146 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[July, 
cut clean across, and sealed the ends with, sealing-wax. In the year named, 
however, I thought I saw my way to keeping them plumper by placing one end 
of the wood in bottles of water, still sealing the other end. I treated about half 
the number of bunches I kept in this way ; they certainly retained their plump¬ 
ness more satisfactorily than those not placed in water, and I kept them till the 
others were done. On sending the first dish of those thus treated to my employer’s 
table in March, they were admired, but next day I was sent for, and asked why 
those fine-looking grapes were inferior in flavour to the less plump ones. I 
explained what I thought must be the reason, namely, that they had been kept 
two months, with the ends of the laterals they grew on, in water. My employer’s 
reply was, “ Then I prefer them a little shrivelled, with their natural flavour 
undiminished.” I afterwards reverted to my old way of keeping them, except that 
I tried a few bunches with the ends of the wood run into mangold-wurzel, with 
not much appreciable advantage over the method of sealing the ends of the wood. 
I, however, find from my journals that in March, towards its close, I supplied 
good fresh Muscats by just hanging them in a dry cool fruit-room ; for, be it 
remarked, we had no Alicants, Lady Downe’s, or any of the race of what were 
known as late-keeping grapes in those days. The Muscat and West’s St. Peter’s 
were our latest keepers then. 
What I have said as to the evil of keeping Grapes in water, applies with 
double force to the same system as applied to Pines. When the stem of a 
pine is placed in water, the action of the crown sucks up a quantity of it into 
the fruit, where, if it is in a warm climate, decomposition sets in at once, and 
the fruit must become very unwholesome. This is the reason why so many of 
those otherwise fine pines brought from St. Michael’s, with their stems in earthen¬ 
ware fountains of water, to keep them plump on the voyage, so soon decay when 
placed in the fruiterer’s shop, and are so often, when cut, found to be black at 
the heart. I saw a whole row of them in this state in the window of one of the 
principal fruit-shops in Princes Street, Edinburgh, this spring. Another fruiterer 
in the same street told me that she would never have another St. Michael’s Pine in 
her shop, as she had had several returned that were found to be black inside when 
cut. When black, there is of course little danger of their doing inj ury, as no one 
will eat them in that state; the danger is before the action of decomposition 
becomes evident to the eye. It would be far safer for those who consume these 
pines if they were brought over sea in dry cases, without water ; they might not 
arrive so fresh-looking, nor prove so heavy, but they would be wholesome, which 
they cannot be as at present imported.—W. Thomson, Tweed Vineyard. 
LAGERSTROMIA INDICA. 
AST September I sent you an account of the gorgeous flowering of Lager - 
stromia indica here, which flowering was brought about by the turning of 
the plant out of a pot into a large brick box at the end of a plant stove. 
After the plant had done flowering, it was closely cutback, and it remained 
