from a slaughter-house, 

 sediment collected in tanks of drainings from dunghills, night- 

 soil, or droppings of animals collected from the pasture, park, 

 or paddock, without litter or urine. This mixture should be 

 properly fermented, aerated, and pulverised, so as to be reduced 

 to a friable state : a small portion of lime may be mixed with it, 

 which will greatly accelerate its decomposition. This is the 

 most simple, and at the same time the most safe and powerful, 

 compost for pines that I am acquainted with. 



Several commercial suburban growers use maiden loam from 

 Norwood, in Surrey, without any manure or mixture whatever, 

 and fruit the common broad-leaved queen pine in sixteen, and 

 even twenty four, sized pots, in from sixteen to twenty months. 

 Worms are ruinous in pine-pots ; but Norwood loam, in a pure 

 state, they will not meddle with ; therefore it is used, both for 

 growing and fruiting in, by many, but especially commercial 

 growers, who, in consequence of their frequently using fermented 

 dung only, without fire, for their fruiting and growing depart- 

 ments, find their plants apt to get saturated at the roots, by the 

 condensed vapour from the dung ; and in such pits worms are 

 extremely troublesome. Dung being cheap in the metropolis, it 

 is the practice of the London commercial gardeners to load their 

 vegetable waggons with it, as a back-carriage from market; and, 



X X 3 



