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Most gardeners would have been alarmed for the 

 safety of their plants at this temperature ; but the 

 pine is a much hardier plant than it is usually sup- 

 posed to be ; and one young plant exposed in Decem- 

 ber to a temperature of 32 degs. did not appear to 

 sustain any injury ; and in the east the pine-apple is 

 growing in the open air, where the surface of the 

 ground, early in the mornings, shews unequivocal 

 marks of a slight degree of frost. The plants re- 

 mained nearly torpid, and without growth, during the 

 latter part of November, and in the whole of Decem- 

 ber; but they began to grow early in January, al- 

 though the temperature of the house rarely reached 

 60 degs. ; and about the 20th of that month, the 

 blossom, or rather the future fruit, of the earliest 

 plant became visible ; and subsequently to that period 

 their growth was rapid.* This rapidity of growth, in 

 rather low temperature, may be traced to the more 



* As to giving pine plants larger pots in autumn, we then, 

 and at all times, shift and repot when the plants are considered 

 to require it ; and indeed are very particular in giving all that re- 

 quire potting a good shift in autumn, to provide against the 

 contingency of the weather proving unfavourable in winter ; 

 though we would as readily shift a pine at Christmas as at any 

 other season. How is a quick growth to be made, and a suc- 

 cession of fruiting plants to be kept up, if the succession plants 

 are allowed to stand stationary in winter months ? Indeed, the 

 Kinghtian system of pine growing will not do in these railway 

 times. It would be quite impossible to maintain a succession 



