256 Culture of the Pine-apple, 



During the time that our pine plants are without roots, whether 

 crowns, suckers, gills, or stools fresh potted, or plants disrooted, 

 we prefer keeping them in a close moist atmosphere, at a tem- 

 perature not under 65° by night, nor over 90° by day, shading 

 them from the scorching rays of the sun, with a bottom heat (at 

 least till the roots have reached the sides of the pots) of 100°. 



Late suckers have been successfully wintered here, stuck in a 

 layer of half-spent bark, on a bed of good tan, in a pit near the 

 glass. The greatest defect in this system is, that the plants are 

 apt to get down too far from the glass, unless the frame or pit 

 be movable, and made to sink and follow them. 



Good Jamaica suckers generally mature their fruit here in two 

 years. Providences about two months less, and Queens in from, 

 sixteen to eighteen calendar months. 



In starting pine plants into fruit, we simply increase the 

 temperature, keeping up a moderate supply of moisture ; the 

 starving, parching, and scorching system of starting pines, for- 

 merly practised, being now, by all good cultivators, generally 

 discarded; for examples are not wanting of large fine plants, 

 which had been thus starved, &c., whilst the fruits were ready 

 to emerge from their sockets, showing crowns, on straw-like 

 footstalks, without a pip at all. 



In winter we often admit fresh air into our pine stoves for 

 other purposes than counteracting heat; as to prevent drawing 

 and blanching, by allowing the condensed steam to escape, and 

 to diy the plants. 



The fruits having been cut (say off Providence plants) and no 

 suckers appearing, we shake them out of the pots, pick off a few 

 of their lower leaves, and shorten the rest; then cut off 2 in. or 

 3 in. of the stump to which the old roots are attached, and pot 

 the stools in 32-sized pots, and treat them as suckers, when they 

 will produce two or three races of suckers ; and by this me- 

 thod we generally increase our stock of the shy-breeding black 

 sorts. By coxcomb crowns, also, we increase the Providence 

 tribe rapidly. From gills (suckers on the footstalk of the fruit) 

 potted in thumbs, or 60-sized, after a length of time, we obtain 

 good plants. 



Suckers, crowns, or gills, being got, are laid in some con- 

 venient space in the stove, to dry for a few days; after which we 

 pare off the ragged part of the stump of suckers, and pick oft' as 

 many of the lower leaves of both crowns and suckers as seem 

 necessary, in order to fasten the plant in the pot, and then pot 

 them in pots proportioned to their sizes ; if above a foot long, 

 in 32-sized, and so of the rest, to a gill of an inch long in a thumb 

 pot. The soil used for this purpose is generally pure loam, with 

 about one eighth silver sand. Being potted, they are wintered, 



