[ 299 ] 



LVII. An Account of the Cultivation of the Mesons Japonica. 

 or Lo-quat, as a Fruit-bearing Tree, at Blithfield in Staf- 

 fordshire. In a Letter to the Secretary. By the Right 

 Honourable William Lord Bagot, F. L. S. $c. 



Read February 2, 1819. 



Dear Sir, 



About this time last year I received a letter from you (in 

 the name of the Horticultural Society,) requesting me to 

 send you some specimens of the Lo-quat in fruit. In my an- 

 swer to that letter, I think I informed you that my fruiting 

 plant had been moved into a larger pot, which when it is 

 done, always prevents its flowering the same year. This 

 autumn it had the most magnificent bloom I ever witnessed 

 on any plant, but I am sorry to add, that the fruit which 

 has set is dispersed all over the tree, and in no part are 

 there above two together; it is, in consequence, a very 

 great disappointment to me, that this year the branches are 

 not more worthy the acceptance of the Society. The last 

 time the plant fruited, T had twenty-one fruits on one 

 branch, and nineteen upon another; one fruit this year, 

 however, is much larger than any I have ever yet seen. 



In your letter, you desire me to give you some information 

 as to my mode of treating the Lo-quat. The plan I have 

 usually followed has been to give it a winter (out of doors) 

 during the months of July, August, and September, and 

 about the middle of October to replace it in a very warm 



vol. in. Rr 



