OF THE PINE-APPLE. 



1295 



of the more sanguine among modern projectors 

 have estimated. f 



f Extract from the General Evening Post, from No- 

 vember 22d — 24th, 1792. 



" A Gentleman, who is eminently distinguished for his me- 

 chanical talents, and his improvements in several branches of 

 rural economies, has lately contrived to rear pine-apples, me- 

 lons, and other hot-house plants, without the use of tan, or 

 other fermentative mixture, the necessary heat being com- 

 municated by steam ; and after having practised it for at least 

 two years, he can now, with some degree of confidence, pro- 

 nounce, that it has even exceeded his highest expectations, 

 and is in several respects preferable to any mode hitherto prac- 

 tised for any hot-house plants, particularly in respect to insects ; 

 for he does not find that any one class of insects has ever since 

 attacked any of the plants that have been reared after this new 

 method. 



" The circumstances that led him to the discovery, was the 

 difficulty of finding tan in his particular situation. Chagrined 

 at this, he began to reflect if it might not be possible to do 

 without it. It readily occurred to him, that heat and moisture 

 are the two great agents in promoting vegetation, and he 

 thought, if these two could be conjoined together, it could 

 not fail to prove salutary. Steam, properly managed, seemed 

 to promise to do this. He then contrived an apparatus, by 

 which water can be kept properly heated to transmit steam ; 

 and this steam so managed as to be capable of acting either by 

 its heat only, or by its heat and moisture united, as circum- 

 stances should indicate to be proper • by means of flues, either 

 horizontally disposed under a bed of earth, or in a perpendicu- 

 lar wall, both the soil in which the plants grow, or the wall to 

 which they are nailed, can be heated to any degree wanted ; 

 and by admitting the steam itself at pleasure, either in the 

 body of the mould, or in the hot-house, the plants may be 

 subjected to a heated bath, if you please so to call it, which 

 appears, by the experience he has of it, to be wonderfully kind to 



u 4 



