THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Apbil 26, 1859. 
over the Piues as well. If Pines thus, and tropical plants 
are to be the principal objects, then Vines should be 
made subordinate to them. 
3. “ Can Pines be grown with their pots standing on | 
the slate covering of a hot-water tank, and the pots ex¬ 
posed to sun and air?” If the tank is the sole medium 
for heating the house, I have already hinted that in cold 
weather the slate would be too hot, and that the pots 
should stand on something that would permit the heat 
being diffused beneath them. That Pines can be grown 
well with the pots exposed to the sun and the air, just 
like any other tropical plant in a pot in a plant-stove, 
there can be no doubt whatever. That great success 
would thus be attended with extra care and trouble there 
can be just as little question. Most tropical earth-plants 
flourish best when the pots are plunged in a mild, regular 
bottom heat. That Pines can be grown otherwise, is not 
the question so much as how they can be cjiltivatcd best 
with least care, and least likelihood of receiving injury 
from sudden extremes. Looked at in this practical busi¬ 
ness point of view, we say—expose but little of the pots 
of Pine plants ; but plunge them, partly at least, in a bed 
sufficiently heated ; or plant at once in earth that can thus 
be heated. One reason why we should insist on this, in 
the case of Pines more than for a general or select col¬ 
lection of stove plants, is simply this :—we grow the latter 
chiefly for the pleasure we derive in looking at their 
foliage and flowers ; but there is little to arrest our 
attention in the mere look of the former, if the rich and 
handsome fruit is kept out of view. A. mere flowering 
plant is not so easily injured by extremes and checks as 
fruiting ones are. 
•Another reason, or a confirmation of the preceding, is 
obtained from the nature of the Pine Apple as a mono- 
cotyledonous evergreen, and the circumstances under 
which it naturally flourishes. Let a tropical, herbaceous, 
semi-herbaceous, or shrubby plant be considerably injured, 
it can easily be brought round by pruning, &c., provided 
the roots and main stem are safe. For practical purposes, 
the Pino Apple plant may be considered one without 
buds ; and therefore, if what are called the leaves are 
injured, they are injured irreparably. If the whole plant 
is greatly injured, it is next to beyond hopes of recovery. 
True, by stumping it in, provided the base of the plant is 
sound, we may succeed in getting fresh plants or suckers 
from incipient imperceptible buds ; but these will consti¬ 
tute just so many new plants or stems. 
Where the Pine plant flourishes naturally, it seldom 
knows what may be called a period of rest. Its highest 
average summer temperature w ill range from 80° to 85°; 
and its average winter temperature from 70° to 75°. The 
day temperature will often rise from 10° to 15° and more 
above the average ; and the night temperature w ill decline 
nearly as much below it. The temperature even at night 
will seldom be below from 55° to 65 ; but for the most of 
the season considerably higher. In sunshine, in the dry 
hot season, the temperature will be very high. Travellers 
tell us that the plant flourishes best in positions where, 
though the surface soil is dry, water is found at no great 
distance below. The plants also have a regular dry, and 
then a broken, irregular wet season : but in the first the 
atmosphere is well supplied with vapour, and there are 
heavy dews at night, which not only cover the foliage, 
but lodge in the axils of the leaves ; some of it trickling 
down to the roots, and the rest is raised in vapour about 
the plant during the day. Even in the dry season, there¬ 
fore, there is a continuance of sturdy growth—the whole 
plant getting stored with organisable material ; and 
when the wet season with its heat sets in, the extra 
stimulus starts the fruit, and helps to swell it plumply to 
perfection. During all these changes from the hot to the 
cold, and the dry and the w et .seasons, the temperature of 
the soil changes less than even that of the atmosphere. 
Of course, in a sunny day the soil will not be so hot as 
the atmosphere; but in a dull day, and at night, it will 
be considerab ly warmer. In some places in the West 
Indies it has b ® en found that, one foot beneath the sur¬ 
face, it is seldo 111 below from 80° to 85° in summer. The 
roots of the plant, therefore, never know what it is to 
have a check, but there is a constant stimulus to growth. 
These facts, duly considered, have led to the modifying 
of two practices that at one time were much resorted to 
—the keeping the plants in a low' temperature in w inter ; 
and starving them by want of moisture, and roasting them 
with a high temperature and a dry atmosphere to get 
them to start into fruit. Both systems injured the plant, 
and often caused what otherw ise would have been a strong 
fruit-stem to show weak and spindly. Of course, in 
winter we cannot have the sun heat of the tropics; and 
therefore, unless for plants ripening their fruit—and even 
to a certain degree as respects them—it would be folly to 
give a high temperature when we coidd give no counter¬ 
acting sunlight. But prudence seems to say, Give the 
plants heat enough to prevent stagnation—from 55° to 
65° will be enough for this purpose ; and a good rise from 
sunshine when it can be got. At this time the plants 
will want less water; but they must have as much as not 
to sutler. If well grown the previous season, and well 
exposed to light and air, the gradual increase of 10° rise 
in temperature, with a suitable amount of moisture at 
the roots, w ill encourage fresh, active growth, and bring 
up the fruit-stern, as a matter of courser To secure 
this object thoroughly, (he less shade the plants have 
after they are thoroughly rooted the better. Plants with 
short, stubby leaves, made firm and compact, with full 
exposure to sunshine, will take much less room, and 
generally throw better fruit, than those shaded and alter¬ 
nately fed and starved, though the leaves be double the 
length, and the plants require double the room. 
The keeping t he roots somew hat uniform, as respects 
temperature, is a great means of success; and, hence, 
when 1 grow Pines again, I shall not, with my present 
lights, give up the old practice of either planting out 
where I can supply heat from beneath, or plunge the 
pots in a bed so heated. Leave the pots exposed as on a 
stage, and the roots w ill be liable to more variations of 
temperature than even the air of the house. Suppose in 
a cold night, when the frost had come severe after you 
had gone to bed, and the house, in consequence, had 
fallen some 16° or 15° more than you deem desirable, if 
your pots were fully exposed, not merely to sun and air, 
and thus get extra heated, but to the lowering influence 
of radiation and evaporation combined, the roots might 
soon become 5°, or moje, colder than the air surrounding 
the pot. Let such pots or roots be in a bed of heated 
material, or planted out in heated earth, and the nice 
temperature at tlie roots will not only be a means of 
keeping the plants all right in such sudden extremes, but 
also, by its slow radiation of heat, prevent the house from 
sinking so rapidly under such supposed sudden extremes. 
I, for one, believe that our great, old gardeners, when 
they grew' their Pines in tan beds, knew as much about 
natural laws and scientific principles as any of tho 
moderns do, who talk so much more about them. 
4. Hints of culture. These should be based ou the 
facts alluded to, modified to suit our climate and circum¬ 
stances, and especially the means of our correspondent. 
But I find I have already exceeded my space, and must 
defer these to another opportunity. If. Fish. 
CAELEY’S SELF-ACTING FUMIGATOE. 
Talk about guns and rifles that would kill the enemy at the 
end of a distance where the sound of tho volley could not be heard 
by those who escaped, why they are as nothing to killing your 
enemies by clockwork! This new invention is for killing “ the 
fly” by tobacco smoke driven down their throats by machinery. 
Nothing more ingenious lias been invented since man first carried 
a watch. 
A handsome tin case, in the form of a dial-barometer, and 
