By Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. 549 



bright English summer's day, in high temperature. Being a 

 plant of low stature, nature has also probably given it the 

 power to ripen its fruit, and seed, in the shade of other plants, 

 in its native climate ; and I discovered in the last summer, 

 that it possesses the power to ripen its fruit perfectly in a 

 lower temperature than I previously thought it capable of 

 growing in. 



In the month of June, I gave a couple of Pine plants, which 

 had shewn fruit at six months old, and were of small size, and 

 no value, to a child of one of my friends, to be placed in a 

 conservatory, in which no fires were kept during the summer. 

 In July, a storm of hail destroyed nearly, or fully, half the 

 glass of the conservatory; and its temperature, through the 

 summer and autumn, had been so low, that the Chasselas 

 grapes in it were not ripe in the second week in September. 

 In the second week of the present month (October) one of the 

 Pine Apples became ripe, having previously swollen to a 

 most extraordinary size, comparatively with the size of the 

 plant; and upon measuring accurately the comparative width 

 of the fruit, and of the stem, I found the width of the fruit to 

 exceed that of the stem in the proportion of seven and three- 

 quarters to one. The fruit had, of course, been propped 

 during all the latter part of the summer, the stem being wholly 

 incapable of supporting it. The taste and flavour of this 

 fruit were excellent, and the appearance of the other, which is 

 not yet ripe, and is of a larger size, is still more promising. 

 I purpose to profit by this result in the next summer; 

 and I hope to be able to communicate some further in- 

 formation to the Society in the autumn. I feel perfectly 



