43 



Justice) tried some plants turned out of their pots 

 with their balls, and planted in the hark for the last 

 nine months before the fruit ripened, and found the 

 fruit larger and earlier, but not better flavoured, than 

 that of the plants in the pots. 



The later and better experience of Mr. Mills sus- 

 tains the same opinion ; for he obseryes, that plants, 

 when growing without pots, acquire naturally a dwarf 

 growth, more particularly when not crowded. It is 

 quite remarkable to see the different habit the plants 

 assume when planted in the open soil ; and, should 

 they have been growing in pots for some time previ- 

 ously, the alteration will be the more perceptible, as 

 they seem to change their habits all at once, by ex- 

 panding their foliage, and also by a rapid swelling of 

 their bases or stems, caused, no doubt, by the in- 

 crease of food to their roots, combined with regularity 

 of heat and moisture. {Mills on Pine Apple ^ 62.) 



Next to Mr. Justice in pursuing this plan was Mr. 

 Giles, who, writing in 1/67, says more explicitly, 

 when the bed is a little settled, lay on a border of the 

 same kind of earth as before mentioned, at about one 

 foot six inches wide on the surface of the tan, entirely 

 round the bark bed, which may be kept up within 

 side by planks, &c. The intention of this border is, 

 to turn part of the succession plants out of their pots 

 into it, which, when they are brought into the stove, 

 are then called fruiting plants. This border should 



