THE PINE-APPLE. 



647 



flourish without the agency of rich composts. I 

 have tried as an experiment to grow it in moss 

 mixed with broken pots; the plant made quite 

 as much progress as those in rich compost, 

 which is an evident proof that water and air 

 constitute the principal food of the pine-apple." 

 From what has been said above, it will be seen 

 how conflicting are the opinions of even our best 

 cultivators as regards the texture of the soil : in 

 one point they mainly agree, namely, that it 

 should be fresh and unexhausted, and the coarser 

 or more pervious it is the better. 



Potting. — This is an important operation in 

 pine-culture, commencing when the suckers are 

 taken off, and continued as the plants progress, 

 until they are placed in the pots in which they 

 are to produce their fruit. In all cases, if the 

 pots are not new, they should be thoroughly 

 washed and dried for a day or two previous to 

 using. The soil should also be comparatively dry 

 — that is to say, it should have been under cover 

 some time before the operation is to take place; 

 and when it become^ necessary to re-pot during 

 winter, it should be brought nearly to the tem- 

 perature of the soil already about the roots. 

 Some writers have laid down particular seasons 

 when this should be done, a rule which should 

 be totally disregarded. All plants do not grow 

 alike rapidly even in the same pit or house, and 

 there is a great difference between one sort of 

 pine and another in this respect also. Potting 

 or transplanting must be governed by the state 

 of the plants, whether they are growing fast or 

 the reverse, whether the pot is full of roots or 

 not — and this, even with very expert growers, 

 can only be ascertained by examination. It is 

 as injurious to re-pot a plant when its roots have 

 not occupied the whole ball in which it is grow- 

 ing, as to delay until they have become com- 

 pletely matted all over its surface. The opera- 

 tion should always be performed with great 

 caution, as the roots of the pine, when in a 

 healthy state, are fuU of sap, and easily injured 

 by being bruised or broken; and the food-collect- 

 ing points, the spongiolets, are extremely brittle, 

 and exceedingly liable to be broken off. For 

 this reason, shifting or potting should not take 

 place while the spongiolets are just pushing 

 their way through the ball, as it is next to im- 

 possible to preserve them when in that state. 

 When the roots have passed through the ball, 

 and begun to traverse its outer circumference, is 

 the proper time for the operation ; and even 

 then great care is required in turning them out 

 of the pot and placing them in another, so as to 

 maintain the ball of earth around them entire. 

 Disturbing the roots or reducing the ball of a 

 healthy vigorous-growing plant, gives it a check 

 in proportion to the extent either of these is in- 

 terfered with. The only cases when a departure 

 from this rule is warranted, is when the soil has be- 

 come sodden by excess of moisture or deficiency 

 of drainage, or when the roots have been injured 

 by too much bottom heat, or where, from other 

 causes, they have become unhealthy, or almost 

 disappeared altogether. In such cases the soil 

 should be removed, often entirely, the roots ex- 

 amined, all that are dead or unhealthy cut away, 

 even should the plant be reduced to the state of 



a rootless sucker. It was for years recommended, 

 but upon what solid ground we are at a loss to 

 guess, to shake away most of, if not the whole 

 soil, and to cut off the lower roots of the plants; 

 and some went so far as to cut them off en- 

 tirely. Others, at potting, strip off a number of 

 the lower leaves, with, we suppose, the idea of 

 allowing the embryo roots to escape more freely 

 from the stem than they could by forcing their 

 way through or between the leaves. There is 

 more propriety in this than in the disrooting 

 process; for, on examining the bottom of the 

 stalk of the pine, it frequently happens that the 

 young roots have twisted themselves around the 

 stem, and cannot readily be separated from it 

 without the danger of breaking them. This 

 would indicate that, if the leaves had been sooner 

 removed, those roots would have extended 

 themselves into the soil. The removal of such 

 leaves is opposed by some, but we think their 

 removal, under such circumstances, highly pro- 

 per; but, unless to meet such a case, we would 

 not remove one healthy leaf, either at potting 

 or at any other time. Over-potting is injurious 

 to the pine, the plant remaining long stationary 

 in growth afterwards. It would be desirable 

 were it possible, which it is not, to give a scale 

 of sizes of the pots adapted to each potting, 

 from the planting of the sucker to the ripening 

 of the fruit. This, as in many other cases in 

 horticulture, must be left to the discretion of 

 the operator; but, in a general way, we may 

 remark, that the pot into which the plant is to 

 be set should seldom be more than 3 inches 

 greater in diameter than that from which it has 

 been taken. It is also equally impossible to 

 state how often the plant should be shifted, as 

 also the exact size of the pot in which it is to 

 produce its fruit. The former must be regu- 

 lated by the progress the roots have made, and 

 the latter by the variety, whether a strong or 

 medium grower, as well as its size, age, and 

 weight of fruit desired. We never re-pot a pine 

 after it has shown fruit ; indeed, if we can avoid 

 it, we never remove them from the spot after 

 the embryo fruit is indicated by the plant throw- 

 ing up narrow leaves in its centre. 



As general data for the size of pots, we may 

 state that we usually plant our strong suckers in 

 5 or 6-inch pots, smaller ones in 4-inch ones, at 

 each shifting increasing the size, if the plants are 

 vigorous, 3 inches, and fruit them in pots of 12 

 or 13 inches in diameter, according to their size. 

 As our practice is to fruit the plants compara- 

 tively young, say from eighteen months to two 

 years, we encourage their growth ; and by shifting 

 with the balls entire, they never sustain a check 

 from the day they are first planted until the fruit 

 is ripe. Of course, they are not over-stimulated 

 to growth during the dark months of winter. 



Drainage is an important part of this process, 

 and to secure this completely we place over the 

 holes in the bottom of the pots — for we have 

 from three to five in the bottom, and in larger- 

 sized ones as many round the bottom part of 

 the sides — large pieces of broken pots with their 

 concave side undermost ; above these, fragments 

 of pots in smaller pieces, technically called crocks, 

 to the depth of from 1 or 2 inches ; over these 



