PIN 
PIN 
summit of the fruit. The first, by rea¬ 
son of their more rapid progress to 
maturity, are most usually employed ; 
and recent modes of culture show that 
by retaining the sucker on the old stool, 
instead of separating it, as was formerly 
the practice, at least a whole season in 
the plant’s progress may be saved, be¬ 
cause of the assistance given by the old 
roots. But to render our necessarily 
concise remarks sufficiently plain, it will 
be best to follow the plants through an 
entire year’s management. The active 
season commences in March; and in 
looking over a collection of pines we 
shah find it composed of a certain num¬ 
ber of full-grown or fruiting plants, 
which may at this season be expected to 
commence flowering; and in addition 
there should be a stock of smaller or 
succession plants, which are intended 
for the next year’s supply of fruit. These 
are usually kept separate, as some dif¬ 
ference is necessary in their respective 
management. The succession plants 
about the time named will require to be 
repotted; the soil should be loam, of a 
naturally strong and rather adhesive 
character, which may be enriched and 
lightened by a considerable addition 
of deer, sheep, or horse-droppings which 
have laid together and fermented. Plenty 
of pot-room should be allowed, that the 
plants may make a vigorous growth in 
the succeeding summer. After potting 
they should be stationed in a pit having 
a bark bed in it, or other means of sup¬ 
plying to the plants a brisk, steady bot¬ 
tom heat, and means to secure a surface 
temperature of about 70° is also essential. 
This is most easily provided by a liot- 
water apparatus, though dung linings 
may, with good attention and a large 
supply of fermenting material, be made 
to maintain the requisite heat; and in 
a well-regulated atmosphere of this kind 
the plants thrive amazingly. Perhaps a 
combination of both means may be re¬ 
garded as the best; the hot dung sup¬ 
plying the ammoniacal vapours which 
appear to be so acceptable to the plants, 
and the hot water will prevent any fluc¬ 
tuation in the temperature so likely to 
occur when dung linings only have to 
be trusted to. Por the first week or ten 
days after plunging the pots in the new 
tan, some care will be wanted to see 
that the bed does not become too hot; 
and where an excess of heat is suspected, 
the tan should be removed from the 
sides of the pots, leaving a cavity round 
them fill the heat cools down to the 
requisite degree. Through the succeed¬ 
ing season the plants must be regularly 
supplied with water, which is best given 
in the morning, and by nine or ten 
o’clock air should be admitted in pro¬ 
portion to the state of the atmosphere 
and the condition of the bed, where, 
however, sufficient heat should be kept 
to allow of the lights being opened. 
Early in the afternoon, say three o’clock 
in the first part of the season, and 
an hour later in summer, the plants 
should receive a good syringing, and the 
lights be then closed for the night. This 
course ensures a humid congenial at¬ 
mosphere, in which they grow fast, and 
is the best preventive to the spread of 
insects. By continuing this treatment 
up to August the plants will have grown 
considerably, and be in a fit state to be 
again repotted, placing them this time 
in the fruiting pots, in the same kind of 
soil, and for the next month allowing 
them the same treatment, after which 
a reduction of moisture will bring them 
into a fit state for the winter. At the 
autumn-potting the tan-bed should be 
again made up with fresh materials, and 
every care taken to have the pit clean, 
and all things in proper working order 
for the approaching severities of whiter; 
and after September all exciting causes 
must be removed, lest the plants start 
into fruit, which, often an unavoidable 
circumstance, is much to be regretted, 
as the fruit in winter is always inferior, 
both in size and quality; syringing and 
any extra supply of heat or moisture 
must therefore be dispensed with, and 
every endeavour made to keep the plants 
in an even unchanging state till the return 
of spring. 
Erom Eebruary onwards the plants, 
whose progress we have been describ¬ 
ing, may be expected to show fruit, 
when it will be advisable to surface-dress 
