On the Culture of the Pine Apple, $c. 



Mango; but I had long been much dissatisfied with the man- 

 ner in which the Pine Apple plant is usually treated, and 

 very much disposed to believe the bark bed, as Mr. Kent 

 has stated it in our Transactions,* " worse than useless/' 

 subsequently to the emission of roots by the crowns or suck- 

 ers. I therefore resolved to make a few experiments upon 

 the culture of that plant; but as I had not at that period, 

 the beginning of October, any hot-house, I deferred obtain- 

 ing plants till the following spring. My hot-house was not 

 completed till the second week in June, at which period I 

 began my experiment upon nine plants, which had been 

 but very ill preserved through the preceding winter by the 

 gardener of one of my friends, with very inadequate means, 

 and in a very inhospitable climate. These, at this period, 

 were not larger plants than some which I have subsequently 

 raised from small crowns, (three having bc?en afforded by one 

 fruit) planted in the middle of August, were in the end of 

 December last ; but they are now beginning to blossom, and 

 in the opinion of every gardener who has seen them, promise 

 fruit of great size and perfection. They are all of the va- 

 riety known by the name of Ripley's Queen Pine. 



Upon the introduction of my plants into the hot-house, 

 the mode of management, which it is the object of the pre- 

 sent communication to describe, commenced. They were 

 put into pots of somewhat more than a foot in diameter, in a 

 compost made of thin green turf, recently taken from a river 

 side, chopped very small, and pressed closely, whilst wet, 

 into the pots ; a circular piece of the same material, of about 

 an inch in thickness, having been inverted, unbroken, to 



*Vol. III. page 288. 

 VOL. IV. L 



