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XXVII. On the Cultivation of Ginger in a Glazed Pit. By 

 Mr. Christie Duff, Gardener to the Earl of Grosv 'en or, 

 at Eaton Hall, Cheshire. 



Read January 17, 1826. 



Fr esh roots of Ginger are much in request in many families 

 for preserving, but the usual method of growing them in pots or 

 boxes in a stove, affords but a scanty supply. It occurred to 

 me, that by giving the roots greater space, and growing the 

 plants in a moister heat, the produce would be greater, and 

 the roots more tender. I first put the following plan in prac- 

 tice in 1819, at Bretton Hall, in Yorkshire, where I then 

 lived as Gardener to Colonel Beaumont, and I continued to 

 use it until I left that place last year. 



In March I took some old roots and divided them, leaving 

 one eye to each piece. These pieces I potted separately in 

 small pots (sixty size), and placed them under a frame in a 

 hot-bed. When they had shot from a foot to eighteen inches, 

 which was about the middle of May, I turned out the plants, 

 under glass, into a sunk brick pit, which had been built to 

 protect hardy green-house plants in winter, about one foot 

 from each other in a light rich soil, the surface of which was 

 three feet from the glass, in order to leave room for the plants 

 to grow. The bed under the mould was made up of a mix- 

 ture of stable-dung and oak leaves, the heat produced from 

 which supplied warmth sufficient for the plants, exclusive of 

 what was afforded, by the sun. The soil in the bed did not 



