Ja?i.] THE FORCING GARDEN. 559 



nent horticulturist deserves well of his country for any experi- 

 ments he may make ; he has made many, and some highly 

 useful, and, much to his credit, he has performed them at his 

 own expense, so that if he fail in some, it is but a natural 

 consequence which falls to the lot of man. However, he has 

 succeeded so far by his own confession, in one important ob- 

 ject, namely, in initiating a novice, an ignoramus, or, to use 

 his own words, an " extremely simple laborer, who does not 

 know a letter or a figure, and who never saw a pine-plant 

 growing till he saw those of which he has the care," to under- 

 stand their culture as well as he does himself. 



Attempts to cultivate pines, without bottom heat, have been 

 tried by several gardeners, both on the continent and in this 

 country, and have been abandoned without the least hope of 

 success. 



The necessity of a mild bottom heat being urged, we will 

 now proceed to consider the most economical agent to produce 

 that effect ; as economy in the production of every article of 

 horticultural produce should be the first consideration of the 

 practical gardener, provided the result will be equally good 

 with that of more extravagant methods. 



Tan, or tanner's bark, has been longest and most univer- 

 sally used for forming a bed in which to plunge the pines in 

 pots, and also to plant both crowns and suckers while still 

 without roots. In using tan, it should be well sweated and 

 frequently turned over previously to putting it into a new pit, 

 so as to reduce it into a half-rotten state ; and, in adding new 

 bark at any time, in shifting the plants, or regulating the tem- 

 perature of the bed, there should never be a great proportion 

 added at one time, seldom above one-ei.ghth of the whole. In 

 putting in the new tan, it should be well kept down in the 

 process of trenching and mixing the whole, and bringing up 

 twelve or fifteen inches of the old tan to the surface in which 

 to plunge the pots. When much of the old tan appears de- 

 cayed and reduced to mould, it should be sifted, and the finer 

 parts rejected and carried out of the house, and the coarser 

 remains mixed along with the rest in the bed. To keep up a 

 regular temperature, the beds will have to be stirred up, and 

 firesh tan added, in such portions, and at such periods, as 



