LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
53 
planted., is increased in size at each subsequent shifting, cultivators 
have made it a rule to release the roots from this exhausted soil, in 
order that the plants may produce a new set in fresh compost, to 
enable them to take a renewed growth during the summer, and be fit 
to go into fruiting pots in the following October. This is performed 
about the beginning of March, by shaking off all the old ball of earth 
from the roots ; and at the same time cutting away all the dead roots 
and a part of the dead bottom of the stem. If there be any new active 
roots, they are preserved, and a few of the bottom leaves are pulled off 
to permit the ejection of new roots, which are always produced higher 
and higher up the stem, and on which the future growth entirely 
depends. Thus relieved from the old ball, the old useless roots, and 
some of their bottom leaves, the plants are repotted pretty deeply in 
rather smaller pots, and in previously prepared good fresh loam mixed 
with one-third good rotten dung, and immediately replunged in a fresh 
bed made to receive them. 
Here they receive the ordinary attention and necessary culture, 
namely, the proper bottom heat, water always according to their state 
of growth, fresh air, and necessary covering at night. 
About the first of October, the fruiting house is got ready by turning 
and sifting (if necessary) the old bark, adding the requisite quantity of 
new, so as to raise the bed about six or eight inches above the curb. 
As the plants are shifted for the last time into the fruiting pots, 
they are brought and plunged at proper distances in the pinery to 
produce their fruit. 
A few general observations remain to be added relative to the pine 
plant. Constitutionally it rises from a seed, a sucker, or a crown, 
developing its leaves in succession, by the assistance of new sets of 
roots, which consecutively proceed from stations higher up the stem, 
the first leaves and roots as regularly dying off. When arrived at a 
certain stage of growth, the fructification appears, and at the same 
time living progeny, in the shape of suckers, &c., are produced to 
continue the species. Time, or the age of the plant, has no effect 
either in accelerating or retarding the appearance of the fruit. A small 
young plant of only a few inches high, if its exterior members be 
either chilled by cold, or scorched by heat, will be immediately thrown 
into fruit, and thereby become useless. It is this constitutional 
peculiarity of the plant that renders pine-forcing a matter requiring 
the application of considerable skill and great attention. And in the 
process the grand object is to force the plants into the greatest possible 
size, in order to yield full-sized fruit in the shortest possible time. 
The gardener finds the old Queen to be one of the most tractable of 
