| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The different modes of cultivating the pine-apple - From its first introduction into Europe to the late - improvements of T.A. Knight, esq.
Author: Loudon, John Claudius
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The different modes of cultivating the pine-apple - From its first introduction into Europe to the late - improvements of T.A. Knight, esq." ***
Transcriber’s Notes
Texts printed in italics in the original book have been transcribed
between underscores, as in _text_. Small capitals have been
transcribed as ALL CAPITALS.
More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this text.
THE
DIFFERENT MODES
OF
_CULTIVATING_
THE
PINE-APPLE,
FROM
ITS FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE
TO THE
LATE IMPROVEMENTS OF T. A. KNIGHT, ESQ.
BY A MEMBER OF THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.
WITH
Twenty-four Engravings on Wood,
EXHIBITING THE BEST PLANS OF PINE-STOVES AND PITS.
_LONDON:_
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1822.
LONDON:
Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode,
New-Street-Square.
INTRODUCTION.
A considerable interest has been excited in the Horticultural world by
the experiments of T. A. Knight, Esq. on the culture of the PINE APPLE.
Our _object_ is to add our efforts to those of that eminent
Horticulturist, in promoting the culture of that king of fruits.
The _means_ which we consider as most likely to attain our object, is
the bringing together accounts of all the different modes of treating
that Plant, which have hitherto been adopted in Europe; and the
_sources_ from which we have drawn the means, are the different
_publications_ which have appeared on the Pine Apple, and our own
_observations_ on its management, by those Gardeners who are its most
successful cultivators.
The British publications which treat exclusively, or principally, of the
Pine Apple, are:
1767. _John Giles_, of Lewisham. A Method of raising Pines and Melons,
8vo.
1769. _Adam Taylor_, Gardener at Devizes, in Wiltshire. A Treatise on
the Ananas and on Melons, 8vo.
1779. _William Speechly_, Gardener to the Duke of Portland, at Welbeck,
in Nottinghamshire. A Treatise on the culture of the Pine Apple, and the
management of the Hot-house, &c. 8vo.
1808. _William Griffin_, Gardener to J. C. Girardot, Esq. at Kelham,
near Nottingham. A Treatise on the culture of the Pine Apple, 8vo.
1818. _Thomas Baldwin_, Gardener to the Marquis of Hertford, at Ragley,
in Warwickshire. A Treatise on the culture of the Ananas, &c. 12mo.
The Authors who have treated on the Pine Apple, as a part of their
general subject, include nearly all those who have written on
Horticulture since the commencement of the 18th century; the principal
are, Bradley, Miller, Justice, Abercrombie, M’Phail, and Nicol, in their
respective works; and T. A. Knight, Esq., and Peter Marsland, Esq., in
the Transactions of the London and Caledonian Horticultural Societies.
The Foreign publications on the Pine Apple are few, and of little value;
because the Continental Gardeners have never been very successful in its
culture. Professor Thouin and M. Bosc, are the principal French Authors
who have noticed the subject, and this only in general works, such as
Rosier’s Dictionary, &c. Kirchner is almost the only German writer who
has written on this fruit, in his _Practische Anleitung für
Gartenkunst_, published in 1796, and devoted more particularly to the
culture of the Pine and the Grape. Some other foreign tracts on the
subject in the Banksian Library are merely translations from La Cours
chapter on the subject, and from English authors.
The most eminent cultivators of the Pine Apple in England, at the
present time, are, Mr. Thomas Baldwin, Gardener to the Marquis of
Hertford, at Ragley, in Warwickshire; Mr. William Griffin, Gardener to
Samuel Smith, Esq., at Woodhall Park, Hertfordshire; William Townsend
Aiton, Esq. Gardener to the King, at Kensington; Mr. James Andrews,
Commercial Gardener, Lambeth; and Mr. Isaac Oldacre, Gardener to Lady
Banks, at Springrove, Middlesex.
A number of other gardeners might be mentioned, as excelling in the
culture of this fruit; but the above have been first-rate cultivators
for several years.
On the Continent the Pine Apple is cultivated most extensively in
Russia; it occurs but seldom in France or Germany; and only in a few
gardens in Italy. It has happened to us to have visited the principal
Continental Gardens, as well as the English ones alluded to above, and
various others; and we mention this to justify the extension of our
remarks, not only to domestic, but foreign practices; and to account for
our not confining ourselves merely to what is contained in books, but
discussing also the modes of culture actually practised in different
gardens. We shall first notice the introduction of the Pine Apple into
Europe, and next the different varieties in cultivation; we shall then
glance at the Continental practices, and finally detail those of our own
country.
_This Day is published_,
By Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, London,
An ENCYCLOPÆDIA of GARDENING;
Comprising the Theory and Practice of Horticulture, Floriculture,
Arboriculture, and Landscape Gardening; including all the latest
Improvements, a general History of Gardening in all Countries; and a
Statistical View of its present State, with Suggestions for its
future Progress, in the British Isles.
By J. C. LOUDON, F.L.S. H.S. &c.,
Author of “A Treatise on forming and improving Country Residences.”
Complete, in One large Volume, 8vo. of 1500 Pages, closely printed,
with Six Hundred Engravings on Wood, Price £2. 10s.
This Work claims the Attention of the Public:
1. By the comprehensiveness of its plan, by which, for the first
time, every part of the subject of Gardening is brought together,
and presented in one systematic whole.
2. By its being the only work which contains all the modern
improvements in Gardening, foreign as well as domestic.
3. By the addition of a _Kalendarial Index_, by which the practical
part of the work may be consulted monthly, as the operations are to
be performed; and a copious _General Index_, by which the whole may
be consulted alphabetically. Thus the work will serve as a
_Gardener’s Kalendar_, and _Gardener’s Dictionary_: both, it is
confidently hoped, far more complete than any hitherto presented to
the public.
By means of a copious page, by condensed descriptive tables of
fruits, culinary vegetables, and flowers, and by the local
introduction of such illustrative engravings as greatly shorten the
necessity of verbal description, this immense body of matter has
been comprised in one thick volume.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. I. _Page_
Of the Pine Apple; its Culture in the West Indies.--
Introduction to Holland.--And to England 1
CHAP. II.
Of the varieties of the Pine Apple 6
CHAP. III.
Foreign modes of cultivating the Pine Apple 11
SECT. I. Culture of the Pine Apple in Holland 12
II. in Germany 20
III. in Russia 22
IV. in France 24
V. in Italy 26
VI. in other parts of Europe 29
CHAP. IV.
Of the different modes of cultivating the Pine Apple,
which have been, or are practised in Britain by
practical Gardeners 30
SECT. I. Mode of cultivating the Pine Apple, by
Telende, in 1719 31
II. by Miller 34
III. by Justice 40
IV. by Giles 43
V. by Taylor 45
VI. by Speechly 49
VII. by M’Phail 67
VIII. by Nicol 88
IX. by Griffin 104
X. by Baldwin 110
XI. by Abercrombie 120
XII. by Andrews 125
XIII. by Gunter 129
XIV. by Oldacre 133
XV. by Aiton 138
CHAP. V.
Improvements recently attempted in the culture of
the Pine Apple 146
SECT. I. Of the Improvements proposed by Mr. Knight 148
II. Of other Improvements proposed 170
ON THE
CULTIVATION
OF THE
PINE APPLE.
CHAP. I.
OF THE PINE APPLE.
_Its Culture in the West and East Indies.--Introduction to
Holland.--To England._
The Pine Apple is the Bromelia Ananas of Linneus; of the artificial
class and order Hexandria Monogynia; and of the natural order of
Jussieu, Bromeleæ. The generic name was originally Ananas, from Nana,
its common name in the Brazils; and the Queen Pine is named the Ananas
Ovata, in the earlier editions of Miller’s Dictionary; but Linneus
changed it to Bromelia, in memory of Olaus Bromel, a Swedish naturalist,
and included under it the Karatas, or Wild Pine, till then considered a
distinct genus. The English name of Pine Apple appears to have taken
its rise from the resemblance of the fruit to the cone of some species
of the Pine tree.
There are twelve species of Bromelia, described by Persoon; the fruit of
all which may be considered edible, and is occasionally made use of by
the natives. Six of these species are naturalized in the West Indies;
and the rest are found wild in Chili, Peru, and other parts of South
America.
The Bromelia Ananas is the only species in general cultivation; it is
cultivated abundantly in both the Indies, and in China. It is said to
grow wild in Africa; but Linneus ascribes it to New Spain and Surinam;
and Acosta (_Histoire Naturelle des Indes_,) says, it was first sent
from the province of Santa Croce, in Brazil, into the West, and
afterwards into the East Indies and China. Persoon considers it as a
native of South America; and Baron Humboldt and the Prince Maximilian
found it in the Caraccas, in the Brazils.
Whichever way it was introduced from South America to the West Indies,
its culture in these islands, and particularly in Jamaica, has been
carried on for an unknown length of time. It is vulgarly supposed in
this country, that it grows wild there; but, from the best information
which we have been able to collect, the true Ananas is only cultivated
in gardens, or grounds under spade culture; and there much in the same
way as cabbages are in this country, and produces its fruit in from
fifteen to eighteen months after planting the crown. The common weight
of the fruit is from half a pound to three pounds; and it abounds
chiefly in the dry season. In the rainy season, which includes nearly
half the year, ripe Pine Apples are more scarce in the gardens of
Jamaica than in the hot-houses of England.
In the neighbourhood of Calcutta it is cultivated in the same manner as
in Jamaica, and, when liberally supplied with water, by a system of
surface-irrigation, the first is said to attain a large size, and to be
in season most months of the year.
The first attempts to cultivate the Pine Apple in Europe seem to have
been made about the end of the seventeenth century, by M. Le Cour (or
_La Court_, as written by Collinson), a wealthy Flemish merchant, who
had a fine garden at Drieoeck, near Leyden. Of this garden he published
an account in 1732, and died in 1737.
It was visited by Miller and Justice, who speak of its proprietor as one
of the greatest encouragers of gardening in his time; of having curious
walls and hot-houses; and as being the first person who succeeded in
cultivating the Pine Apple. It was from him, Miller observes,
(_Dictionary_, Art. _Bromelia_,) that our gardens were first supplied,
through Sir Matthew Decker, of Richmond, in the year 1719; though, as a
botanic plant, it had been introduced so far back as 1690, by Mr.
Bentick, afterwards Earl of Portsmouth.
“When I say,” observes Mr. Cowel of Hoxton, in his Curious and
Profitable Gardener, Lon. 1730, p. 27. “that the first Pine Apples that
were cultivated in England, were in Sir Matthew Decker’s gardens at
Richmond, I mean the first that were cultivated with success, were in
those gardens; for long before we had plants of them brought to us, but
had not before that time conveniences for bringing them to fruit, or
even of keeping the plants alive.”
“The Pine Apple,” he adds, in the same page, “is now (1730) found in
almost every curious garden.”
The fruit of the Ananas was sent to Europe, and especially to Holland,
as a preserve, for many years before the Ananas plant was introduced.
That it found its way even to England in this state, so early as the
sixteenth century, is evident from what Lord Bacon says of it in his
Essay on Colonies; and also from a picture in the possession of the Earl
of Waldegrave, representing Charles II. in a garden, and Rose, the royal
gardener, presenting his Majesty with a Pine Apple. This picture, Lord
Walpole informs us, was bequeathed by Mr. London, who was Rose’s
apprentice, to the Rev. Mr. Pennicott, of Thames Ditton, by whom it was
presented to himself. It does not appear, however, that the Pine was
cultivated either by Rose or London, otherwise it would certainly have
been noticed in the publications, which, if not written by, at least
passed under the name, and received the sanction of London and Wise;
and also of Evelyn, Ray, Rea, and other gardening writers of these
times. In short, it is evident from Ray’s letters, that the idea of
heating green-houses by fire was quite new in 1684, and first adopted by
Mr. Watts, gardener, to the apothecaries at Chelsea in that year; and
Miller states, (_Dict._ Art. _Tan_,) that there were very few tan-beds
used in England before the year 1719. The Pine Apple, therefore, could
not be cultivated in the seventeenth century in England.
Of late years the Pine Apple has been sent to England in abundance,
attached to the entire plant, and a cargo has arrived from Providence
Island, in the Bermudas, in six weeks. This facility of cultivation, and
their more general culture, has greatly lessened their price, and
rendered them common. They are sold in fruit-stands in the London
streets, in one or two places, during the summer months; and
moderate-sized fruit may be had from half-a-crown to a crown each; or at
two shillings a pound.
CHAP. II.
OF THE VARIETIES OF THE PINE APPLE.
Of the Pine Apple, as of most other fruits that have been long in
cultivation, there are many varieties. The principal part of those
cultivated in this country have been obtained from the West India
islands; but some also have been raised in this country from seed.
Speechly states, that, in the year 1768, he raised seventy plants from
seeds that were sent to the Duke of Portland from the West Indies, most
of which varied distinctly either in the leaves or fruit, but the
quality of the latter was very inferior.
* * * * *
The most esteemed varieties in present cultivation are:
1. _The Old Queen._ Fruit oval-shaped, and of a gold colour. Esteemed
the hardiest kind, and fruited in fifteen or eighteen months. The fruit
grows to a large size, often weighing from three to four pounds. It is
much more certain of shewing fruit at a proper age and season than most
of the other sorts, and has a just preference in most hot-houses.
2. _Ripley’s New Queen._ A sub-variety of the _Old Queen_, with a large
elegant fruit; fruited also in an equally short period.
3. _Welbeck Seedling_; fruit small, generally broader at the head than
at the base; of a pale yellow, or sulphur colour, with very flat pips;
flesh white and tender, rich in flavour, with less acidity than is found
in most other pines. _Hort. Trans._ iv. 213.
4. _Pyramidal_, or _Brown Sugar-loaf_. Cone-shaped, and dark coloured
till it ripens; the leaves brownish, the flesh yellow.
5. _Prickly Striped Sugar-loaf._ Cone-shaped, the fruit of a golden
colour, the leaves striped with black or purple lines.
6. _Smooth Striped Sugar-loaf_; similar to the above, but the leaves not
prickly.
7. _Havannah._ Tankard-shaped; dark coloured till it ripens.
8. _Montserrat._ The leaves of a dark brown, inclining to purple in the
inside; fruit middle-sized and tun-shaped, and the pips or protuberances
of the fruit larger and flatter than in the other kinds.
9. _King Pine_, or _Shining Green_. The leaves of a grass-green, with
few prickles, the pulp hard and rather stringy, but of good flavor when
ripe.
10. _Green_, or _St. Vincent’s Pine_. A rare variety; when ripe the
fruit is of an olive hue, middle-sized, and pyramidical.
11. _Black Antigua._ The fruit is shaped like the frustum of a pyramid:
leaves of a brownish tinge, and drooping at the extremities, with strong
prickles, thinly scattered. The pips of the fruit are large, often an
inch over; and it attains a large size, weighing from three to four
pounds. It is of a dark colour till it ripens; very juicy, and high
flavoured.
12. _Black Jamaica._ The fruit is large, and the plant similar in
character and habits to the above.
13. _Providence Pine._ There are two varieties, the white and green; the
fruit is larger than that of any of the kinds cultivated in this
country; the form inclining to pyramidical; the colour, at first,
brownish grey, but, when mature, of a pale yellow. The flesh yellow and
melting, abounding with quick lively juice. Speechly produced in the
gardens at Welbeck, in 1794, a fruit that weighed five pounds and a
quarter, or eighty-four ounces, and from a plant that was not a large
one. Griffin had, in 1803, two plants placed under his care, which
fruited in July 1804; the fruit of one plant weighing _seven pounds two
ounces_, and the other _nine pounds three ounces_, avoirdupois. This
sort, and the two preceding, require generally three years, and
sometimes four or five, to produce their fruit.
14. _Blood-red_; fruit equal in bulk at both ends. Pips of moderate
size; colour brick-red; flesh white and opaque; leaves of a changeable
hue; the flavor of the fruit being inferior to that of most others; this
is to be considered merely as a curious variety. _Hort. Trans._ iv. 214.
15. _Silver-striped Queen._ Leaves beautifully striped with white,
yellow, and red; but the plant, though elegant, is a reluctant fruiter.
16. _Variegated-leaved Pines._ Besides the _Striped-leaved Queen_, there
are several sorts with beautifully varied leaves and fruits; but in
general they are tardy in fruiting, and more to be considered as
ornamental than as useful varieties.
* * * * *
To these may be added, as sorts not generally known, or of inferior
value:
The _Smooth Pine_. Miller.
The _Smooth Long Narrow-leaved Pine_. Ibid.
The _Grunda Pine_. Ibid.
The _Bogwarp Pine_. Ibid.
The _Surinam Pine_. Ibid.
The _Antigua Queen_. Speechly.
The _Green Providence_, or _Old Providence_, from one of the Bermuda
islands of that name.
_New Sorts._ Pine plants are frequently imported from the West India
islands, and in this case generally bear their names. In general,
however, these plants are far inferior, both as to kinds and condition,
to those grown, and to be procured from nurserymen in this country. They
are generally infested with the bug, and very uncertain in their time
of fruiting, as well as to its flavor. If these were to be enumerated,
the list of pines known in this country would amount to upwards of forty
sorts. Specimens of above thirty sorts are grown in the gardens of Mr.
Gunter, at Earl’scourt.
The Pine Apple, as every gardener knows, is propagated in the same
manner by all those who grow it; that is, by that singular production in
which the fruit terminates, called a crown, and by suckers; these are
planted in small pots, or in beds of rotten tan, earth, or dung, at
first, and shifted in regular gradation into pots of different sizes, at
the discretion of the cultivator.
CHAP. III.
FOREIGN MODES OF CULTIVATING THE PINE APPLE.
_Culture of the Pine Apple in Holland,--France,--Germany,--Italy, &c._
The horticulture of the continent is, in general, copied from that of
Holland, as was our culture, and that of every other country two
centuries ago. Excepting in Holland, therefore, the English gardener
will find very little to learn in other countries; but it is worth while
to know how little is to be known in one quarter, that we may be the
more assiduous in our attention to such quarters as are likely to
furnish us with information.
For this purpose, we shall take a short view of the culture of the Pine
Apple in the principal parts of the Continent.
Whether Le Cour was the first who imported Pine plants from the West
Indies, is less certain than that he was the first to attempt their
culture with success. Professor Bradley, in his General Treatise of
Husbandry and Gardening for July 1724, p. 206. gives a description of
the Pine Apple, and the introduction of it into Holland by Mr. Le Cour.
He says, that there were in the Amsterdam gardens about two hundred
plants, chiefly from Surinam and Curaçao, but some from the Dutch
factories in the East Indies, which were in good health; but the art of
bringing them to fruit was not known till Mr. Le Cour took them in hand.
Miller says, that after a great many trials, with little or no success,
Mr. Le Cour did at length hit upon a proper degree of heat and
management, so as to produce fruit equally good (though not so large),
as that which is produced in the West Indies. About the year 1737, the
year before his death, Mr. Le Cour published a quarto volume in Dutch,
containing the result of his observations on gardens, trees, and
flowers; with explanatory descriptions of his stoves.
From this work, and from the statements of Professor Bradley, (_Treatise
on Husbandry and Gardening, for June 1724_, p. 161.) we learn that Le
Cour’s mode of treating the Pine plant was very similar to that adopted
at Sir Matthew Decker’s garden at Richmond, to be afterwards described;
but we shall give this gentleman’s practice, as related by himself.
SECT. I.
_Culture of the Pine Apple by Mr. Le Cour in the beginning of the
18th century, at Drieoeck, near Leyden._
I distinguish, he says, three different species of Pine Apple; the first
and best has green leaves, garnished with fine prickles, fruit of which
I have had seven inches high, and thirteen inches in circumference; this
sort, if it is kept cool before it shows fruit, and then advances slowly
by somewhat more heat, grows larger and more pointed than that which has
been kept warmer and in a growing state during winter. The leaves of the
second sort are larger and broader, of a darker green mixed with red; it
does not produce fruit of so large a size, but its knobs are broader and
larger, yet flatter; the unripe fruit being of a reddish brown, and when
ripe of a deep yellow, with brownish yellow spots on the knobs; this
sort has not so pleasant a taste as the first, which, when unripe, is of
a darker green, and when ripe, with lighter yellow knobs, on which
account I cultivate chiefly the following sort.
This is called the Smooth Ananas, on account of its being without
prickles, but the ends of the leaves grow longer, narrower, and more
upright: the fruit is smaller. The Ananas cannot bear the cold of our
winter, and must have in summer a more permanent warmth and less change
in the winter than we commonly have in our climate; and must therefore
not only be put during the winter into stoves, but even during the
summer under glass frames, and the pots placed in a hot-bed of tan.
However, it is with these plants, as it is with all others from a warmer
climate; when they by degrees have been accustomed to our colder
climate, they become more hardy, and can bear more cold and change of
weather, and therefore produce better fruit than those which are sent to
us from abroad and have been reared in a warmer country more congenial
to their nature. It is therefore necessary that we should try to get
plants that have already been accustomed to our country, by propagation
from suckers for a number of years, for in that case they may be reared
with very little trouble.
The most convenient time to take away the suckers is from the middle of
June to the end of the month. Both suckers and crowns must be put in
sandy earth in little pots, as in this manner they strike their roots
best; but when the plants have grown larger, they must be transplanted
in the following year in richer and less sandy earth, and in larger
pots, care being taken that the earth is not loosened from the roots in
shifting them. The most convenient time for transplanting them is in
March, when the plants must be taken from the hot-house and put in a bed
of earth under a frame. Care must be taken in shifting them into other
pots, to make the earth adhere well to the roots, and to water them well
afterwards, and not to use too large pots, as they take up more room,
are not so easily handled, and are less proper for growing large fruit
than those of a moderate size; the most convenient pots for
transplanting are ten inches in diameter within the rim, seven inches at
bottom, and ten and a half inches deep.
The plants, when growing, commonly require a great deal of water, and
more when they set their fruit. They should then be watered frequently
all over their leaves. Afterwards they must be treated with more
caution, and be less watered; for too much water would be injurious
about the time of the ripening of the fruit, which would get watery, and
of a transparent greenish yellow, and be of inferior taste and smell.
Too little water dries them up, and makes the _marrow_ perish in the
leaves, the first signs of which are, when you hold the green leaves
towards the light, you will perceive them speckled with yellowish spots.
To produce proper fruit, the plant of a sucker or crown must have grown
well and bulky, at least for three years; the first sign of setting
fruit is, that its leaves spread a little, and the plant opens a little
in the heart where the fruit soon shews itself like the head of a large
nail. As the fruit and stalk grow higher, the fruit grows rounder, with
pointed little leaves like thistles, on some reddish, and on others
whitish spreading leaves. After the fruit has grown about a month, and
is of the size of a walnut, there appears out of each knob a
three-leaved pointed little flower, which, in the Common Ananas, is of a
pale blue colour; on the Red Ananas, deep blue; and on the third sort,
the Smooth Ananas, almost violet. This flower does not fall off with the
increase of the fruit, but shrivels up, and leaves some visible remains
behind when the fruit has attained its full maturity.
The time, from the beginning of the fruit to its perfect maturity,
cannot be limited to a certain number of days and weeks, since it
depends very much on the weather of two summers following. During the
spring, when the plants are in the hot-house, a very natural growth may
be obtained by heating the stove, and by the sun shining at right angles
on the glass, which growth may be continued during the summer. In autumn
this cannot be the case, because the sun has less power, and the rains
common to that season diminish it still more; therefore, from December
at latest, more and more artificial heat must be given to the plants,
until they begin in the middle of February, or at farthest in the
beginning of March, to show their fruit, which then, with good summer
weather and proper treatment, will attain to maturity in the beginning
of July, and thus are five months ripening; the fruit, which shows
itself in the beginning of March, wants at least a fortnight more to
ripen; that which appears in the middle of March wants a month more, and
consequently is six months coming to maturity; that which shows itself
in April wants still more, and seldom becomes so ripe as to obtain its
proper taste and smell. The agreeable smell which the ripe Ananas emits
on lifting up the sashes, is the surest proof of maturity: it is then of
a deep yellow, and the knobs have brownish yellow spots.
The time for removing the plants from the bark bed into the flued pit,
and hence again into the bark bed, cannot be fixed, as this depends on
the weather, and on the length of summer or winter. In some years I
have been obliged to put them in a hot-house in September, and keep them
there until April; but in common years they are moved into the hot-house
on the 10th or 12th of October, and from thence again into the hot-bed
of tan in the middle of March. The flues must be dried by heating them
before the plants are brought into the hot-house, not only to remove the
damp which, on the first heating, is powerful and injurious, but also to
discover whether there are any openings by which the smoke may escape
into the hot-house, for they must be carefully stopped up. This pit or
wintering house may be of any convenient length or breadth; supposing
two joined together, then the fire flues (fig. 1. a. a.) may be formed
at the extreme ends; the smoke may first enter and fill a vault of the
whole width and length of the pit (b.); it may afterwards enter a flue
(c. c.) and pass round the pit, and then out by a chimney in the back
wall.
[Illustration: 1]
The sashes of the pits at Drieoeck are six feet wide, and three and
a-half feet broad, and each has a cover of boards which are raised up
and let down by means of cords and pullies, the better to retain the
heat in the winter months (fig. 2.) Their slope forms an angle, with the
horizon of about twenty degrees.
[Illustration: 2]
In these pits a boarded stage is formed, on which the plants are set, so
as to be almost touching the glass during winter; during summer a bed of
tan is substituted for the boarded stage, and no fire-heat is applied,
but the plants plunged in the tan.
The following is the general course of temperature aimed at:--
Temperature during the first fourteen days in October, when the plants
are removed from the hot-beds of bark to the stages in the flued pits,
87° Fah.
Temperature from this time till the 20th of the January following, from
55° to 64°.
Temperature from January to March not under 55°. Lowest degree
admissible during winter 42°. Highest summer heat 105°.
Temperature of the bark hot-beds, in which the plants are placed to
fruit when air is given, 103°.
Ordinary summer heat for the fruiting plants 96°.
* * * * *
In Holland and Flanders, at the present day, the Pine Apple is never
grown in any other manner than in pits and hot-beds. The crowns and
suckers are struck and forwarded, from three to six, or nine months, in
hot-beds, and afterwards removed to pits. These pits differ from ours in
being rather steeper in the roof, and generally the fruiting pits have a
passage at the back, with a flue against the back wall, and an entrance
door to the passage at one end. In some the passage and flue are in
front, and in others a passage and flue are conducted round the house,
leaving the pit in the middle; but this is rather an uncommon form, and
chiefly to be met with in pits or stoves for ornamental plants. The fuel
in general use is peat, and the glass is well covered with boards and
matting or canvas or thatch every night after sun-set, excepting in the
warmest part of the season.
The soil used by the Dutch is good garden earth, mixed with a third part
of well-rotten hot-bed dung, or cow dung, and a sufficient quantity of
sand to render it free and pervious to moisture. The gardeners there
are by no means so particular in the article of soil, as many are in
this country; their object seems to be to make it rich and free; without
being very anxious as to employing virgin soil only, or any particular
kind of dung. They generally, however, keep the mixture some time in
heaps, and turn it over once or twice before using it. At the same time
we have seen them shifting Pines, and using a black rich earth newly dug
out of an adjoining plot of turnips; only mixing it with a little rotten
dung and white sand.
They shift their plants in spring, and refresh the surfaces of the pots
in autumn, and they seem on the whole to fruit them in larger pots than
we do; but they leave off shifting them nine or ten months before the
fruit is expected to appear, wishing to have the pots filled with roots
at this crisis. They seldom fruit a crown plant under two years, and
more generally three, from the time it is taken from the fruit; large
suckers they fruit earlier, according to their size when taken off the
mother plant; some which come out from near the bottom of the stem they
earth up, and do not take off at all. These come early into fruit, but
it is not large.
SECT. II.
_Culture of the Pine Apple in Germany._
The Germans took their horticulture from the Dutch, as they did their
landscape gardening from the French. They seem to have tried the
culture of the Pine Apple almost immediately after its introduction to
Holland; for, according to Beckmann, it was ripened by Dr. Kaltschmidt
at Breslaw in 1702, who sent some fruit to the Imperial Court; but he
states also that its culture was first attempted by Baron Munchausen, a
great encourager of gardening, and a botanist who had a fine demesne and
garden at Schwobber, near Hamelin, in Westphalia. From the account of
these gardens in the _Neuremberg Hesperides_, they appear to have been
grown both in pits, and on stages in larger houses.
The king of Prussia grew the Pine Apple extensively at Potsdam; he
followed the Dutch manner in every thing, and had a gardener from that
country who attended exclusively to the forcing department at Sans
Souci. The quantity of glass there was greater than any where else in
Germany: the whole was kept in high order and good culture for many
years; but after the king’s death, in 1786, it soon fell into neglect;
the glass of most of the peach-houses and vineries was removed or
destroyed; the Pine plants were neglected and diminished in numbers,
from time to time. In 1813 the royal gardens at Sans Souci contained
only about two dozen of Pine plants, which were kept in a lofty opaque
roofed conservatory, and these, as may be easily imagined, were by no
means in a thriving condition.
Before the French Revolution, the Pine Apple was cultivated at most of
the court gardens in Germany; but in the year 1814, there were very few
in the empire.
SECT. III.
_Culture of the Pine Apple in Russia._
The Pine Apple is extensively cultivated in the imperial gardens in the
neighbourhood of Petersburg and Moscow, and also in those of a few of
the greatest nobility and mercantile men adjoining those cities. Nothing
can be more wonderful than to contemplate the resources by which this
plant, requiring not less than from 50 to 70 degrees of heat at all
times of the year, is preserved in existence through a winter of seven
months, during the whole of which the ground is covered with snow, and
Fahrenheit’s thermometer, often for weeks together, at 20° below Zero.
The head gardeners of the emperor, and the great nobles of Russia, are,
for the greater part, Britons; and the sort of houses they erect, and
the mode of culture they follow, is as nearly as circumstances will
admit, those of Speechly or Nicol.
The culture of the grape is, to a certain extent, combined with that of
the Pine Apple; the former is trained on the rafters, and the latter
grown in a pit, surrounded by flues and a path. In addition to the
flues, many of the fruiting-houses have stoves built in them, on the
German construction, which are used in the most severe weather.
Sometimes there is a double roof of glass; but more generally the roof,
ends, and fronts, are covered with boards; which not only prevents the
weight of sudden falls of snow from breaking the glass, but by admitting
of a coating of snow over them, prevents, in a considerable degree, the
internal heat from escaping. This covering, or a covering of mats or
canvass, as practised near Moscow, and from which the snow is raked off
as fast as it falls, is sometimes kept on night and day for three months
together. The plants being all the while in a dormant state, it is
remarkable how little they suffer.
The best ranges of hot-houses in the neighbourhood of Petersburg, have
been imported there from Leith, or London. At Moscow, where the same
facility of importation is not afforded, they are constructed on the
spot, in a very rude manner; in the best of them, the interstices
between the sashes and rafters are so large, that they have to be
stuffed with moss. Still it is astonishing how well the Pine Apple is
preserved in them through a long winter, and what excellent peaches and
grapes they produce during summer. The cause seems to be owing to the
great care and skill of the gardeners, in keeping the plants in a
dormant state, when there is but little light; and in applying
powerfully all the agents of growth and culture, during the short, but
warm Russian summer.
There are some German gardeners in Russia, who cultivate the Pine Apple
in pits as in Holland; and crowns and suckers are forwarded in this way
by them, and also by the British gardeners settled in that country.
SECT. IV.
_Culture of the Pine Apple in France._
The culture of the Pine Apple does not appear to have been commenced in
France till after the middle of the eighteenth century, and then only in
the royal gardens at Versailles, in those of the Duke of Orleans at
Mousseaux, and one or two others. It has never been cultivated by above
a dozen persons in that country; nor is it grown by so great a number at
the present time. The best are in the garden of M. Boursault, within the
boundary of Paris; and the next those of the king at Trianon and
Versailles, and of the banker Lafitte, at his country-seat, a few
leagues from the capital.
M. Boursault grows them in low houses, which may be termed pits, being
without glass in the front or ends; the plants are plunged in tan, and
kept as near the glass as possible; and the soil used is good garden
earth, or free soil (_terre-franche_), with about half its bulk of
_poudrette_, or desiccated nightsoil. M. Boursault tried them formerly
in the _poudrette_ alone, but found they did not succeed so well as when
a smaller quantity was used. He produces fruit from half a pound to two
pounds in weight, and it is said of a good flavour.
Rosier states, that M. Mallet, a curious horticulturist, grew ananas in
a peculiarly constructed frame of his own invention (fig. 3.); but we
could see none of these frames in use in any way, and were informed by
different persons, that they were too expensive in their first cost to
succeed.
[Illustration: 3]
The Pine plants in the royal gardens, did not appear to us so well
cultivated as those of M. Boursault; they were very much drawn, and
seemed too sparingly watered. All the Pine plants which we have seen in
France, and also in Italy, had this yellow sickly appearance; and the
fruit produced was universally of small size; one of three pips is
thought worth presenting to table. It is certainly a very singular fact,
and not hitherto explained, that the Pine plant in a climate where it
gets more light than in Germany, Britain, or Russia, should yet be less
green than in those countries. Had the reverse been the case, the
circumstance would not have been surprising; but that more green should
be produced in the northern hemisphere, and under the torrid zone, than
under what might be considered as a happy medium between two extremes,
is astonishing, and leads to a suspicion of deficiency of management.
The cause seems referable to deficiency of water, and too great heat
during night; for during day they have the precaution to shade them from
the sun’s direct influence.
SECT. V.
_Culture of the Pine Apple in Italy._
The Pine Apple was grown in Italy before the revolution, by the Pope, at
Naples, and by the king of Sardinia, at Turin. The late king of Sardinia
sent his gardener to England, to study the culture of this fruit; and he
returned and published in 1777, a pamphlet on the subject. He recommends
it to be grown in pits, much the same as those of the Dutch, but without
flues, which is still the general practice in Italy. After the
possession of Piedmont by the French, the royal palaces and gardens were
neglected, and in 1819, when we saw them, they were not restored.
At the royal gardens, and those of Prince Leopold, at Portici, near
Naples, a few Pines are grown in pits, by two German gardeners, that of
Prince Leopold, an intelligent man and a good botanist; but the plants,
notwithstanding the fine climate, are etiolated, slender, and pale, with
very small fruit. The pits were entirely sunk in the ground, narrow, and
without flues, and they were shaded in the day-time with a net. It
appeared to us, that they were much too tenderly treated; if uncovered
in the night-time, or planted in the open garden, and left exposed all
the summer, and covered with double glass frames during winter, without
any fire heat; but, if occasion required, surrounded by linings of dung,
we have no doubt they would succeed much better.
At Caserta, a royal palace about eighteen miles from Naples, the Pine
Apple is grown in a style much superior. The gardens and grounds there,
were laid out by M. Græffer, a German gardener, who was formerly a
partner in the firm of Gordon, Thomson, & Co. London nurserymen. The
hot-houses are built exactly in the English style; the Pines raised and
forwarded in pits, and fruited in broad low houses, with vines trained
under the rafters, in Speechly’s manner. M. Græffer died in 1816, and
his son has still the care of the royal gardens, and in 1819 had the
Pines, in what would be considered in this country, middling good order.
They were certainly of a much less vivid green than those of England or
Holland, and the fruit was smaller; M. Græffer, jun. never having been
out of Italy, was not aware of the difference; but on enquiring into his
mode of treatment, we were led to suspect a deficiency of water and of
moisture, by watering the flues and paths of the house, and too great a
heat kept up during the night. The air of Italy is, at most periods of
the year, much drier than that of the north of Europe; that of France
and Germany is also drier than the air of Holland, Britain, and Russia;
and perhaps this difference in atmospheric moisture, and the
overheating at night, may, in some measure, account for the difference
in the colour of the foliage of the Pine and other plants kept under
glass in France and Italy.
There are some Pines grown at Rome, Florence, and Genoa; but they are
not much better than those of Portici. The greatest number, and the
finest plants and fruit which we saw in Italy, was in the Vice-regal
gardens at Monza, near Milan, under the management of a most intelligent
Italian gardener, a pupil of Professor Thouin of Paris, Signior Luigi
Vilaresi. The treatment is in all respects that of the Dutch; the plants
are forwarded in frames, and sometimes in the open air for a month or
two during summer; they are fruited in large pits, with a walk behind,
and when more plants come into fruit than are wanted, they are retarded,
or preserved, by being placed in a division of the pit without bark, and
where they receive abundance of air in the day-time, but no water. The
plants here were large and long-leaved, but still not so green and
stocky as those of England, and the fruit did not appear to be above one
and a half, or two pounds in weight. On enquiry, we found no air was
ever left to the pits in the night-time.
SECT. VI.
_Culture of the Pine Apple in other parts of Europe._
The Pine Apple has been fruited at Stockholm, and in one or two places
besides in Sweden; and also in the Court gardens at Copenhagen, and by
De Conninck, and some of the rich merchants of Denmark; but we could
hear of none being grown in either of these countries, when we visited
them in 1813 and 1814.
It is said to be cultivated in Spain, near the sea coast; and also at
Lisbon. We know it was grown by the late M. De Vismes, near the latter
city; and we believe it is now grown by some English merchants at
Seville; but this is all we know. It does not appear to be grown in
European Turkey.
CHAP. IV.
OF THE DIFFERENT MODES OF CULTIVATING THE PINE APPLE WHICH HAVE BEEN,
AND ARE PRACTISED IN BRITAIN BY PRACTICAL GARDENERS.
The Pine Apple plant, as already observed, seems to have been first
introduced by Mr. Bentick, afterwards re-introduced from Holland in
1719, and then first cultivated for its fruit in Sir Matthew Decker’s
garden at Richmond. Here, according to Professor Bradley, the gardener,
“Mr. Henry Telende, imitated so successfully M. Le Cour’s newly
discovered method of cultivating this delicious fruit, that he is likely
to ripen forty of them in the present (1724) autumn.” (_Husb. and Gard.
for June 1724_, p. 161.) He elsewhere tells us that “the late instance
of bringing the Ananas or Pine Apple to perfection in England, by the
ingenuity of Mr. Telende at Sir Matthew Decker’s, has so far gained upon
the curious, that already many of our nobility have undertaken the same
improvement; and ’tis not to be doubted but a year or two more will make
this undertaking much more general.” He mentions “their being brought to
extraordinary perfection at the garden of the right honourable Spencer
Compton, Speaker of the House of Commons, at Chiswick; and at that
curious gentleman’s, Mr. John Warner, Rotherhithe.” He informs us that
an excellent stove on a new plan, with a bark pit, was built by William
Parker, Esq. near Croydon, in Surry, to make “experiments in ripening
fruits that has not been tried;” and that Mr. Fairchild, in 1722, built
one at Hoxton for Pine Apples and other tender plants, in which the fire
flues were raised above the surface of the floor, by which means all
danger from damps was avoided. Mr. Cowel, as before observed, (p. 4.)
states that in 1730 Pine Apple stoves were to be found in almost every
curious garden. Mr. Telende’s mode of cultivating the Pine Apple is
detailed by Professor Bradley in 1724, and the most generally approved
mode of culture from that time to the middle of the eighteenth century
may be considered as given by Miller in his Dictionary. The improvements
which have since been made by practical gardeners, may be ranged under
the heads of Justice, Speechly, Abercrombie, M’Phail, Nicol, Griffin,
Baldwin, Andrews, Oldacre, Gunter, Grange, and Aiton. To each of these
names we shall devote a section; and under each, consider in succession,
the form of house, soil, general treatment, insects, and fruit produced.
SECT. I.
_Mode of cultivating the Pine Apple practised by Mr. Henry Telende,
in the Garden of Sir M. Decker, at Richmond, 1719, to 1730, or
later._
_Form of House._ For the education and ripening of this fruit, Mr.
Telende employed a frame made of deal, closely jointed: the length
eleven feet, divided equally into four lights; the width seven feet and
a half; three feet high at the back, and about ten inches in front. The
pit was somewhat more than five feet deep in the ground; the sides were
lined with brick, and the bottom covered with pebbles.
The stove or fruiting-house used was that with iron plates over the
flues; which, for greater warmth, was covered thick with thatch, and the
glasses were well guarded with shutters; and that the fire might be
constant, he burnt only such turf as is commonly used in Holland,
agreeable to M. Le Cour’s method.
_General Management._ About the middle of February, he “puts in as much
hot dung or horse-litter as will raise the bed about a foot high, and
then lays on the tanner’s bark as equally as possible, till the case of
brick-work is filled, beating down the tan gently with a prong, or
pressing it down easily with a board. A bed of this kind will take up
three hundred bushels of tan, and if it be well made, will heat in about
fifteen days, provided the frame and glasses are set over it. When the
bed breathes a right heat, which we are to judge of by a thermometer,
the plants are brought from the stove to it, either to have their pots
quite plunged into the bark; or, if upon opening the holes for them, the
bark be found too hot, then to be set in only half way, laying a few
pebbles under the bottom of each pot, that the water may pass freely
through them. Care must be taken not to remove the pots in frost or
snow; and to examine the bed from time to time, whether the bark grows
mouldy, musty, or dry, which it will often do in the summer: in such
case, it must be watered to recover its heat. A bed thus prepared and
managed will maintain a constant degree of heat, sufficient to give
these plants the utmost vigour they require, from the end of February to
the end of October; and then the plants must be again removed into the
stove or conservatory. In excessive heats the glasses are tilted up at
the back of the frame; and when the evenings are cool, the bed must be
carefully covered with substantial mattresses of straw. A bed of this
kind sinks about a foot, which is convenient; for otherwise the plants
would be too tall for the frame, before the time of housing them.
“The thermometer used by Mr. Telende had a tube twenty-four inches long,
and one-eighth of an inch in diameter. When the spirit rose only to
fifteen inches, he accounted the air cold for his plants; at sixteen and
a half temperate; at eighteen warm, which was his standard for Pine
Apple heat; at twenty inches, hot air; and at twenty-one inches,
sultry.”
_Insects._ Nothing is said on this subject.
_Fruit produced._ Mr. Cowel says (_Curious and Profitable Gardener_, p.
27.) that all gentlemen who had eaten Pines abroad allowed those raised
by Mr. Telende to be as good and as large as they found in the West
Indies. Bradley says, forty Pines were likely to ripen in the autumn of
1724.
SECT. II.
_Of the Culture of the Pine, as given by Phillip Miller in his
Gardener’s Dictionary._
_Form of House._ It was formerly the practice, Miller observes, to build
dry stoves, in which the plants were kept in winter, placed on
scaffolds, after the manner in which orange-trees are placed in a
green-house; and in summer, in hot-beds of tanners’ bark, under frames.
But it is now the practice, he adds, to erect low stoves, called the
succession-house, with pits therein for the hot-bed. It is also
necessary to have a bark-pit under a deep frame, for bringing forward
the suckers and crowns to supply the succession-house.
Mr. Miller’s fruiting-house has upright glasses in front, high enough to
admit a person to walk upright on the walk in front of the house. Over
the upright glasses there must be a range of sloping glasses, “which
must run to join the roof, which should come so far from the back wall
as to cover the flues and the walk behind the tan-pit; for if the
sloping glasses are of length sufficient to reach nearly over the bed,
the plants will require no more light: therefore these glasses should
not be longer than is absolutely necessary, that they may be the more
manageable.”
The difference between this stove and that of Speechly is, that in the
latter the sloping sashes reach to the back wall, by which means,
instead of a useless opaque roof over the path, an excellent place is
formed for training a vine; and this being at all times the hottest part
of the house, such vines as are there trained will produce very early
and high-flavoured fruit.
The succession-house of Miller has no upright glass, and only a walk at
the back of the house: the bark-pit may be partly sunk in the ground, if
the situation be dry; or if wet, kept above it. The flue makes three
returns against the back wall, beginning from the level of the walk.
Many persons, he says, have made tan-beds, with two flues running
through the back wall, and covered with glasses, like common hot-beds;
but, besides the inconvenience of taking off the glasses when the plants
want water, the damps rise in winter when the glasses are closely shut,
and there is danger of the tan taking fire.
The improvement on this plan consists in detaching the flue from the
back wall, and separating it from the tan by a vacuity of two or three
inches; or, what is still better, placing the flue in front similarly
detached, and surrounded by air on all sides.
[Illustration: 4]
_Soil._ “As to the earth in which Pines should be planted, if you have a
rich good kitchen-garden mould, not too heavy, so as to detain the
moisture too long, nor over light and sandy, it will be very proper for
them without any mixture: but where this is wanting, you should procure
some fresh earth from a good pasture, which should be mixed with about a
third part of rotten neats’ dung, or the dung of an old melon or
cucumber bed, which is well consumed. These should be mixed six or eight
months at least before they are used, but if it be a year, it will be
the better; and should be often turned, that their parts may be the
better united, as also the clods well broken. This earth should not be
screened very fine, but only cleared of the great stones. You should
always avoid mixing any sand with the earth, unless it be extremely
stiff, and then it will be necessary to have it mixed at least six
months or a year before it is used: and it must be frequently turned,
that the sand may be incorporated in the earth, so as to divide its
parts; but you should not put more than a sixth part of sand, for too
much is very injurious to these plants.
_General Management._ “There are some persons who frequently shift these
plants from pot to pot; but this is by no means to be practised by those
who propose to have large well-flavoured fruit: for unless the pots be
filled with the roots by the time the plants begin to show their fruit,
they commonly produce small fruit, which have generally large crowns on
them; therefore the plants will not require to be potted oftener than
twice in a season. The first time should be about the end of April, when
the suckers and crowns of the former year’s fruit (which remained all
the winter in those pots in which they were first planted) should be
shifted into larger pots. The second time for shifting them is in the
beginning of August, when you should shift those plants which are of a
proper size for fruiting the following spring. At each of these times of
shifting the plants, the bark-bed should be stirred up, and some new
bark added, to raise the bed up to the height it was at first made; and
when the pots are plunged again into the bark-bed, the plants should be
watered gently all over their leaves, to wash off the filth, and to
settle the earth to the roots of the plants. If the bark-bed be well
stirred, and a quantity of good fresh bark added to the bed, at this
latter shifting, it will be of great service to the plants; and they may
remain in the same tan until the beginning of November, or sometimes
later, according to the mildness of the season.
“In the summer season, when the weather is warm, the plants must be
frequently watered; but you should not give them large quantities at a
time: you must also be very careful that the moisture is not detained in
the pots by the holes being stopped, for that will soon destroy the
plants. In very warm weather they should be watered twice or three times
a week; but in a cool season, once a week will be often enough; and
during the summer season, you should once a week water them gently all
over their leaves, which will wash the filth from off them, and thereby
greatly promote the growth of the plants. During the winter season,
these plants will not require to be watered oftener than once a week,
according as you find the earth in the pots to dry: nor should you give
them too much at each time; for it is much better to give them a little
water often than to over-water them, especially at this season.”
_Insects._ After describing the white scale or mealy pine-bug (_coccus
hesperidum_, L.) he says, “wherever these insects appear on the plants,
the safest method will be to take the plants out of the pots, and clear
the earth from the roots; then prepare a large tub, which should be
filled with water, in which there has been a strong infusion of
tobacco-stalks; into this tub you should put the plants, placing some
sticks across the tub, to keep the plants immersed in water. In this
water they should remain twenty-four hours; then take them out, and with
a sponge wash off all the insects from the leaves and roots, which may
be easily effected when the insects are killed by the infusion; then cut
off all the small fibres of the roots, and dip the plants into a tub of
fair water, washing them therein. Then you should pot them in fresh
earth, and having stirred up the bark-bed, and added some new tan to
give a fresh heat to the bed, the pots should be plunged again,
observing to water them all over the leaves (as was before directed),
and this should be repeated once a week during the summer season; for I
observe these insects always multiply much faster where the plants are
kept dry, than in such places where the plants are sometimes sprinkled
over with water, and kept in a growing state. And the same is also
observed in America; for it is in long droughts that the insects make
such destruction in the sugar-canes. And in those islands, where they
have had several very dry seasons, they have increased to such a degree
as to destroy the greatest part of the canes in the islands, rendering
them not only unfit for sugar, but poison the juice of the plant, so as
to disqualify it for making rum; whereby many planters have been ruined.
“As these insects are frequently brought over from America on the ananas
plants, those persons who procure their plants from thence should look
carefully over them when they receive them, to see they have none of
these insects on them; for if they have, they will soon be propagated
over all the plants in the stove where these are placed: therefore,
whenever they are observed, the plants should be soaked (as was before
directed) before they are planted into pots.”
_Fruit produced._ Miller finds suckers and crowns, if equal in size and
strength, fruit equally soon; and has seen as good fruit produced from
plants received from the West Indies, as from any he has seen, and some
three times larger than any he saw in M. Le Cour’s garden.
SECT. III.
_Culture of the Pine Apple, by James Justice, Esq. F.R.S. at
Crichton, near Edinburgh, in 1732, and for some years afterwards._
This gentleman was one of the greatest amateurs of gardening of his
time, and a most successful cultivator of every thing he attempted. He
had a fine garden at Crichton, near Edinburgh, and corresponded with
various foreign horticulturists of Holland and Italy, as well as with
Miller, Bradley, and other eminent English gardeners of his time.
[Illustration: 5]
_Form of House._ Justice, writing in 1754, says, “There have of late
years been erected in England and Scotland, many sorts of stoves for the
culture of the Pine Apple; but I am sure, after many experiments, that
the plan here annexed is the best. In this stove, (fig. 5.) with one
fire, I can do the business of two stoves, which must have two fires,
and cultivate the old as well as the young plants.” The front and ends
of this house are of glass, as well as the roof; the flue enters from
behind at one end, passes along the middle of the house, returns on
itself, and then makes four returns in the back wall. The path-way
enters from behind, at the end opposite to that at which the flue
enters; proceeds to the middle of the house, along the middle, till it
meets the flue at the opposite; and then it turns round till it meets
the flue against the back wall, close by the furnace. By this
arrangement of the walk, no interruption is given to the flue; which is
of great consequence, where it has so many returns to perform. A furnace
invented by Mr. James Scot, of Turnham Green, a commercial Pine-grower
of those days, is recommended. It is cast in one piece, and requires a
wrought-iron door and a cast-iron plate to build over the chamber.
Justice agrees with Miller in recommending the furnace to be built
within the house, (but supplied from without) in order that no heat may
be lost.
The plan given requires no succession-house; but he describes a frame
used by many persons for growing young Pines, “made in the same manner
as common hot-bed frames, but higher and broader; that is, three feet
higher at the back, sloping to one and a half in front, and six feet
wide.” These cover a tan-pit causewayed at bottom, and surrounded by a
stone wall. It is very proper, he says, to have these frames at work as
well as the stoves. He also mentions flued pits, such as are described
by Miller (Sect. 2.) Both stoves and pits he covers with boards,
tarpauling, or mats, at night; and the fuel he uses is coal or peat,
avoiding wood as of too rapid consumption.
_Soil._ Two-thirds of good loamy kitchen-garden mould, one-third of old
rotten cows’ dung, or hot-bed dung, and to every eight barrowfuls of
this a barrowful of sea-sand. He adds, “If your ground is naturally
sandy, after having mixed it with the dung above mentioned, add thereto
a third of good fat marl; which succeeded so well with me, that in this
compost I had much larger fruit than in any other compound which I used
to give them, which induced me to put, at all times, a good _deal of
marl_ in the compost I used for these plants.” This mixture should lie
for six months in those parts of the garden which are airy and least
exposed to the sun; after the first three months, turn it over every
fortnight. _Scots Gardeners’ Directory_, 2d edit. p. 124.
_General management._ The same as is given by Miller. He tried some
plants turned out of the pots with their balls, and planted in the bark
for the last nine months before the fruit ripened, and found the fruit
larger and earlier, but not better flavoured than that of the plants in
pots. In shifting, he never cuts off any of the leaves; “for it is
certain,” he adds, “that the leaves of all plants and trees bear the
same office to them, as the pulmonary vessels do to human bodies.” He
waters over the leaves when the plants have shewn fruit; because the
fruit stalks, occupying what in young plants was a hollow tube, no
injury can happen. P. 129.
_Insects._ At the first appearance of the bug, he picks off the scale
with a pin; and if that does not clean the leaves, he washes with a
sponge; and, in extreme cases, uses Miller’s mode.
_Fruit produced._ The object of all his directions is, “to have fruit
large, good, and early, in a right season; viz. from the middle of June
to the middle of September, but no later; for the rays of the sun, at
that time, have not strength enough to give them that poignancy of smell
and taste that they ought to have.” P. 134. “Cut fruit when their smell
is strongest and most poignant; if too ripe, they soon turn insipidly
sweet, and have no more taste than an orange. Cut them about ten o’clock
in the forenoon, with about four inches of stalk to them. When the fruit
is to be sent to a distance, cut a day or more before they are ripe,
with a larger portion of stalk to them, and wrap them very close in
paper, to preserve them from the air; otherwise their flavour will
escape.” P. 132.
SECT. IV.
_Culture of the Pine Apple, by John Giles, at Lewisham, in Kent,
1767._
This author, who was gardener to Lady Boyd, and afterwards foreman in
the Lewisham nursery, says, he writes after many years’ practice and
observation; and that his treatise will be found “of more real advantage
to a young unexperienced gardener, than his giving a premium of five or
ten guineas to a mercenary old one (who perhaps might have had some
practice, with a trifling degree of success,) to learn--what? why, to
spoil his plants, with the loss of both money and reputation.”
“Notwithstanding the directions of Miller, Hill, (probably alluding to a
letter on the Pine Apple in “Gardener’s New Calendar,” written by Sir
John Hill, under his assumed name of Barnes,) Meader, &c. who have
endeavoured to explore the method how the Pine Apple is to be grown;
yet, upon trial, the success has always fallen much short of their
expectation. For these reasons, Mr. Giles “presents the public with
explicit directions for managing and bringing to perfection the Pine
Apple; in which all the obstacles and difficulties which gardeners have
met with in raising that fruit are remedied, and the true method pointed
out in a clear and satisfactory manner.” Preface, p. vii.
_Form of House._ The plants are brought forward in pits, and afterwards
fruited in a stove forty feet long and twelve feet wide, with a pit six
feet wide, surrounded by a path, and a flue which makes three returns in
a flue close under the back wall. The front of the pit is about three,
and the back about five feet from the glass. It will fruit, he says, a
hundred plants annually, they being brought forward in the low pits or
frames, and removed to the fruiting-house in September or October.
The obvious objection to the plan of his house is the having no flue in
front.
_Soil._ A rich hazely loam from a well-pastured common. This soil alone,
he says, not only answers well for Pines, but for most vegetables.
_General Management._ He recommends keeping a moist atmosphere in the
house, and giving abundance of air when the plants are in fruit. His
other directions relate to mere routine practices, and offer nothing
else worth quoting.
_Insects._ A moist atmosphere, he says, will keep down these. “It is
only poor plants,” he says, “which are not in a good state of health,
that are infested with insects. They are encouraged by the warmth and
dryness of the air of the stove, and the bad state of the plants; but
where cleanliness and moisture are attended to, there will never be any
worth notice.” P. 36.
_Fruit produced._ He fruits the Queen Pine in two years, at the usual
season; but does not state to what size the fruit attains.
SECT. V.
_Culture of the Pine Apple, by Adam Taylor, Gardener at Devizes, in
Wiltshire, 1769._
This author, who was gardener to J. Sutton, Esq. at New Park, professes
“to lay down a mode by which the Pine Apple may be produced in higher
perfection, with more ease and less expense than has been hitherto known
in this climate.” He offers his treatise with confidence, as not being
founded on hypothesis, but on some years’ experience; and it may be
depended on, as “it admits of the attestation of many persons whose
taste and judgment are unquestionable.”
“The present way,” he says, “of raising Pine Apples, is made so
chargeable by the erection of hot-houses, and the consumption of fuel,
that many, even of tolerable fortunes, have been deterred by the
consideration of it, from raising this desirable fruit. It is farther
attended with trouble, and much uncertainty; and the fruit itself rarely
answers the expense either in size, number, or quality. But by the
practice now recommended, these several inconveniences are sufficiently
obviated. There are very few, even of commercial gardeners, who are not
able to accumulate the necessary quantity of horse-dung, which is the
principal article for this valuable end. And by such application of it,
they shall not fail to find their hopes abundantly answered, and their
labour well repaid.” P. 3.
_Form of House._ He both rears and fruits them in a pit. This he forms
either of boards, or of brick-work three feet deep, and of any
convenient length and width; and on the walls or boards, which inclose
the tan, he places a frame two and a half feet deep in front, and four
feet high behind. The ends and front are of glass, and the latter is
formed into small sashes, which slide in a groove. The back is formed of
inch boards, and against these he places a powerful lining of dung.
The pit he fills with tan, or dung, as may be most convenient; dung, he
says, does as well as tan, and only requires a little more trouble,
which is amply repaid to the gardener by the value of the dung to the
garden, when no longer in active fermentation.
An anonymous annotator (to the copy of Taylor’s book, in the library of
the Horticultural Society) says, “I find by experience, that the dung of
four horses is sufficient to work two frames twenty-six feet each in
length, and six in breadth; one for the fruiting-house, the other for
succession plants; and that it may be reasonably expected to cut forty
fruit yearly after the first year, and the dung as valuable for the
field or garden, as if this use had not been made of it.” P. 3.
_Soil._ “Take one load of mould from under the turf of a good pasture,
and, if it be very light, add to it the fourth part of a load of good
mellow loam: but if it be of itself of a loamy nature, mix into it two
or three bushels of sea-sand. Then take the fourth part of a load of
dung from a cow-yard, if it can be thence procured; but if not, take the
same quantity of good rotten dung from your old cucumber or melon beds.
Mix these well together, and turn the whole three or four times, that it
may thoroughly imbibe the air. All the large clods should be well
broken, but not sifted or screened, as is the practice with many; so
shall you have a compost, which is excellently adapted to the growth and
nourishment of the plants.” P. 15.
_General Management._ He takes great care to keep his plants in a
dormant state during winter; but about the end of March and April, he
applies linings, and brings them into a growing state, shifting all
those not intended for fruiting that season. He covers the frames at
night throughout the year with straw, and a sail-cloth over, excepting
in the warmest part of summer; at that season, during fine showers, he
removes the sashes entirely, and lets the plants receive a gentle
watering. He frequently waters over the leaves in the afternoons with a
pot having a fine rose, and shuts up early; which he finds produces a
moist heat, rapid growth, and keeps down insects. In winter he uses a
tin pipe, to keep the water from touching the leaves of the plants; and
as he has a very low temperature at that season, he gives them very
little.
_Insects._ These he is not much troubled with; but he says, “Such plants
as are attacked by them, should be immediately taken out of the frame,
and plunged into a moderate hot-bed made of dung; this hot-bed should be
covered with one or two cucumber-frames, adapted to the height of the
plants. Let these frames be covered with lights; so as to confine the
steam of the dung. As soon as the plants receive the heat of this bed,
water them all over the tops of the leaves with cold water. This will
effectually destroy the insects; after which the plants are to be
restored to the covered frame again. A trial or two of this will
convince any person of the infallible efficacy of it.” P. 38.
It thus appears that he destroys them by the operation of the ammoniacal
gas, much in the same manner as does Mr. Baldwin.
_Fruit produced._ He says nothing of the weight of the fruit, but he
calculates on fruiting the plants in two years, and ripening the fruit
only in summer and autumn, or between July and October inclusive; and he
prefers the Queen Pine to all others.
SECT. VI.
_Culture of the Pine Apple by William Speechly, gardener to his
Grace the Duke of Portland, at Welbeck, in Nottinghamshire, 1779._
The culture of the Pine, Mr. Speechly observes, has already been treated
of by many persons, who have varied much in the methods they have
recommended. Far from meaning to depreciate their labours, he adds, “my
advice and pretensions rest solely upon the success which I have met
with in my experiments.” He went to serve the Duke of Portland in 1767,
and published his book after eleven years’ experience. He continued at
Welbeck till about the year 1800.
_Form of House._ The great object of Mr. Speechly seems to have been to
combine the culture of the Pine and Vine; and for this purpose he
adopted one form both for his succession and fruiting-house; training
Vines up the rafters, and on the upper part of the back wall.
[Illustration: 6]
In many places small stoves of a particular construction (in the which
the Pines stand very near the glass) are erected solely for the purpose
of _Fruiting-houses_. These, from their being always kept up to a high
degree of heat, are by gardeners usually termed _Roasters_. (fig. 7.)
When there is such conveniency, it is customary, when any Pine-plants
show fruit in the large stoves, to remove such plants (especially the
most promising) directly into the fruiting-house; where, from the high
degree of heat kept, they generally swell their fruit astonishingly.
It is observable that Pines always succeed best in stoves that have been
newly erected; on which account, some of the more curious in the
cultivation of this fruit have judged it expedient to pull down and
rebuild their Pine-stoves every ten or twelve years. Although I cannot
subscribe to such expensive mode of procedure, I shall here beg to state
the many advantages that accrue from keeping Pine-stoves in good and
proper repair.
First, by keeping the flues clean from soot, and air-proof, they will
heat the house better, and much less fuel will serve.
Secondly, by a due attention to keeping the inside of the roof, &c. duly
painted, and by constantly white-washing the walls and flues in every
part of the house, the plants will be greatly benefited, both from
having a better reflection and from cleanliness.
A further advantage in stoves newly built may also here be remarked.
Where tan only is used, the beds are always filled at the first with new
tan entire; but afterwards, constantly with new and old tan intermixt.
Lastly, it is probable that stoves, newly erected, derive their greatest
benefit from the good condition of the glass-work; for, however well it
may be kept in repair afterwards, it is certain that there never is so
much light in an old stove as was at the first. Dirt will find its way
into the cavities between the squares, &c. which, obstructing the sun’s
rays, darkens and gives a gloominess to the stove.
[Illustration: 7]
He describes a Pine-stove to be heated by steam, in which the vapour is
admitted to a brick vault, over which is the bed of tan or earth; this
is surrounded by a path and smoke-flues, exactly as in the common form
of hot-house.
He also gives a plan of a furnace for burning lime as well as heating
hot-houses, as erected at Billing, in Northamptonshire, and at Lady E.
Ponsonby’s, at Bishop’s Court, in Ireland; and, subsequently, at various
other places in that country.
[Illustration: 8]
In these _kiln-furnaces_, (fig. 8.) the heat, after passing through the
limestone in the kiln or crucible (_a_), enters the flue (_e_), and
passes through it in the usual manner. The grate on which the fuel burns
(_d_) is contrived to draw out by means of a grooved frame (_c_), as
soon as the lime in the crucible is burned, which then falls into the
ash-pit (_b_), and is removed.
_Soil._ Alter numerous experiments made with mixtures, of cow, deer,
sheep, pigeon, hen, and rotten stable dung, with soot, and other
manures, in various proportions, with fresh pasture-soil of different
qualities, he says, I can venture to recommend the following:
In the month of April or May, let the sward or turf of a pasture, where
the soil is a strong rich loam, and of a reddish colour, be pared off,
not more than two inches thick: let it then be carried to the pens in
sheep-pastures, where sheep are frequently put for the purpose of
dressing, which places should be cleared of stones, &c. and made smooth;
then let the turf be laid, with the grass-side downwards, and only one
course thick; here it may continue two, three, or more months, during
which time it should be turned with a spade once or twice, according as
the pen is more or less frequented by the above animals; who, with their
urine and dung, will enrich the turf to a great degree, and their feet
will reduce it, and prevent any weeds from growing.
After the turf has lain a sufficient time, it should be brought to a
convenient place, and laid in a heap for at least six months, (if a
twelvemonth it will be the better,) being frequently turned during that
time; and after being made pretty fine with a spade, but not screened,
it will be fit for use.
In places where the above mode cannot be adopted, the mixture may be
made by putting a quantity of sheep’s dung (or deer’s dung, if it can
be got) and turf together. But here it must be observed, that the dung
should be collected from the pastures when newly fallen; also, that a
larger proportion should be added, making an allowance for the want of
urine.
1. Three wheelbarrows of the above reduced sward or soil; one barrow of
vegetable mould from decayed oak-leaves, or leaves of other deciduous
trees, and half a barrow of coarse sand, make a compost-mould for
_Crowns_, _Suckers_, and _Young Plants_.
2. Three wheelbarrows of swarth, reduced as above, two barrows of
vegetable mould, one barrow of coarse sand, and one-fourth of a barrow
of soot, make a compost-mould for _fruiting plants_.
The above composts should be made some months before they are wanted,
and very frequently turned during that time, that the different mixtures
may get well and uniformly incorporated.
It is observable, that in hot-houses, where Pine-plants are put in a
light soil, the young plants frequently go into fruit the first season,
and are then what gardeners term _runners_; on the contrary, where
plants are put in a strong rich soil, they will continue to grow, and
not fruit even at a proper season: therefore, from the nature of the
soil from whence the sward was taken, the quantity of sand used must be
proportioned; when the loam is not strong, sand will be unnecessary in
the compost for young plants.
I conceive that the _urine_ of sheep contains a greater quantity of
mucilage, or oleaginous matter, than the _dung_ of those animals: and
this opinion is founded upon observations made in sheep-pastures; where,
during the summer months, the effects of both are easily distinguished.
I also presume that the reduced sward in the pens receives a very
considerable degree of fertility from the feet of the sheep.
Where oak-leaves are not used in hot-houses instead of bark, the
vegetable-mould may be made by laying a quantity of them together, in a
heap sufficiently large to ferment, as soon as they fall from the trees:
they should be covered for some time at first, to prevent the upper
leaves from being blown away. The heap should afterwards be frequently
turned, and kept clean from weeds: the leaves will be two years before
they are sufficiently reduced to be fit for use.
I shall just observe, that it will be proper to keep the different heaps
of compost at all times clean from weeds, to turn them frequently, and
to round them up in long rainy seasons. If covered, the better: but they
should be spread abroad in continued frosts, and in fine weather.
_General Management._ The pots he recommends are:
_Inches diameter _Inches_
at the top._ _deep._
1. Pots for full-sized crowns
and suckers 6 5½
2. Pots for plants to fruit the
following season when
shifted in March 8½ 7
3. Pots for fruiting plants 11½ 10
I wish it to be understood that the above dimensions are only used for
full-sized plants, at their different periods: plants below the standard
must have less-sized pots in proportion.
Sometimes, he observes, hot-beds are made for the suckers. When that is
the case, they should be prepared at least fourteen days before the
suckers are taken off, in order that the violence of the heat may be
over: after the bed has been made ten days, it should be levelled, and
covered eight or ten inches with tan; and after this has lain four or
five days, in case the heat of the bed should not be violent, the pots
may be plunged into it.
In respect of temperature and water, he advises only a moderate heat,
and not much water, during the winter months; but an increase of both,
accompanied with more air, as the season advances.
There is nothing, he says, so prejudicial to the Pine-apple plant,
(insects and an over-heat of the tan excepted,) as forcing them to grow
by making large fires, and keeping the hot-house warm at an improper
season; which is injudiciously done in many hot-houses. It is
inconsistent with reason, and against nature, to force a tropical plant
in this climate in a cold dark season, such as generally happens here in
the months of November and December; and plants so treated will in time
show the injury done them: if large plants for fruiting, they generally
show very small fruit-buds with weak stems; and, if small plants, they
seldom make much progress in the beginning of the next summer.
As the length of the days, and power of the sun increases, the plants
will begin to grow, and from that time it will be absolutely necessary
to keep them in a regular growing state; for if young plants receive a
check afterwards, it generally causes many of them to go into fruit.
From the time they begin to grow they will demand a little water: once
in a week or ten days, as the weather may prove more or less favourable,
will be sufficient till the middle of March, which is the most eligible
season to shift them in their pots. If that work is done sooner, it will
prevent the plants from striking freely; and if deferred longer, it will
check them in their summer’s growth.
In this shifting I always shake off the whole of the ball of earth, and
cut off all the roots that are of a black colour, carefully preserving
such only as are white and strong. I then put such plants as are
intended to fruit the next season into second-sized pots with fresh
mould entire.
The bed at this time should be renewed with a little fresh tan, in order
to promote its heating, and the pots plunged therein immediately. The
hot-house should be kept pretty warm till the heat of the tan begins to
arise, as it will be the means of causing the plants to strike both
sooner and stronger. As soon as the heat of the bed begins to arise, it
will be proper to give the plants a sprinkling of water over their
leaves; and as soon as they are perceived to grow, they will require a
little water once a week for a short time, and afterwards twice a week
till the next time of shifting them in their pots.
During the summer months give the plants plenty of air whenever the
weather is warm, and water properly, as has been described: let the pots
be kept in a regular constant heat, and clean from weeds; but above all,
avoid an over-heat of the tan. Some persons plunge a thermometer in the
tan, with the ball of its tube as deep as the bottom of the Pine-pots;
and by repeated observations, a point is fixed for the spirits in the
part of the tube above the surface of the tan, to show when the pots
should be raised. Whether the above, or the putting _watch-sticks_ in
the tan (which is the most common method) is practised, too much
attention cannot be had whenever there is the appearance of too violent
a heat in the tan.
If the above directions are strictly attended to, the plants will be
grown to a large size by the beginning of August; when they should be
shifted into the largest-sized fruiting-pots, with their roots and balls
entire.
But it will be proper here to observe, that in some hot-houses it is
found difficult to get plants of the Antigua and Sugar-loaf kinds to
fruit at a proper age; and, in that case, I advise the shaving off the
roots on the outside, and reducing the balls of _them_ at this shifting.
A greater proportion of sand should also be added to the compost, which
will be the means of bringing them into a fruiting state at a proper
season.
The disproportion of the second-sized and fruiting-pots is so great, as
to admit of a good quantity of fresh mould at this shifting, which is
absolutely necessary to support the plants till their fruit becomes
ripe: it also affords an opportunity of performing the operation of
shifting the plants without injuring their roots. As there will be a
large space between the ball and the side of the pot, the mould may be
put round the ball with great ease; whereas, when plants are shifted
into pots only a small size larger than those from whence they were
taken, they are generally much injured by the operation of shifting:
besides, even with the greatest care, there will frequently be spaces
left hollow between the ball and the side of the pot.
A little fresh tan should be added, and the bed forked up, but not to
the bottom of the pit, as the tan is liable to heat violently at this
season of the year; of which when there is the least appearance, the
pots should be raised immediately. The delay of doing it one day may be
attended with very bad consequences.
The plants will continue to grow very fast this and the following month,
and should therefore be watered pretty plentifully, at least twice a
week; and, in the summer waterings, it should be observed, that it will
be of great service to the plants to be watered once a fortnight all
over their leaves. If the month of October be wet and cold, the plants
should not be watered above twice in that month; but if fine and clear,
once a week: and here ends the watering of the fruiting plants for the
season. I never give them any water in the months of November and
December; and during that time I keep the hot-house in a cold state, but
a bottom heat is always required; therefore the tan should have been
renewed, and the old part of it screened about the end of October or
beginning of November: from which time the bed will generally retain a
moderate warmth till the beginning of January, when the tan should again
be renewed. From that time the hot-house should be kept a few degrees
warmer; and, as soon as the tan begins to ferment, the plants may have a
little water given them.
In this month (January) some of the plants will appear set for fruiting,
which may be distinguished by the short leaves in their centres; and
from that time they should be moderately watered (till the middle of
March) and the hot-house should be kept pretty warm; a little air
should, however, be admitted, whenever the weather will permit.
About the middle of March it will be proper to renew the tan-bed, and,
at the same time, the plants should be divested of a few of their bottom
leaves; the mould on the top of the pots should be taken off as deep as
can be done without injuring the roots, and the pots filled up with
fresh compost-earth, which will add to the vigour of the plants, as well
as give a neatness to the whole when finished.
It is very injurious to the plants, and greatly retards the swelling of
the fruit, to remove them after this season; therefore, in case the heat
of the bed should decline, a fresh heat may be got without moving the
plants, by taking out the tan betwixt the pots as deep as possible, and
filling that space up with fresh tan.--This method is practised by some
even at an earlier season.
The plants at this season will demand a kind, lively bottom heat; and
whenever the weather will permit, a great quantity of air should be
admitted into the hot-house, the want of a due proportion of which would
cause the stems of the fruit to draw themselves weak, and grow tall;
after which the fruit never swells kindly.
As the fruit and suckers begin to advance in size, the plants will
require plenty of water to support them, which may be given them at
least twice, and sometimes three times a week; but too much should not
be given them at one time; it is better to give them less at a time, and
oftener.
Sticks should be provided to support the fruit before it is grown too
large; and, in tying them, care should be taken to leave bandage-room
sufficient, making allowance for the swelling of the fruit.
When the suckers are grown to about one foot in length, they should be
taken off in the same manner that has been described; and from that time
the fruit will swell very fast. As soon as the fruit appears full
swelled, the watering such plants as produce them should cease: but it
is too general a practice (in order to have the fruit as large as can be
got) to continue the watering too long; which causes the fruit to be
filled with an insipid, watery, and ill-flavoured juice.
It is easy to know when the Pine becomes ripe by its yellow colour; yet
they do not all change in the same manner, but most generally begin at
the lower part of the fruit. Such fruit should not be cut till the upper
part also begins to change, which sometimes will be many days after,
especially in the Sugar-loaf kinds. Sometimes the fruit will first begin
to change in the middle, which is a certain indication of its being
ripe: such fruit should be cut immediately.
Having thus laid down the culture of the Pine-apple plant, whether
raised from seed, by crowns, or suckers, to its final perfection in the
fruit, I shall now subjoin some hints and observations; most of which, I
hope, will be of use.
In treating of the culture of the Pine-apple plant, some persons have
recommended the shifting of the plants, from first to last, with their
balls entire; also the shifting of them oftener than I have here
recommended. These methods I disapprove, for the following reasons:
First, it is observable that the Pine-plant begins to make its roots at
the very bottom of the stem; and, as the plant increases in size, fresh
roots are produced from the stem, still higher and higher, and the
bottom roots die in proportion: so that, if a plant in the greatest
vigour be turned out of its pot as soon as the fruit is cut, there will
be found at the bottom a part of the stem, several inches in length,
naked, destitute of roots, and smooth. Now, according to the above
method, the whole of the roots which the plant produces being permitted
to remain on the stem to the last, the old roots decay and turn mouldy,
to the great detriment of those afterwards produced.
Secondly, the first ball, which remains with the plant full two years,
by length of time will become hard, cloddy, and exhausted of its
nourishment, and must therefore prevent the roots afterwards produced
from growing with that freedom and vigour which they would do in fresher
and better mould.
Thirdly, the old ball continually remaining after the frequent
shiftings, it will be too large, when put into the fruiting-pot, to
admit of a sufficient quantity of fresh mould to support the plant till
its fruit becomes ripe, which is generally a whole year from the last
time of shifting.
It is an object of emulation amongst gardeners to try to excel their
neighbours in the size of their Pines. In order to produce very large
fruit, I recommend the following method, which I have often practised
with great success.
In the month of April or May, it is easy to distinguish, in a stove of
Pines, which plants promise to produce the best fruit: this is not
always the case with the largest. A few of the most promising being
marked, a small iron rod, made with a sharp angular point, may be thrust
down the centre of the sucker; which, being turned two or three times
round, will drill out the centre, and prevent its growing. This must be
performed on all the suckers as fast as they appear. Thus the plant
being plentifully supplied with water, and having nothing to support but
the fruit, will sometimes grow amazingly large. But this method should
not be practised on too many plants, as it is attended with the entire
loss of all the suckers.
It being a practice with some to fruit the Pine by setting the _pot_ in
water; while others produce the fruit by setting the _plant_ only in
water, (in a similar manner to what is often practised with Hyacinths
and other bulbous roots,) the passing over these methods in silence may,
by some, be deemed an omission: but as neither of these methods can be
reduced to practice with any kind of success, except on fruiting plants,
and just in the hot summer months, when the situation of the plant ought
to be very near to the glass, they do not seem calculated for general
practice.
However, as some persons are inclined to suppose that Pines raised by
these methods are generally of superior quality, I shall just beg to
say, that the first method, of setting the _pot_ in water, is greatly to
be preferred, and that the best time for adopting it is immediately
after the plants have shown fruit in the spring.
Mr. Speechly is minute in his directions as to air, water, the use of
leaves instead of bark, the application of fire, heat, &c.; but as all
these instructions are more to be considered as applicable to the
general management of the hot-house, than the particular treatment of
the Pine-apple, we do not think it advisable to trouble the reader with
their perusal.
[Illustration: 9]
_Insects._ Those which more immediately infest the Pine, were first
described in Speechly’s book. They are all species or varieties of the
Linnean order Hemiptera, and genus Coccus. The first is the _brown
turtle bug_, _Coccus hesperidum_ (_Fig. 9._) The female has at first the
appearance of a flat scale (_a_); afterwards, when depositing its eggs,
it becomes fixed and turgid (_b_); these eggs (_c_) are hatched under
the mother, who soon afterwards dies; the young insects, seen under a
magnifier, appear like turtles in miniature (_d_). Only the males,
(_e_), which are few in proportion to the females, have wings; these
devour nothing, and having performed the office of impregnation, die.
The _white scaly bug_, _C. hesp. var._ α (_f_ to _l_) bears a
considerable resemblance to the above; but the scale (_f_) is somewhat
smaller; the colour is white, and the males or flies (_l_) not so large
as those of the brown.
The _white mealy crimson-tinged bug_, _C. hesp. var._ ϐ (_n_ and _m_)
differs from the former in being larger and crimson-coloured. Speechly
considers it as viviparous. This and the former species are much the
most pernicious.
Mr. Speechly’s mode of destroying these and other insects, being much
too elaborate for modern practice, it would be a waste of time to repeat
his processes. Simple modes are always the most effectual, and nothing
can be more so than M’Phail’s mode of applying the steam of water; or
Baldwin’s, that of horse-dung.
_Fruit produced._ Mr. Speechly does not seem to have had a fixed object
as to the production of fruit, unless it was to have it good. Some
cultivators, as Justice, aim at having all the fruit ripe at that season
when they will attain the greatest size and most flavour, viz. in August
and September; others aim at having some weekly throughout the year. It
would appear that the former was Speechly’s object, and that he did not
contemplate the other as now generally practised. “Large fruiting
plants,” he says, “will sometimes show their fruit in the months of
August and September, but these are generally thought of no value, and,
consequently, thrown away. To prevent this, I frequently take such
plants out of the hot-house as soon as their fruit begin to appear. I
then set them in a shed or out-house for five or six weeks; at the
expiration of which time I pot them as in the month of March, after
shaking off their balls. After this I plunge them into the tan.”
What was the common weight of the Queen Pines produced at Welbeck, he
does not inform us; but a fruit of the New Providence, produced in the
gardens at Welbeck in 1794, weighed 5¼ lb., or 84 oz. He generally
fruited the Queen Pine in the third season, being under two years of
time; and the Providence and Antigua in the fourth season.
SECT. VII.
_Culture of the Pine Apple by James M’Phail, gardener to the late
Earl of Liverpool, at Addiscombe, in Surrey, from 1788 to 1808._
Mr. M’Phail, when in practice, was reckoned one of the first growers of
the Pine Apple in England; he grew the plants, and also fruited them
chiefly in pits; the pots plunged in bark, and the bark inclosed by a
perforated wall of his invention, and heated by linings of dung. He also
grew them in larger buildings.
_Form of House._ No great consequence is attached to the construction of
the house by this gardener. Where Pines are to be grown in a hot-house
along with vines in Speechly’s manner, he says, “I think a good method
is to make it into one or more divisions of about forty feet long,
sixteen feet wide;” the back wall thirteen feet, and the front wall nine
feet, the upper four feet being composed of sliding sashes. The slope in
the roof will, by these dimensions, be four feet, or about three inches
to a foot. The pit is to be surrounded by a path, which behind will be
four feet higher than in front, and, consequently, the end paths must
have steps. The fire-place being placed in the back wall, and supplied
from the shed behind, the flue should be carried round about the inside,
stretching from the fire-place across the end and along between the path
and the front wall, leaving a cavity of four or five inches wide between
the flue and the wall, to admit the heat to rise freely, and to prevent
the roots and stems of the vines planted in the border against the front
wall from being too much heated. At that end of the division farthest
from the fire, after going across the house under the back path, the
flue must rise above the path, and go along close against the back wall
communicating with the chimney, which stands at the end corner of the
wall just above the fire-place. The flue from the fire-place along the
front wall to the opposite end of the house, is to be made nearly three
feet deep, seven inches wide, and when it riseth above the back side
path against the back wall to the chimney, it should be about three feet
six inches deep of brick, on edge two inches thick, besides the
plastering, and covered with inch thick tiles closely joined with fine
mortar to prevent the smoke from getting into the house among the
plants. The mouths of the fire-places should be about sixteen inches
wide, twelve inches deep, and the doors and their posts may be made of
cast iron. The grates should be thirty inches long, and their bars of
uncast iron made to take out at will. Some have the fire-places wholly
of cast iron, one or more inches thick, in form of a square funnel about
three feet in length. This appears to be a good method, because they
keep in repair several years, whereas the sides of the fire-places built
of brick generally require repairing yearly.
The tan-pit need not be deeper than three feet, or three feet six
inches; and the path which surrounds it should not be narrower than
twenty inches; but two feet, or for the back pit two feet and a half,
will be better. The vines are introduced under the sill of the front
glasses, and trained up the rafters; and Mr. M’Phail’s practice is not
to withdraw them in the winter season as is done by other gardeners. The
surface of the tan-bed should not be nearer the glass than five or six
feet. Two houses, each forty feet in length, joined together, can be
kept warm with two fires, better than one house of forty feet; but in
cold, exposed situations, he would recommend diminishing the length.
With respect to pits, M’Phail observes, “Succession Pine plants grow
exceedingly well in pits covered with glazed frames, linings of warm
dung being applied to them in cold frosty weather. The north wall of a
pit for this purpose had best be only about four feet above the ground;
and if about two feet high of it the whole length of the wall beginning
just at the surface of the ground four feet below the height of the
wall, be built in the form of the outside walls of my cucumber bed, the
lining will warm the air in the pit more easily than if the wall were
built solid. The linings of dung should not be lower in their foundation
than the surface of the tan in the pits in which the plants grow (for it
is not the tan that requires to be warmed, but the air among the
plants); and as during the winter the heat of the air in the pit among
the plants, exclusive of sun heat, is not required to be greater than
from sixty to sixty-five degrees, strong linings are not wanted: one
against the north side, kept up in cold weather nearly as high as the
wall, will be sufficient, unless the weather get very cold indeed, in
which case a lining on the south side may be applied. In cold frosty
weather a covering of hay or of straw, or of fern, can be laid on the
glass above mats in the night-time.
[Illustration: 10]
“The brick bed of my inventing, (fig. 10.) for forcing early cucumbers,
answers well for growing small succession plants. A pit built on the
same construction, but of larger dimensions, without cross flues, is a
suitable one for growing Pine Apple plants of any size; for by linings
of dung the air in it can be kept to a degree of heat sufficient to grow
and ripen the Pine Apple in summer, as well as it can be done with fire
heat, only it will require a little more labour and plenty of dung.
_Soil._ “The Pine Apple plant will grow very well in any sort of rich
earth taken from a quarter of the kitchen garden, or in fresh sandy loam
taken from a common, long pastured with sheep, &c. If the earth be not
of a rich sandy quality of darkish colour, it should be mixed well with
some perfectly rotten dung and sand, and if a little vegetable mould is
put among it, it will do it good, and also a little soot. Though Pine
plants will grow in earth of the strongest texture, yet I have found by
experience that they grow most freely in good sandy loam not of a
binding quality.
_General management._ “The method which I used to cultivate the Pine
Apple is the following: The fruit being partly over, and a cucumber
brick bed prepared for unstruck crowns and suckers, towards the end of
August or September, I planted them in rich earth in pots suitable to
the size of the plants; I then had the pots plunged to their rims in the
tan bed in which there was a good growing heat; the lights were then
shut down close, and as great a heat kept among the plants as the heat
of the tan and sunshine could raise, and when the sun shone long and
very bright, the plants were shaded a few hours in the middle of the
day. The plants were thus managed till they had struck root and begun to
grow, when a gentle watering was given to them, and a little air
admitted daily. About the end of October or beginning of November, if
the state of the bed required it, a little fresh tan was added, and if
the plants by growth had become crowded, some of them were removed into
another place, and the remainder plunged into the tan bed, in which they
continued till February or March, when of course the bed required an
addition of fresh tan, which was given it, and the plants plunged again
into it at such distances one from the other as to give them room to
grow; here they remained till May or June, at which time they were
shifted into larger pots with the balls of earth about their roots
entire, and at this shifting, if the tan bed wanted it, fresh tan was
added to and mixed with the old, which in general enabled it to retain a
sufficient heat till the month of August or September, when the plants,
with their roots unhurt, were shifted into pots large enough to admit
earth easily round their balls between their roots and the sides of the
pots. In these pots I let the plants remain in general till the fruit
was over. At this time of shifting, the rotten part of the tan was taken
away, and a sufficient quantity of new tan added, which generally, with
an addition to the upper part of it, retained its heat till the latter
end of February or beginning of March; at this time the plants were
divested of a few of their lower leaves, to let young roots spring
freely out of their stems, the surface of the earth in the pots cleared
down to the roots, and fresh earth laid on, pressing it close to the
stems of the plants. After this dressing, the plants needed not to be
moved again till they ripened their fruit, unless they required more
bottom heat. This is the general process which I used, though I found it
necessary to vary according to occurring circumstances, regarding the
heat of the tan bed, the condition of the plants, and the state of the
weather.
“Some large kinds of Pine Apple plants require three seasons to grow
before they can bring large sized fruit, such as the black Antigua, the
Jamaica, the Ripley, &c.; therefore in the month of April or May, after
they have been planted upwards of a year, it is best to take them out of
the pots, and to cut off all their roots close to the stem, or leave
only a few which are fresh and strong, and then plant them again in good
earth in clean pots, and plunge the pots in a tan bed with a lively heat
in it. After this process, a stronger heat than usual must be kept in
the house, till the plants have made fresh roots and their leaves be
perceived to grow, when a little water may be given to them, which,
together with a good bottom and top heat, will make them grow finely.
“Crowns and suckers taken from the parent plants later than October,
should not be planted before the month of February or March; for in the
winter time, probably, they would not strike root, but rot: they may be
hung or laid in a dry part of the hot-house. By some writers on the
culture of the Pine it has been observed, ‘that any off-sets from the
Pine will succeed as well when planted in the hour they are taken off,
as if laid by to dry till the wound be healed, provided the parent stock
received no water for the ten days preceding.’ If off-sets or suckers be
grown to such a size, so that they be easily separated from the parent
plant, they may be planted immediately; for, in that case, it may be
seen that they had begun to push forth roots, and required to be taken
off and planted; but withholding water from the mother plant ten, or
even twenty days, will not bring its offspring to a state of maturity
fit for planting the day when taken off. So that it is best to let
unmatured young suckers and crowns lie implanted, till their natural
juices be so exhausted that there may be no danger of their rotting
after being planted.
“The brick beds of my inventing, in which I struck and reared Pine Apple
plants many years, were close and warm, the crannies between the
lappings of the glass being filled up with putty; consequently, in these
close frames, especially in the short days and long nights in winter,
when the sun has little influence, the moisture arising out of the tan
lodges on the glass, and drops from it, upon the plants; but, contrary
to the opinion of some authors, who have advised to draw the water out
of the hearts of plants when it falls into them in winter, I find, by
experience, that it does them no harm, if the heat in the place where
the plants be, is not too little. Indeed, if plants be kept in a climate
which suits their nature, it is only reasonable to suppose that they are
possessed of properties capable of disposing of water which happens to
fall on them by accident or otherwise.
“No vegetable substance that I know of retains heat so long, and of a
less violent nature, than oak bark after being used by tanners; and, as
the vapours arising out of it are of a wholesome nature to plants, it is
well calculated for helping to make the Pine Apple plant grow
vigorously. Where the Pine Apple is wished to be cultivated, and
tanner’s bark cannot be procured, horse-dung well prepared, by shaking
and breaking it small, will do. If plenty of the leaves of trees can be
had, they are preferable to dung. When leaves cannot be collected
plentifully, dung and leaves may be mixed together, and used
successfully; and if it be ascertained that a good lively heat cannot be
kept in the bed for want of good materials, let the heat of the flues
warmed by fire, or linings of dung, be close or near to the pit, which
will cause the heat in the bed to be more brisk and durable.
“If it be intended to make a bed of leaves, they should be collected as
soon as they have all fallen from the trees, and in a wet state, and
thrown together in a large heap; and after fermenting a few weeks, they
may be put into the pit for the pines. They should be well shaken, and
trodden down gently when they get into a fermentation, which will keep
them from sinking quickly afterwards, and prevent them from heating
violently. When the heat in the bed declines much, it may be increased
by turning and shaking the leaves over with a dung-fork.
“It sometimes happens that tanner’s bark heats too violently; but when
that takes place, it is either because there is too great a body of it
put together, or because the heat of the flues is too close to the bed.
If a tan bed get into a violent heat, it will not keep its heat so long
as if it heated moderately; for it must lose its heat as hastily in
proportion as it is deprived of its moisture by violent fermentation.
“It frequently happens that Pine Apple plants designed to bear fruit do
not show their fruit early enough in the spring or fore-part of summer,
to ripen their fruit before winter, when there is not sunshine enough to
give the fruit any flavour. This may happen because the plants have not
come to a proper growth, or their roots may have been injured by too
violent a bottom heat, or by being over-watered, or they may have been
shifted too late, or been put into pots too large for their roots to
have filled them before the end of the growing season. To make Pine
plants shew their fruit at an early time in the spring, some authors
have recommended the cutting off some of the roots at the autumn
shifting; but long experience has convinced me, that cutting off the
roots, or destroying them by any means, instead of making them show
fruit, is an effectual mean to prevent them from showing fruit, till
they have again made long roots. The fruit of the Pine Apple is formed,
probably, not less than seven or eight weeks before it appears among the
leaves; and if a plant be divested partially or totally of its roots,
its growth is stopped till it has made roots of considerable length,
when it will grow quickly. And, if before the roots were destroyed, the
fruit had been formed in the hidden secret centre of the plant, the
fruit will grow and show itself when the leaves of the plant, excepting
those on the stem of the fruit, will make no appearance of growing.
This, perhaps, may be the reason which induces some persons to think
that cutting off the roots of the plant causeth it to fruit sooner than
it would do were the roots suffered to remain.
“If Pine Apple plants, intended for fruiting the following year, be
shifted late in the autumn into pots, which their roots do not fill well
before the month of January, they probably will not show fruit till late
in the spring or summer months. For this reason it is advisable, when
they cannot be shifted early enough in the month of August or beginning
of September, so as to fill the pots with roots before the winter come
on, to let them remain unshifted till the fruit appear, and the stem of
it be grown to its full height, and then shift the plants into larger
pots, in the manner before directed, disturbing the roots of the plants
as little as can be helped. After the plants are shifted, they must not
get much water till the fresh growth of the roots has somewhat exhausted
the moisture of the fresh earth put round them. Of two evils, it is
better to give the plants too little water than too much. But let it be
remembered, that while the fruit is in blossom, and for some days
afterwards, the plants should not be watered all over their leaves,
neither should the plants be watered all over their leaves nor fruit,
after the fruit is fully swelled, nor should the earth in which their
roots are, be, after that time, kept very moist, for they do not require
it, because the plant has nearly performed its office, which it never
has to do a second time--it dies and leaves its offspring to succeed it.
“Although the Pine Apple plant is of such a nature that it will live
upwards of six months without earth or water, yet to bring its fruit to
perfection, a plentiful supply of both these is required. From the time
that the plants are set in earth till they perfect their fruit, it
should be endeavoured to keep them constantly in a clean healthy growing
state; and when they be thus managed, they will not fail to show fruit
when they be grown to a natural size. For these reasons, I would advise
that no methods contrary to nature, but methods to assist, be used to
make them fruit at certain periods. If Pine Apple plants be planted in
rich earth, and get a sufficiency of heat and water, they grow
luxuriantly to a great size, and do not show fruit so soon as they do
when they are planted in a poor, hungry, or stiff soil.
“If the roots of Pine Apple plants be not put in too great a heat, it is
a difficult matter to raise the heat in a hot-house to such a degree as
is able to destroy the plants. In the brick bed of my inventing, a
powerful heat can be raised by means of the linings of dung and the
sun-beams, and in it the insects on Pine and on other plants may be
shortly destroyed by heat and water.
“Some persons may think that the Pine Apple cannot bear to be watered
all over its leaves in winter, because it is of a succulent nature, and
able to live long in a hot-house without being planted in earth or set
in water. But, for instance, the common house-leek is of a very
succulent juicy nature, and will bear the greatest heat of a hot dry
summer on the warm tiles of a house: but it is well known that this
plant thrives best when it gets occasional showers of rain. The case is
exactly similar respecting the Pine Apple, and several other plants, of
a similar nature. In regard, however, to the best method of cultivating
the Pine Apple, there have been and will be persons who differ in
opinion. I here give my opinion, which is founded on practice, that
there is not the least danger in watering the plants plentifully all
over their leaves in winter, or in any time of the year, provided there
be a sufficient heat kept up in the tan bed and in the air of the
house. But remember, I do not recommend watering the Pine Apple plants
all over their leaves in winter as a general rule, only when it is
necessary to free the plants from insects and filth; then the heat in
the house among the plants must be kept strong, not lower than 70 in the
morning, and raised to 85 or 90 in the course of the day.
“It is indeed evident that some of the most able writers on the culture
of the Pine Apple have wanted that experience which may by practice be
obtained. They have asserted, that it is impossible to keep the Pine
Apple plant throughout a severe winter without the assistance of fire.
But ingenious practical gardeners have ascertained, that Pine Apple
plants require nothing more than a gentle heat in the tan bed, in which
the pots of plants must be plunged, and a medium heat of air of about 60
degrees, to keep them through the most severe winters in England. To
maintain this temperature of heat without the assistance of fire, is no
difficult matter; it can be done by the assistance of horse-dung; for a
dry heat is not at all necessary to preserve the plants, and to keep
them in good health, in the brick beds, in which I kept Succession Pines
all the year round without the aid of fire heat. The sun for about two
months in winter had very little effect to warm or dry the leaves of the
plants, so that during the dull months in winter, the plants were
continually in a moist state, and water standing in the hearts of some
of them, and the heat of the air among them was from 55 to about 65;
and I do not recollect of having any of the plants die for want of heat.
_Insects._ By many experiments which I made, it is evident, I think,
that in the process of managing and cultivating the Pine Apple, all
injurious insects may be destroyed, and prevented from breeding on them,
by a judicious application of the elements necessary, though in a less
degree in regard to heat, for the production of any vegetables or fruits
whatever. That this is true, may be proved by a reference to the state
of fruits and vegetables growing, either spontaneously or assisted by
cultivation, in every part of the kingdom, without the aid of artificial
heat or impregnated air. For instance, the strawberry, the raspberry,
and some other fruits, which grow naturally in some parts of this
country, and peas, beans, cabbage, and cauliflowers in gardens, and the
different sorts of corn and grass in the fields. These, in unkind
seasons, we see affected by blights and by insects of various kinds,
which prevent them from coming to good maturity, and make them less
productive than we wish them to be. But in propitious seasons, the earth
being refreshed occasionally by showers of rain, they are preserved from
the inroads of insects and from blights, and are enabled to produce
abundant crops, for the use of man and beast.”
Mr. M’Phail has thus the merit of being one of the first practical
gardeners who freed themselves from the trammels of receipts and secrets
for destroying insects. He says, “after having studiously observed the
nature and causes of the vigorous growth and healthfulness of plants,
and of fruit-trees of different kinds, I have been induced to believe
that a fruit-tree or plant of any sort requires nothing but proper
cultivation in good earth, and in a kindly climate adapted to its
nature, to prevent it from being injured by insects, or by blights of
any kind, and to enable it to produce, of its kind, abundant crops.
However, I wish it not to be understood that I disapprove of using means
of any kind to destroy insects which are injurious to plants; but I
conceive that all methods used for that purpose, ought to be such as are
conducive to accelerate the growth of vegetables, by having at least a
tendency to purify the air, and to make the circumambient atmosphere
about them congenial to their nature, unless when the destruction of the
insects by the hand is effected.”
“Every insect has its proper plant, or tribe of plants, which it
naturally requires for its nourishment, and on which it generally lays
its eggs, and that on the most concealed parts of the plant; and the
plant, and insect which attacks it, are always natives of the same
climate, and therefore endure the same degrees of heat and cold;
consequently, when plants are attacked by their natural tribe of
insects, it is an exceedingly nice and curious operation to exterminate
them without injuring the plants, or stopping them in their natural
growth. But observing that insects increase rapidly in hot dry weather,
and that they appear impatient of moisture, was the means of inducing me
try which would bear the greatest heat and live.”
“To ascertain what degree of heat a Pine Apple plant can endure without
destroying it, I filled four vessels with hot water. The water in the
first vessel was 130 degrees hot; that in the second 140; that in the
third 145; that in the fourth 150. Into each of these vessels I put a
few Pine plants, divested of their roots, of their fibrous roots, and
suffered them to remain in the water about an hour. The plants which had
been immersed in the water heated to 140 and 145 degrees, were a little
hurt in the extremities of their leaves, but after being dried in the
hot-house, they were planted, and grew as vigorous as if they had not
been put into hot water; the plants put into water 130 degrees warm were
not in the least injured; but those put into water heated to 150 degrees
were entirely destroyed.
“By this experiment I ascertained that a vegetable can endure, without
hurting it, 130 degrees of heat, according to the degrees on
Fahrenheit’s thermometer. I am inclined to think that no animal is able
to endure such a heat and live. Undoubtedly, insects increase rapidly in
hot weather in the open air, especially on the peach tree, and on other
trees, against warm walls, both in the spring and summer months; and
they increase most rapidly in dry weather; but the heat in the open air
against walls seldom rises to 100 degrees. And in the hottest countries
in the world, where vegetables and animals exist, the heat in the shade
seldom rises to blood heat, which is about 97. Having considered these
things, and ascertained that a plant can endure a heat of 130 degrees, I
determined to try another experiment, that is, to ascertain whether heat
and water would destroy insects, and keep plants alive. I therefore
thought of, and determined to try, the following method:
“In the month of June I selected about twenty large Pine plants, some of
which had green fruit on them, and their leaves, fruit, and roots, were
almost covered with insects. These plants I plunged in a tan bed, with a
very gentle heat in it. The tan bed was in a brick frame designed for
rearing succession plants: it was nearly five feet wide, twenty feet
long, and the glass frames were close and in good repair. These plants I
watered frequently and plentifully, sometimes twice a day, with water
not less than 70 or 80 degrees, and sometimes 100, warm: in short, I
kept the plants constantly in a moist air, by plentiful waterings
without measure; and, excepting the time of giving water, I kept the
lights constantly close shut down, even in the hottest sunshine, without
shading the plants. In this frame I had no thermometer, but the heat
was, I think, sometimes about two or three o’clock in the afternoon,
upwards of 120 degrees. This great heat and much moisture caused the
plants to grow most vigorously; and having subjected them to the said
mode of management for a few weeks, the insects, in the course of that
time, were totally destroyed, many of them lying dead on the leaves and
fruit. In the spring-time, before this operation, the plants had been
strewed with sulphur, which, at least, is a harmless dressing to plants
of any kind, and probably may be of use in preventing insects from
breeding numerously, or the means of depriving them of part of their
natural food. This circumstance, however, I just here mention, because,
from experiments which I have tried since then, it is probable that the
effluvia arising from flour of sulphur, being scattered on the leaves,
or about in the hot-house, in conjunction with heated air and moisture,
may more suddenly destroy insects than heat and moisture alone; but it
ought to be remembered, that if sulphur be by any means set on fire in a
confined place, among plants of any kind, it will either totally destroy
or greatly injure them.
“Being satisfied with my success in the above-mentioned experiment, of
having totally destroyed the insects on these plants without hurting
them, I hesitated not to begin to water the whole of the plants under my
care, whenever they wanted it, all over their leaves and fruit, with
water about 85 degrees warm. This process I continued to practise for
several months, during which time I do not recollect that the
thermometer was ever below 70, and in sunshine it was raised sometimes
to upwards of 110 degrees. I continued this practice longer perhaps than
was absolutely necessary, but I was determined to destroy the whole of
the insects in the house, whether on the plants, or in the tan, or in
any part of the house; and this I certainly did accomplish effectually.
Thus, by this easy, and not unnatural, mode of management, the plants
became perfectly free of insects; they were perfectly cleansed of all
filth; they grew vigorously; and the fruit swelled fine to a good size.
After this I had several times Pine Apple plants from abroad, and out of
hot-houses at home, full of insects, which, by the means that I have,
without reserve, described, I effectually destroyed, and made the plants
grow very fast indeed.”
“If Pine Apple plants be kept in a strong vigorous growing state by
giving them plenty of heat, and water applied occasionally all over
their leaves, whether they be in frames heated with dung, or in
hot-houses heated by a fire, a few insects will do them little hurt. But
if the methods which I have given for cultivating the Pine Apple plant
be adopted, I am persuaded all sorts of injurious insects natural to
these sorts of plants will disappear on them.
“When we see human creatures lean in body for want of a sufficiency of
wholesome food, or, for want of cleanliness, lice and fleas breed upon
them; and poverty in cattle for want of food has the same effect on
them. Similar causes in vegetables has a similar effect, so that when
Pine Apple plants are in a state of poverty, for want of a sufficiency
of good earth, or of heat, or of water, insects natural to them, if
there be any of them in the hot-house, will breed rapidly on them and
hurt them. Those insects which naturally breed and live on the Pine
Apple plant, appear to delight in a dry dirty situation. Where Pine
Apples grow naturally and produce large fruit, they are not free of
insects; and though plants be free of insects, they will not grow well,
nor produce fine fruit, unless they get enough of good earth, sufficient
heat, and be watered plentifully.”
_Fruit produced._ The green, and some other sorts of Pine, Mr. M’Phail
“ripened in a shorter period of time than two years after planting,”
(_Gard. Rem._ 87.) but some large kinds he found required three seasons,
as the black Antigua, Jamaica, and Ripley. His object was to have his
fruit come in for use between May and October, for he very justly
remarks, that “the fruit of the Pine Apple, if it happen to appear ripe
in winter, will have its flavour insipid.” He therefore recommends, that
such plants as show fruit in September or October, had better be cast
away, unless there be plenty of room for them in the hot-house; in that
case they may be retained by way of experiment, and to obtain young
plants from them. (_Gard. Rem._ 98.)
SECT. VIII.
_Culture of the Pine Apple in Fifeshire, by Mr. Walter Nicol._
Mr. Nicol was from 1790 to 1800, the best grower of the Pine Apple in
Scotland; he had afterwards much experience as a constructor of
hot-houses; and extensive observation of the practice of the best
gardeners of the north.
_Form of House._ “Pineries,” he says, “are, and may be, very differently
constructed; and we find plants thriving, and plants not thriving, in
all kinds of stoves, pits, &c. The culture of Pine Apples is attended
with a heavier expense than that of any other fruit under glass;
especially if they be grown in lofty stoves, the erection of which is
very expensive, and the keeping up proportionally more so, than that of
humbler stoves, or flued pits.
“But, independently of all considerations of expense (which may not be
valued by some, provided they can obtain good fruit), Pine Apples may
certainly be produced in as great perfection, if not greater, and with
infinitely less trouble and risk, in flued pits, if properly
constructed, than in any other way. I would therefore have the Pinery
detached from the other forcing-houses, and to consist of three pits in
a range; one for crowns and suckers, one for succession, and one for
fruiting plants. The fruiting-pit to be placed in the centre, and the
other two, right and left; forming a range of a hundred feet in length;
which would give Pine Apples enough for a large family.
“The fruiting-pit to be forty feet long, and ten feet wide, over walls;
and each of the others to be thirty feet long, and nine feet wide, also
over walls. The breast-wall of the whole to be on a line, and to be
eighteen inches above ground. The back-wall of the centre one to be five
feet, and of the others, to be four and a half feet higher than the
front. The front and end flues to be separated from the bark-bed by a
three-inch cavity, and the back flues to be raised above its level.
“The furnaces may either be placed in front, or at the back, according
to conveniency; but the strength of the heat should be first exhausted
in front, and should return in the back-flues. The fruiting-pit would
require two small furnaces, in order to diffuse the heat regularly, and
keep up a proper temperature in winter; one to be placed at each end;
and either to play, first in front, and return in the back; but the
flues to be above, and not alongside of one another; as in that latter
way they would take up too much room. The under one to be considered
merely as an auxiliary flue, as it would only be wanted occasionally.
“None of these flues need be more than five or six inches wide, and nine
or ten deep. Nor need the furnaces be so large by a third, or a fourth
part, as those for large forcing-houses; because there should be proper
oil-cloth covers for the whole, as guards against severe weather, which
would be a great saving of fuel.
“The depth of the pits should be regulated so as that the average depth
of the bark-beds may be a yard below the level of the front flues; as to
that level the bark will generally settle, although made as high as
their surfaces, when new stirred up. If leaves, or a mixture of leaves
with dung, are to be used instead of bark, the pits will require to be a
foot, or half a yard deeper.
“It may be thought too much to insinuate, that those who have large
Pineries should turn them to other purposes, and erect such as are
described above. There cannot be a doubt, however, respecting the
satisfaction that would follow, if to have good fruit at an easy rate
were the object. I have given designs for no other kinds of new Pineries
these six years past, but such as these; with some variations respecting
extent, however, in order to suit different purses.”
_Soil._ Vegetable mould, strong brown loam, pigeons’ dung, and
shell-marl, are Mr. Nicol’s ingredients. “The vegetable mould used is
that from decayed tree-leaves, and those of the oak are to be preferred;
but when a sufficient quantity of them cannot be had, a mixture with
those of the ash, elm, birch, sycamore, &c. or indeed any that are not
resinous, will answer very well. In autumn, immediately as the leaves
fall, let them be gathered, and be thrown together into an heap; and let
just as much light earth be thrown over them as will prevent them from
being blown abroad by the wind. In this state let them lie till May, and
then turn them over and mix them well. They will be rendered into mould
fit for use by the next spring; but from bits of sticks, &c. being among
them, they will require to be sifted before using. Strong brown loam is
the next article. This should consist of the sward of a pasture, if
possible; which should, previous to using, be well reduced, by exposing
it a whole year to the action of the weather. Pigeon-dung, also, that
has lain at least two whole years in an heap, has been frequently
turned, and well exposed to the weather, is to be used. Likewise
shell-marl. And, lastly, sea or river gravel, which should be sifted,
and kept in a dry place; such part of it as is about the size of
marrowfat peas is to be used. This is the proportion: for crowns and
suckers, entire vegetable mould, with a little gravel at bottom, to
strike in; afterwards, three-fourths vegetable mould, and one-fourth
loam, mixed with about a twentieth part gravel, and two inches entire
gravel at bottom, till about a year old. For year-olds, and till shifted
into fruiting-pots, one-half vegetable mould, one-half loam; to which
add a twentieth part gravel, and as much shell-marl, with three inches
clean gravel at bottom. For fruiting-plants, one-half loam, a fourth
part vegetable mould, and a fourth part pigeon-dung; to which add marl
and gravel as above, and lay three or four inches of clean gravel at
bottom. The above compositions are what I formerly used for Pine-plants
with much success; and are what may be reckoned good medium soils for
the production of Pine Apples.”
_General Management._ Mr. Nicol plants his suckers in summer and autumn
as the fruit is gathered, sticking them into the front part of the
bark-bed, “where they will strike root as freely as any where. If a
large proportion of the crop come off early, the crowns and suckers may
be potted at once, and plunged into the nursing-pit; or they may be
twisted from off the stocks, and may be laid by, in a dry shed or loft
for a few days, till the other operations in the Pinery be performed,
and the nursing-pit be ready to receive them and the crowns, (collected
as the fruit have been gathered;) which, if rooted, may be potted, and
may be placed for the above time, either in a frame, or in a
forcing-house of any kind, as they will sustain no injury, though out of
the bark-bed for so short a time. Such crowns as have not struck root,
may be laid aside with the suckers.
“With respect to the time for taking off the suckers, it is when the
bottom part becomes brown; and they are then easily displaced by the
thumb, after having broken down the leaf immediately under them. But,
indeed, by the time the fruit is ripe, all suckers of the stem are fit
for taking off, though they will sustain no injury by being left on,
even for a month, but rather improve, if the stock be healthy, and if it
be well watered. Suckers that rise from the root always have fibres, and
may be taken off at any time; but, as they are tardy of fruiting, they
should not be taken into the stock, unless in a case of necessity.
“Some think it necessary to dry, or win, all crowns and suckers before
potting them, and for that purpose lay them on the shelves, &c. of the
stove for a week or ten days. By this treatment, they certainly may be
hurt, but cannot be improved, provided they have been fully matured
before being taken from off the fruit or stocks, and that these have
previously had no water for about ten days. They will succeed as well,
if planted the hour they are taken off, as if treated in any other way
whatever; and I only advise their being laid aside as above, as being a
matter of conveniency.”
In preparing the suckers and unstruck crowns for potting, he twists off
a few of the bottom leaves, and pares the end of the stump smooth with
the knife. “Then fill pots of about three or four inches diameter, and
five or six inches deep, (the less for the least, and the large for the
largest plants), with very fine, light earth, or with entire vegetable
mould of tree leaves, quite to the brim; previously placing an inch of
clean gravel in the bottom of each, and observing to lay in the mould
loosely. Thrust the large suckers down to within two inches of the
gravel, and the small ones and crowns, two inches into the mould;
firming them with the thumbs, and dressing off the mould, half an inch
below the margin of the pots. Then plunge them into the bark-bed, quite
down to, or rather below the brim, especially of the smaller pots. If
the pots be placed at the clear distance of three or four inches from
each other, according to the sizes of the plants, they will have
sufficient room to grow till next shifting.”
The temperature of the nursing-pit in January with fire heat, he keeps
as near as possible to 65° mornings and evenings; and in sunshine, on
good days, it may be allowed to rise to about 70°. In March from 70° to
80°; and after newly potting and plunging, unstruck crowns and suckers
to 80° or 85°.
To save fuel, he covers up the Pine pits when fires are used, every
evening after sunset, either with double mats, or with a thick canvas
cover, mounted on rollers. This cover he removes by sun-rise in the
morning, unless the weather be very severe; in which case he leaves it
on during the day. By the judicious use of this cover, he finds “a
considerable deal of fuel may be saved.”
As to water, he says, “nurse plants require very little, perhaps once in
eight or ten days, or even at greater intervals, if the weather be moist
and hazy. It is safer, in winter, to give too little, rather than too
much water to Pine-plants; nor should they be watered over head at this
season. They should be watered in the forenoon of a sunny day, at this
time of the year, in order that any water spilt on the bark, or in the
hearts of the plants, may be exhaled by the heat of the sun, and by an
extra quantity of air purposely admitted. This precaution, however, is
only necessary for the sake of such crowns and suckers as have been
struck late last season, and are not very well rooted; such being more
apt to damp off than others that are better established.” In summer he
supplies water regularly and plentifully once in three days; giving the
proper quantity at root, and then a dewing over the leaves. He waters
frequently with the drainings of the dunghill.
Air he admits to the nursing-pits every good day. Even in hard frost,
when the sun shines, two or three of the lights should be slipped down,
to let the rarified air escape at top. After potting unrooted offsets,
he gives no air till the heat begin to rise in the bark-bed; but as the
plants indicate their having made roots, he gives air during sunshine,
so as to keep down the thermometer to 85° or 80°.
Suckers planted in summer he shifts or re-pots in the following March.
He says, “Let them be shaked out entirely; the balls be quite reduced;
the roots be trimmed of all straggling and decayed fibres; and let them
be replaced in the same, or in similar pots. The proper size of pots,
however, in which to put crowns and suckers struck last season, is about
four inches inside diameter at top, and six inches deep. A little clean
gravel should be laid at the bottom of each pot, in order to drain off
extra moisture; and this should be observed in the potting of
Pine-plants of all sorts. I have generally observed, that if the bark
heat be not violent, the plants will push very strong fibres into this
stratum of gravel, in which they seem to delight. I therefore generally
make it two inches thick in small pots, and three or four in larger
ones, less or more, according to their size. From the time I first
adopted this mode of potting, I hardly ever had an instance of an
unhealthy plant; and this very particular, together with that of keeping
the plants always in a mild bottom-heat, is of greater importance in the
culture of Pines, than all the other rules that have been given
respecting them, out of the ordinary way. The roots of Pines seem to
delight in gravel; and I have been careful to introduce it into the
mould for plants of all ages. I generally used small sea-gravel, in
which was a considerable proportion of shells, or chips of shells, with
other particles of a porous nature; and I have uniformly observed the
finest fibres cling to these, and often insinuate themselves through the
pores, or embrace the rougher particles. Therefore, if sea gravel can be
obtained, prefer it; and next, river gravel; but avoid earthy pit
gravel, and rather use sharp sand, or a mixture of pounded-stone, chips,
and brick-bats. The plants being re-potted, plunge them in the bark-bed
again, quite down to the rims of the pots, keeping them perfectly level.
Eight or nine inches from centre to centre will be distance sufficient.
When they are all placed, give a little aired water, to settle the earth
about their roots. This need not be repeated till the heat in the bed
rise to the pots, after which, as the plants will now begin to grow
freely, they must be watered at the root once in four or five days; and
they may have a dewing over head, from the fine rose of a watering-pot,
occasionally, if the weather be fine.”
In May, Nicol again shifts, but the plants are not to be shaked out at
this time, but are to be shifted, balls entire, into pots of about six
inches diameter, and eight inches deep. “If the roots be anywise matted
at bottom, or at the sides, they must be carefully singled out; and in
potting, be sure that there be no cavity left between the ball and the
sides of the new pot. In order the more effectually to prevent which,
use a small, blunt-pointed, somewhat wedge-shaped, stick, to trindle in
the mould with; observing that it be in a dry state, and be sifted fine;
and also to shake the pot well, (potting on a bench or table), the
better to settle the earth about the ball. Pots of this size should be
filled to within half an inch of their brims, (the balls being covered
about an inch with fresh earth), as the whole will settle about as much,
and so leave a full inch for holding water, which is enough. In
preparing the plants for potting, observe to twist off a few of the
bottom leaves, as they always put out fine roots from the lower part of
the stem. Also, before letting the plant out of hand, trim off the
points of any leaves that may have been bruised or anywise injured in
the shifting. Replunge the pots to the brim, as before, observing to
keep them quite level, at the distance of fifteen inches from centre to
centre of the plants on a medium; then give a little water, which need
not be repeated till the heat rise to the pots.”
In November, he shifts such others whose roots have filled their pots,
and have become anywise matted. “Examine any you suspect to be so, and
let them be shifted into pots of the next size immediately above those
they are in; keeping the balls entire, and only singling out the netted
fibres at bottom. The rest should be trimmed of any dead leaves at
bottom of their stems, and should have a little of the old mould taken
from off the surface of the pots; which replace with fresh earth;
filling the pots fuller than usual, as but little water will be required
till next shifting time in the spring. The whole should then be replaced
in the bark-bed as before, and should be plunged quite to the rims of
the pots; giving a little water to settle the earth about their roots,
which need not be repeated till the heat rise in the bed.”
Plants intended to fruit in the succeeding year, are shifted finally in
the August of the year preceding. The plants are again looked over in
the February following, and top dressed; but such as are unhealthy,
feeble, and do not stand firm in their pots, he shakes out of their
balls entirely, and re-pots in the same, or in smaller pots. “Any
plants,” he says, “that have already started into fruit, should also be
shaken out, and be fresh potted, as above; which, by the check they
receive, will keep them back to a better season of ripening, and by the
force of fresh earth, make them swell their fruit larger than they
otherwise would have done. I have thus new-potted plants, even in
flower, with very much success, and have swelled the fruit to a size far
beyond my expectations; of which fact any one may easily satisfy
himself, by fresh-potting a few plants, and comparing their progress
with others treated in the ordinary way. Let the plants be re-plunged to
the brim as before, keeping the pots quite level. If the plants be
full-sized, and strong, they will require to be set at about twenty
inches apart from centre to centre, on a medium. But they should be
sorted; the smallest placed in front, and the largest at back, as in
arranging plants on a stage, that they may have an equal share of sun
and light. As soon as re-placed in the bark-bed, let them have a little
water, to settle the earth about their roots.” In May he again
top-dresses, “reducing an inch or two of the earth from off the surface,
and adding some fresh mould, which will invigorate the plants, cause
them to push surface radicles, and so keep them the more firm and
steady. This needs not be done, however, to plants whose fruit are
nearly ripe; but chiefly to healthy plants new shown in flower, past the
flower, or with the fruit about half grown. And with respect to any that
are unhealthy, and whose fruit are less than half grown, do not hesitate
to shift them, shaking them out, trimming their roots, and retaining
only healthy fibres. This is a very great improvement in the culture of
Pines, which I formerly practised, have since advised, and have seen
followed with much success.”
The temperature of the fruiting-pit is kept at the same degree as that
of the succession department in mid-winter. This is from 60° to 65°; but
as spring approaches, he rises gradually to 75°, but not allowing the
thermometer to pass 80°. From 72° to 75° is his temperature for March
and April. In May, June, July, and August, he requires 75° mornings and
evenings, and 80° or 85° at noon. In September, after fire-heat becomes
necessary, he keeps as nearly to 65° as possible, and in sunshine, by
the free admission of air, to about 70° or 72°. In October, November,
and December, he lowers the temperature to 60° mornings and evenings,
and 65° in sunshine.
Air is admitted at all seasons in fine sunshine weather, and freely, as
the fruit approaches to maturity, in order to enhance its flavour.
He gives water seldom in January, and not oftener than once in six or
eight days in February. In March, “water may given oftener than
heretofore advised, and also in larger quantities; generally a moderate
watering at root once in three or four days, and a dewing over head
occasionally, to refresh the leaves, and keep them clean from dust. From
the time the plants are out of flower, and the fruit begins to swell,
water must be applied in a very liberal manner once in two or three
days, always giving the necessary quantity at root, and then a dewing
over head. Watering to this extent, however, if the fruit be not in too
forward a state, will seldom be necessary before the end of the month,
or till April.” In April, “water must be given in a plentiful manner,
once in two or three days, in order the better to swell off the fruit.
The roots have now much to do in sustaining it, and also the suckers,
which will be fast advancing in growth. For this reason, water
frequently with dunghill-drainings, or with water of dung, soaked on
purpose; and after each watering at root, give a dewing over the leaves,
as directed above.” In May, June, and July, “from the time the fruit
begin to colour, however, begin also to lessen the quantity of water;
and towards its being fit for cutting, withhold water entirely, else the
flavour will be very much deteriorated. I shall here observe, with
respect to the different kinds of Pines, that the Queen and the
Sugar-loaf sorts require considerably more water than the King or
Havannah, and the Antigua. The difference in the manner of watering
should be more particularly attended to as the fruit approach to
maturity; as the latter-named kinds are naturally more juicy and watery
than the former.” In August, the plants that have done fruiting being
removed, the succession stock which replace them are to be watered
freely at root, and occasionally dewed over top. In October and
November, the waterings are gradually lessened; and in December, once in
eight, ten, or twelve days, will be sufficient.
_Insects._ “If Pine plants,” Nicol observes, “by proper culture, be kept
healthy and vigorous, _insects will not annoy, but leave them_. This
fact I have repeatedly proved, both with respect to the Pine, and to
other plants that are liable to be affected with the coccus, (the only
insect that materially injures the Pine), which seems to delight in
disease and decay, as flies do in carrion.
“I have received into my stock, plants covered with the _pine-bug_,
(coccus hesperidum), without the smallest hesitation; made no effort
whatever to get rid of them; and by next shifting time, in two or three
months, have seen no more of them. This I have not done once, but often;
and I have known my brother do the same thing. In short, I never but
once in my life have tried any remedy for the _bug_; and as I was
completely successful, I shall here give the recipe, which may safely be
applied to Pine plants in any state; but certainly best to crowns and
suckers at striking them, or to others in the March shifting, when they
are shaked out of their pots at any rate.
“Take soft soap, one pound; flowers of sulphur, one pound; tobacco, half
a pound; nux vomica, an ounce; which boil all together in four English
gallons of soft water to three, and set it aside to cool. In this liquor
immerse the whole plant, after the roots and leaves are trimmed for
potting; and this is the whole matter. Plants in any other state, and
which are placed in the bark-bed, may safely be watered over head with
this liquor; and as the _bug_ harbours most in the angles of the
leaves, it stands the better chance of being effectual, on account that
it will also there remain longest, and there its sediment will settle.
In using it in this latter way, however, if repeated waterings be
necessary, the liquor should be reduced in strength by the addition of a
third or a fourth part water.
“The brown scaly insect, also a coccus, is often found on the Pine, and
other stove plants; but I never could perceive that it does any other
injury than dirty them, and so is of less importance than the other
species, which eats or corrodes the leaves, in so far as it leaves them
full of brown specks or blotches. The above liquor, however, is a remedy
for either, and indeed for most insects, on account of its strength, and
glutinous nature.
“Ants are also to be found in the Pinery; but I never could observe that
they do the plants any harm, though they are generally to be found in
the pots, and among the bark. They are most frequently to be met with
there, if the coccus be present; and seem to feed on its larvæ, or
perhaps on its fæces.”
_Fruit produced._ He does not state any determinate object as to this
subject; if the object be to have large fruit, he says, all suckers of
the root and stem must be twisted off; and to retard the progress of
fruit that is shown too early, he recommends re-potting the plants in
February. He says, “If Pine Apples be not cut soon after they begin to
colour, that is, just when the fruit is of a greenish yellow, or straw
colour, they fall greatly off in flavour and richness; and that sharp
luscious taste so much admired, becomes insipid.”
SECT. IX.
_Culture of the Pine Apple, by Mr. William Griffin, Gardener to J.
C. Girardot, Esq. at Kelham, in Nottinghamshire, and now to Samuel
Smith, Esq. of Woodhall, in Hertfordshire._
Mr. Griffin has been a most successful cultivator of the Pine Apple;
perhaps more so for the limited means which he possessed at Kelham, than
either M’Phail or Baldwin.
_Form of House._ This is so nearly that of Speechly, that we do not
consider it necessary to give the details.
_Soil._ Mr. Griffin laughs at those who prescribe “many different
strange ingredients for composts;” adding, that, “after numerous
experiments made with mixtures of deers’, sheeps’, pigeons’, hens’, and
rotten stable-dung, with soot, and other manures, in various proportions
and combinations with fresh soil of different qualities from pastures
and waste lands, I can venture with confidence to recommend the
following: Procure from a pasture, or waste land, a quantity of brown,
rich, loamy earth, if of a reddish colour the better, but of a fattish
mouldy temperature; that by squeezing a handful of it together, and
opening your hand, it will readily fall apart again: be cautious not to
go deeper than you find it of that pliable texture; likewise procure,
if possible, a quantity of deers’-dung: if none can be conveniently got,
sheeps’-dung will do, and a quantity of swines’-dung. Let the above
three sorts be brought to some convenient place, and laid up in three
different heaps ridge-ways, for at least six months; and then mix them
in the following manner, covering the dung with a little soil before it
is mixed: four wheelbarrows of the above earth; one barrow of
sheep’s-dung, and two barrows of swine’s-dung. This composition,” he
adds, “if carefully and properly prepared, will answer every purpose for
the growth of Pine-plants of every age and kind. It is necessary that it
should remain a year before applied to use, that it may receive the
advantage of the summer’s sun and winter’s frost; and it need not be
screened or sifted before using, but only well broken with the hands and
spade, as when finely sifted it becomes too compact for the roots of the
plants.”
_General management._ In rearing the young plants, he generally plants
the crowns in the bark till they have struck root; but the suckers he
pots at once, unless they are small and green at bottom, when he treats
them like the crowns. The pots he uses for both crowns and suckers are
five inches diameter, and four inches deep, unless the suckers are very
strong, when he puts them in pots seven inches and a quarter wide, by
six and a half inches deep. The plants are shifted in the March
following into pots nine inches in diameter, by eight inches deep,
“turning each singly out of its present pot, with a ball of earth entire
around its roots, unless any appear unhealthy or any ways defective,
when it is eligible to shake the earth from the roots, and trim off all
the parts that appear not alive. He plunges them in the bark (refreshed
as at each shifting) eighteen inches from plant to plant in the row, and
twenty inches distance row from row.”
Mr. Griffin shifts for the last time in the October of the year
preceding them in which the fruit is expected; the pots he uses are
twelve inches in diameter, and ten inches deep. He plunges them in the
bark-bed, about twenty inches plant from plant, and two feet distance
from row to row. He says, “place the first row eighteen inches from the
kirb, angling them in the rows as you go on.”
It is of some consequence to remark, that Griffin’s practice in not
divesting the plants at any one shifting of their balls of earth,
differs from that of Speechly, Nicol, and most other practitioners,
excepting Baldwin. It appears highly probable, that by not disturbing
the balls of healthy plants, they will produce their fruit both earlier
and of a larger size; for the cutting off the roots must produce a check
in the growth of the plant, and their renewal must occupy its chief
energies for some time, and thus lessen the vigour of the leaves; since
the leaves and roots of all plants assist each other alternately as
occasion requires.
Those who advocate the practice of shaking off the balls of earth, and
cutting off the roots of Pines in the second year’s spring shifting,
say, that though, at first sight, it has an unnatural appearance, yet,
on more minute enquiry, it will be found congenial to nature. In the
first place, they say that they only cut away the lower decaying roots,
and preserve all the others, unless they are bruised by the shaking off
the ball; or injured by disease, or otherwise. In the next place, they
state, that on attentively examining the Pine-plant, it will be found,
that, in its mode of rooting, it may be classed with the strawberry,
vine, and crowfoot, which throw out fresh roots every year, in part
among, but chiefly above, the old ones. This done, the old ones become
torpid and decay, and to cut them clear away, if it could be done in all
plants of this habit, would, it is said, be assisting nature, and
contribute to the growth of the new roots. At the same time, it is to be
observed, that encouraging, in any extraordinary degree, the production
of roots, though it will ultimately increase the vigour of the herb and
fruit, will retard their progress to maturity.
Speechly has the following judicious observations in allusion to those
who recommend always shifting with the balls entire.
“First, It is observable, that the Pine-plant begins to make its roots
at the very bottom of the stem, and as the plant increases in size,
fresh roots are produced from the stem, still higher and higher; and the
bottom roots die in proportion: so that, if a plant in the greatest
vigour be turned out of its pot as soon as the fruit is cut, there will
be found at the bottom a part of the stem, several inches in length,
naked, destitute of roots, and smooth: now, according to the above
method, the whole of the roots which the plant produces being permitted
to remain on the stem to the last, the old roots decay and turn mouldy,
to the great detriment of those afterwards produced.
“Secondly, The first ball which remains with the plant full two years,
by length of time will become hard, cloddy, and exhausted of its
nourishment, and must, therefore, prevent the roots afterwards produced
from growing with that freedom and vigour, which they would do in
fresher and better mould.
“Thirdly, The old ball continually remaining after the frequent
shiftings, it will be too large when put into the fruiting-pot, to admit
of a sufficient quantity of fresh mould to support the plant till its
fruit becomes ripe, which is generally a whole year from the last time
of shifting.”
In giving air and water, Mr. Griffin differs nothing from Nicol; he
waters moderately in winter, and more liberally in the growing season,
from March till October; want of water to keep the plants moist, he
considers one of the reasons of their showing fruit prematurely. He
never waters over the leaves in any stage, nor gives much at the roots
in damp weather.
With respect to temperature, this author differs from most others who
have written on the Pine, but not from many very successful
practitioners. He recommends 60° as the heat proper for the Pine in
every stage, not exceeding five or six degrees over or under. The bottom
heat, which he considers proper, is from 90° to 100°. _Treatise on the
Pine Apple_, p. 60. and 66.
_Insects._ After many trials and experiments, he found the following the
most effectual wash for destroying insects on Pines:--
“To one gallon of soft rain-water, add eight ounces of soft green soap,
one ounce of tobacco, and three table spoonfuls of turpentine; stir and
mix them well together in a watering-pot, and let them stand for a day
or two. When you are going to use this mixture, stir and mix it well
again, then strain it through a thin cloth. If the fruit only is
infested, dash the mixture over the crown and fruit, with a squirt,
until all is fairly wet; and what runs down the stem of the fruit will
kill all the insects that are amongst the bottom of the leaves. When
young plants are infested, take them out of their pots, and shaking all
the earth from the roots, (tying the leaves of the largest plants
together,) and plunge them into the above mixture, keeping every part
covered for the space of five minutes; then take them out, and set them
on a clean place, with their tops declining downwards, for the mixture
to drain out of their centre. When the plants are dry, put them into
smaller pots than before, and plunge them into the bark-bed.”
_Fruit produced._ Mr. Griffin’s object seems to have been to produce
large fruit in the proper season. In the year 1802, when gardener to J.
C. Girardot, Esq. at Kelham, near Nottingham, he cut twenty Queen Pines,
which weighed together eighty-seven pounds seven ounces. In 1803, one
weighing five pounds three ounces. In July, 1804, one of the New
Providence kind, weighing seven pounds two ounces. In August, 1804, one
of the same kind, weighing nine pounds three ounces. And in 1805, he cut
twenty-two Queen Pines, which weighed together one hundred and eighteen
pounds three ounces.
SECT. X.
_Culture of the Pine Apple, by Mr. Thomas Baldwin, Gardener to the
Marquis of Hertford, at Ragley, in Warwickshire, from 1805 to the
present time._
Mr. Baldwin is reputed the first Pine cultivator in England; he has
given some account of his practice in a tract of a few pages, which,
being sold much above the usual price of printed books, never obtained
so much circulation as manuscript copies of it, which were handed about
among the principal Pine-growers near London.
[Illustration: 11]
_Form of House._ The succession, or nursing pits, according to Mr.
Baldwin’s plan (fig. 11.), in which the young plants are to remain both
winter and summer, should be constructed of timber, seven feet wide, and
seven feet three inches high at the back, the front being in the same
proportion. The method of preparing the bed is as follows:--“Sink your
pit (2.) three feet three inches deep, as long as you require, and
sufficiently broad to admit of linings on each side (1, 1.); make a good
drain at the bottom of the pit to keep it dry; then set posts, about the
dimensions of six inches square, in the pit, at convenient distances,
(say about the width of the top lights,) and case it round with one inch
and a half deal wrought boards, above the surface, and below with any
inferior boards or planks. The dimensions of my succession-bed or frame,
are thirty-nine feet long, and seven feet wide; containing two hundred
and seventy-three square feet, which will hold three hundred and fifty
suckers, from the end of September till the seventh of April.”
_Soil._ “From old pasture or meadow ground strip off the turf, and dig
to the depth of six or eight inches, according to the goodness of the
soil; draw the whole together to some convenient place, and mix it with
one-half of good rotten dung; frequently turn it over for twelve months,
and it will be fit for use. This is the only compost dung for young and
old plants.”
_General management._ The general practice of Mr. Baldwin is to take the
suckers from the fruiting plants about the end of September, and lay
them in a warm place for about three days; he then pulls off a few of
their bottom leaves, which makes them ready for planting. “In making
your bed,” he says, “lay three-fourths of new tan at the bottom of the
pit, and lay old tan upon that, to reach within three inches of the top;
on the surface of this sift old tan to the thickness of three inches,
beating it down well with the spade, then plant the suckers in the tan
about four or five inches apart, according to the size of the plants,
placing the tallest in the backside of the frame, and the shortest in
the front. In this situation let them remain till the month of April
following; then take up the plants out of the tan-bed, and divest them
of all their root; and remember that at any future transplanting the
roots must not be taken off. Plant them in pots of five, six, and seven
inches diameter, according to the size of the plants, but before
planting let the pots be filled with the prepared compost already
mentioned. About the middle of June following, when the pots are
beginning to be filled with roots, take out the plants with their balls
whole, and plant them in pots about nine inches in diameter, being
filled with the same rich compost, replanting them into the bed, and let
them remain there till the end of September. Be careful at each
transplanting, while the plants are out of the beds, to have the beds
put into a proper state by the addition of fresh tan, &c.
“When the plants are out of the stoves in the month of September,
prepare the pits in the same manner as directed for the succession-beds,
with three-fourths of new tan at the bottom, &c.; then shift the plants
into pots about fourteen inches diameter at the top, and plant them at
suitable distances for fruiting; plunge the pots at first halfway into
the tan, till the heat diminishes to a safe temperature, then fill up
the interstices between the pots with tan, and as the plants are now
stationed, let them so remain till they are fruited off for the table.
The plants, young and old, had best be near the glass, and small stoves
are to be preferred, because they require less fire. The glass should be
closely puttied, to keep out the cold air, and to retain the warm.
“The fruiting-house during the winter should be kept at about seventy of
Fahrenheit’s scale. It may be left in the evening about seventy-five,
and it will be found in the morning about sixty-five, so that no
attendance during the night will be necessary.
“There should be no water given to the young suckers from September till
April, while they remain in the tan without pots. After they are potted
they require to be watered two or three times a week during the summer,
according as the temperature may be. When they are removed into the
fruiting-house in September, they should be watered cautiously till
towards February, and as the spring advances they will require a large
supply. Never water the plants in the common broad-cast method, over
their heads and leaves.
“Give air in the stoves and frames, both in summer and winter, when the
weather will permit, from the back and ends, but not from the roof.
“_Expeditious cultivation._ The New Providence, Black Antigua, Jamaica,
and Enville, and the other large sorts of Ananas, will require the
cultivation of three years to bring them to perfection, but the Old
Queen and the Ripley’s New Queen may be brought to perfection in fifteen
months. To effect this, it must be observed, that some of the plants
will fruit in February, or the beginning of March, and consequently that
the suckers may be taken off in June, or the beginning of July; make
then a good bed of tan with linings of litter round the outside to keep
in the tan; make the bed to fit a large melon frame; put the suckers
into pots of about nine inches diameter, filled with the compost; plunge
them into the bed prepared in regular order, and throw a mat over them
in hot weather for shade till they have taken root; let them remain till
the end of September, and then shift them into pots of about twelve
inches diameter, and plunge them in the fruiting-house.” He has had fine
crops of Pines raised from these suckers, many of them four pounds each,
from plants only fifteen months old. “This method, in point both of
time and expence, has greatly the advantage of the common plan of
raising Pines in three years by fires, when the fruit at last is
frequently small and ill-flavoured.”
“It is a peculiar recommendation of this plan, that the plants reared in
frames without fire, the first year seldom or never run to fruit;
whereas, on the contrary, when stoves are used first for a nursery for
young plants, and next for succession plants, and lastly, for plants for
the fruiting-house, it is seldom that one-third of the plants come to
the forcing-house, because so many of them have run to fruit; and even
those that stand are necessarily dried and stunted, being subjected to
the attacks of various insects; not to mention the enormous care and
expence attendant upon a three years’ cultivation. The above appears to
me to be the most easy and economical plan to raise Pines; one-third of
the coals are sufficient, and less than one-half of the labour and
buildings required for that purpose.” _Culture of the Ananas_, p. 28.
_Insects._ After, as usual, many fruitless attempts, he at last
discovered the following method: “Take horse-dung from the stable, the
fresher the better, sufficient to make a hot-bed three feet high, to
receive a melon frame three feet deep at the back; put on the frame and
lights immediately, and cover the whole with mats to bring up the heat.
When the bed is at the strongest heat, take some faggots, open them,
and spread the sticks over the surface of the bed on the dung, so as to
keep the plants from being scorched; set the plants or suckers bottom
uppermost on the sticks; shut down your lights quite close, and cover
them over well with double mats, to keep in the steam. Let the plants
remain in this state one hour, then take out the plants and wash them in
cold water previously brought to the side of your bed, set them in a dry
place with their tops downwards to drain, and afterwards plant them.
This treatment is sure to kill every insect. You will observe likewise,
that if your suckers are kept in the frames all the winter, stuck in the
tan without soil or fire, the effluvia from the linings are sure to kill
all the bugs.” _Culture of the Ananas_, p. 33.
_Fruit Produced._ The general crop is produced in the usual season, viz.
from June to September, or October; but some are produced every month in
the year. The large sorts, as the New Providence, &c. require three
years to bring them to perfection, but the Old Queen, and Ripley’s New
Queen, may be brought to perfection in three months; though from the
circumstances requisite to render this practicable, viz. plants fruiting
in February, or the beginning of March, it must be considered more a
matter of accident or curiosity than of any real advantage. It is
evident, at all events, that it can never become general; for certainly
no gardener would desire all his plants to come into fruit in February
or March. Mr. Baldwin grows his fruit to a very considerable size even
when produced in so short a period. “At a meeting of the Horticultural
Society of London, held in October, 1817, T. Baldwin, gardener to the
Marquis of Hertford, at Ragley, presented a Queen Pine of great beauty
and superior flavor. It measured sixteen inches in circumference, seven
inches in length, and weighed four pounds. The plant on which it was
produced was little more than fifteen months old.” _Hort. Tr._ vol. iii.
p. 118.
_Remarks._ The following judicious remarks on Mr. Baldwin’s plan are by
Mr. M’Phail. “Mr. Baldwin’s method,” he says, “appears to differ nothing
in principle from the methods I practised; but we differ a little in
practice, that is, in the manner of the application of the elements
necessary to make the plants grow fast and vigorous, and to produce fine
fruit; and likewise in the mode of disrooting and planting, which
difference I conceive to be of little consequence. He grows his plants
in good earth, enriched with plenty of well-rotted manure. He keeps the
plants in a strong heat, and gives their roots plenty of water. He sets
his fruiting plants in a bed of tan in the month of September, and there
it appears they are stationed till the fruit be ripened the following
summer. Now, I think, a bed made up in September, is not able to retain
a sufficient heat for the growth of the Pine Apple plant for so long a
period of time.
“Once, by way of experiment, in a small hot-house, I made up a bed in
the pit of it in the month of October, and laid upon the surface of the
bed one foot thick of good earth, and turned out of their pots fine Pine
Apple plants, intended to fruit the succeeding year, and I set the
plants into the earth on the surface of the bed with the balls of earth
about their roots undisturbed. In this situation they grew exceedingly
well, and shewed fruit very strong, but the heat in the bed under them
became too faint in the month of April: and with all the atmospherical
heat that I could give them, the fruit did not ripen well for want of
heat to the roots of the plants; and I was not able to contrive any
method to recruit it, which required to be done in the month of March or
April.
“According to the foregoing account, this celebrated and experienced
gardener plants the suckers of the Pine Apple in the latter end of
September, and he divests them of all their roots in the month of April.
In this method of process I must differ from him, because the young
plants have only six months (being the slowest growing months of the
year) to make roots, and then these roots are entirely cut off, which
considerably retards the plants in their growth. And, according to his
method, and mine also, the queen and some other sorts of the Pine, ripen
their fruit in a shorter period of time than two years after planting.
He says, he never waters his Pine plants in the broad-cast way over
their heads and leaves. In this I also differ with him, for I think,
giving the plants water all over their leaves occasionally, especially
in hot weather, is of service to them, and which indeed is only
imitating nature.
“I say not that Pine Apple plants will not do well without giving them
water all over their leaves, for if hot-houses be kept in a good state
of temperature for the growth of the Pine Apple, the great evaporation
of the tan-bed, and of the moist earth about the roots of the plants,
may supply the leaves sufficiently with water, especially in houses
managed in the way this real practical gardener says he manages his Pine
plants; that is, his hot-houses are very close, and he admits no air at
the roof, so that the moist air which ascends up is thrown back among
the plants. I would here remark, that when Pine Apple plants are watered
all over their leaves when in fruit, the water should not be suffered to
stand long in the heart of the crowns on the fruit, which it will seldom
do if the heat in the house be good, but with a little care the plants
may be watered all over their leaves, without letting it fall on the
fruit, or the crowns of them.
“He recommends that beds for the culture of the Pine Apple be built of
wood: excepting it be oak, which is dear, other sorts of timber will not
last long in such a situation; and therefore, for this and other
reasons, (given in Section VII. page 67), I think beds built of brick,
in a similar way to the one I invented, are preferable, and in the end
cheaper than those of wood.
“With regard to the method which this gardener useth to destroy insects
on Pine Apple plants, it is a troublesome operation, and can be
practised only on young plants, and indeed, according to his own
account, insects on the Pine Apple may be destroyed in the course of
their culture, which coincides exactly with the methods I used and
recommend to be carried into practice by those who have the management
of Pine Apple plants, and are troubled with insects. I have no doubt but
his method of laying young plants in a hot-bed of rank dung, will
effectually destroy the insects, though I think, however, they had best
remain in the bed longer than one hour; but perhaps remaining even an
hour, or a longer time, in such a dreadful situation, where I conceive
no animal could long exist, might hurt the plants, if not destroy them.
But let it be remembered, that if Pine plants be perfectly free of
insects, if they are put into a hot-house where the scale or the bug
insects are in the tan, or in any part of the house, the insects will
find their way to creep to the Pines and breed upon them; for these
insects are natural to the plant.”
SECT. XI.
_Culture of the Pine Apple as given in Abercrombie’s Practical
Gardener, edited by Mr. James Mean, head gardener to Sir Abraham
Hume, Bart. at Wormleybury, in Hertfordshire._
The culture of the Pine Apple was given by John Abercrombie, in his
“Every man his own Gardener,” when that work was originally published
in 1780; but we prefer taking it from the work above cited, as giving
the modern practice. It is proper to observe, however, that the
directions in the “Practical Gardener” are much less to be depended on
than those given by M’Phail and Baldwin; for as the first of these
authors observes, in his preface to the Gardener’s Remembrancer, the
Practical Gardener has been evidently dressed up, and in some parts
rather affectedly, by some man who knew little of the practice of
gardening. As to what Mr. Mean may have done in revising the book, it is
more certain that he has not done enough, than that he has done any
thing, for there are many passages, besides those pointed out by
M’Phail, that appear quite ridiculous as coming from a practical
gardener. Notwithstanding these faults, however, which would have
escaped unnoticed in a less valuable book, “The Practical Gardener” is
the best book of its kind extant.
_Form of House._ “The fruiting-house,” he says, “need not be higher than
five feet in front, and eight feet six inches at the back wall; or,
whatever be the breadth of the house, the difference between the height
in front and in rear, need not exceed one-third of the breadth.” By this
means the chamber of air to be heated will be materially reduced. To
give a full command over the temperature of this air, let the lappings
of the panes of glass be closed with putty.
The roof of the succession-house may be four or six inches lower than
that of the fruiting-house; and the roof of the nursing-pit may be a
foot lower than that of the fruiting-house.
_Soil._ The soil recommended is nearly the same as that used by Nicol.
It consists of:--“1. Vegetable mould; 2. The top-spit earth from an
upland pasture, loamy, friable, and well reduced; 3. Hard-fed dung,
rotted and mellowed by at least a year’s preparation; 4. Small, pearly
river-gravel; 5. White sea-sand; 6. Shell-marl.
“If no vegetable mould has been provided, light rich earth, from a
fallowed part of the kitchen garden, may be substituted: there is no
difference of any account between one and the other, further than this:
The vegetable mould is sure to be virgin earth, from which no aliment
has been extracted; the mould from the kitchen garden, however you may
trench, and rest, and enrich it, cannot but contain many particles which
have given out their fertilizing qualities to previous crops. Dung
perfectly decomposed comes to the same thing as vegetable mould;
therefore that one of them which is most attainable, or best prepared,
may fitly serve instead of the other.
“Of the first three take equal quantities; making three-fourths of the
intended compost. Constitute the remaining fourth thus: Let
river-gravel, sea-sand, and shell-marl, furnish each a twelfth part. The
small gravel is to afford something for the roots to lay hold of; the
sea-sand, to promote lightness and dryness; the shell-marl, the better
to support the growth of fibres and integuments and parts not pulpy.
Mix with the whole a fortieth part soot, to offend and repel worms.
Incorporate the ingredients fully; and turn the heap two or three times
before using it.”
_General management._ “As soon as either crowns or suckers are detached
from the parent plant, directions are given to twist off some of the
leaves about the base; the vacancy, thus made, at the bottom of the
stem, is to favour the emission of roots. Pare the stump smooth; then
lay the intended plants on a shelf in a shaded part of the stove, or of
the green-house, or of any dry apartment. Let crowns and fruit off-sets
lie till the part that adhered to the fruit is perfectly healed; and
root-suckers, in the same manner, till the part which was united to the
old stock is become dry and firm. They will be fit to plant in five or
six days. As to the prolonged period for which they may remain out of
culture: Pine-plants have been kept six months without mould, in a
moderately warm dry state, and the only injury has been loss of time.
Crowns or suckers coming off before Michaelmas should be planted without
any unnecessary delay, to get established before, the winter. When
late-fruiting plants do not afford off-sets till after Michaelmas, it is
best to keep them in a dormant state during the months least favourable
to artificial culture: therefore, as you obtain these late off-sets,
hang them up in the house, not too near the flues, to rest till March.”
_Insects._ Mr. Nicol’s method, and also that by M’Phail, are both quoted
with approbation. The following wash is directed to be applied
exclusively to the building, and by no means to the plants. “At the
annual cleansing of the house, if insects are supposed to breed in the
building, introduce the wash with a brush into the cracks and joints of
the wood-work, and the crevices of the wall.
_Recipe for the Wash._ “Of sulphur vivum take 2 oz. soft soap, 4 oz.
Make these into a lather, mixed with a gallon of water that has been
poured in a boiling state upon a pound of mercury. The mercury will
last, to medicate fresh quantities of water, almost perpetually.”
_Fruit produced._ To ripen eminently large fruit, he directs the removal
or destruction of suckers; to retard the progress of fruit that have
appeared too early, he shifts in Nicol’s manner; and when fruit is
ripening too fast, or too many advancing to a ripe state together, he
retards a part of the plants by setting them into a dry airy place,
affording both shade and shelter. “Give no water as long as you wish to
suspend their progress. For the same purpose, others may be set out
green; but whilst the excitement of these is lowered, they must be kept
in a growing state.” _Practical Gardener_, 643.
SECT. XII.
_Culture of the Pine Apple by Mr. James Andrews, commercial
gardener, Vauxhall._
Mr. Andrews has been considered the best grower of Pines in the
neighbourhood of London for many years; his principal object is to grow
fruit for the market; but the demand for the plants by private
gardeners, and others, has generally been so great, that he can seldom
keep the plants till the last stage of their growth.
_Form of House._ Both pits and larger houses are used; but there is
nothing particular in the form of either. Mr. Andrews seldom erects new
work, but generally purchases old hot-houses and sashes at the sales of
decayed gentlemen, or bankrupt tradesmen. In this respect he follows the
practice of Mr. Lee of Hammersmith, and both have generally a stock of
old sashes and rafters on hand ready to put up when wanted. But though
the form of Mr. Andrews’ houses may be said to be in a great degree
matter of accident, yet the arrangement of the flues within is his own.
These generally enter at the front corner of one end, pass to the
opposite end, return along the back wall, where they sometimes serve as
a path, and at other times are placed at one side of the path,
occasionally a return is made, and the chimney-top is formed in the back
wall, at the opposite end to that in which the fire enters; when this is
not the case, the smoke passes off by the back wall at the same end.
The width of the pit depends on the room left by the flue; to increase
it no path is formed at the ends or in front, and that along the back
wall does not exceed two feet in width. The depth of the pits is from
two feet and a half to three feet deep, and their distance from the
glass from four to six feet. Vines are trained up the rafters and over
the back path. The sashes in front open in various ways, and air is
given by them, and by the sliding sashes of the roof. On the whole, Mr.
Andrews’ best houses greatly resemble those of Mr. Gunter, to be
described in the following section.
In the pits there is nothing uncommon in the construction; they are, in
general, sunk deep in the ground, which being dry at bottom, is a great
saving of heat. In some the tan is enclosed by brick walls, in others by
a frame of wood; some are without flues, but the greater number have a
flue in front, or a steam tube, or both.
In the year 1817, Mr. Andrews tried the effect of steam, and was so much
satisfied with it, that in the following year, he put up an extensive
apparatus in the centre of his forcing department, from which
branch-pipes proceed in all directions, and heat the air in the whole of
his hot-houses, pits, and frames.
_Soil._ As near as possible that of Baldwin’s, or M’Phail’s;--a rich
loam, rendered sufficiently free by coarse sand, to admit the ready
passage of the water.
_General management._ The crowns and suckers, when they are detached at
irregular seasons, as in winter, or very early in spring, are planted in
any spare corner of the bark bed, till a number is collected, when they
are planted in pots, according to their sizes, and plunged in common
hot-beds, or pits. Mr. Andrews has no particular months for shifting, no
fixed sizes of pots, and no predetermined manipulation as to shaking the
plants out of their balls, or otherwise. He is present at every
operation himself, and acts as the case requires. He encourages forward
plants, by giving them larger pots than the rest; sometimes he looks
over the nursing-pits, and selects the most vigorous plants, shifts
them, and puts them into a stronger heat, leaving the others for some
weeks longer: the balls of earth he does not disturb, if they do not
appear hard, the roots injured, or the plant enfeebled. Sometimes he
takes off the bottom of the ball, and the bottom roots, paring off any
part of the stump of the plant which may appear decaying; at other
times, he contents himself with removing the surface-mould, and
top-dressing. In general, he places the plants somewhat deeper in the
pots at each shifting.
The plants which he removes to the fruiting-houses are shifted, for the
last time, about nine months before the fruit is expected; their pots
are generally twelve or fourteen inches in diameter; but not of the
usual proportion in depth, to lessen the risk of overheating from the
tan. The depth is generally the same as the width. The pots are plunged
up to their rims, unless the heat be very violent, and are liberally
supplied with heat, air, and water. Mr. Andrews does not fear 90° or
100° degrees of heat in the bark bed, even when the air of the house by
fire-heat is not above 60° or 65°. In summer, he allows the thermometer
to rise to 90° or a 100° before he gives air, and he often leaves some
at the top-lights all night.
_Insects._ On this subject nothing new can be gathered from the practice
of Mr. Andrews, for he has never had any worth destroying by a regular
process. His practice affords an ample proof that regimen and
cleanliness will never allow insects to increase to an injurious degree.
_Fruit produced._ We have already noticed the circumstance of Mr.
Andrews’ plants being often sold before they arrive at the stage for
fruiting. His stock, however, has been lately greatly increased by the
erection of additional houses, and the easy mode of heating them from
the steam apparatus; he now, therefore, sends a number to market, and
chiefly in the winter season, and early in spring, when the price is
highest. Their fruit weigh from one to four pounds, and are almost
exclusively of the Queen Pine.
SECT. XIII.
_Culture of the Pine Apple, as practised by Mr. Gunter, at
Earlscourt, near Kensington; Mr. Grange, at Kingsland; and Mr.
Wilmot, of Isleworth._
The family of Mr. Gunter have long possessed the very extensive gardens
of Earlscourt, and grown in them kitchen vegetables, excellent hardy
fruits, and melons, for the London market; but it is only within the
last seven years that they have commenced the culture of the Pine Apple
for the same purpose. This Mr. R. Gunter has done on the most liberal
and extensive scale, and with great and merited success.
_Form of House._ Like Mr. Andrews, Mr. Gunter uses both pits and large
houses; in the pits he both nurses the plants, and fruits them, and in
the large houses he fruits the Pine Apple, and produces very early
grapes at the same time.
[Illustration: 12]
The large houses (fig. 12.) are, in what may be called the usual form;
they differ from M’Phail’s, and the houses built by Speechly, and
originally by Nicol, in not having a path in front; and from those of
Mr. Aiton, erected in the royal gardens at Kensington, in the pit being
farther from the glass. They are about fourteen feet wide inside
measure; the pit is ten feet three inches wide, three feet deep, three
and a half feet from the glass in front (_a_), and about six feet and a
half behind (_b_). The back path (_c_) is a border regularly dug and
manured, to encourage the roots of the vines, which pass under the bark
bed to the front border. Each house is forty feet long, and has a flue
proceeding from the back wall to the front, and along the front to the
opposite end, returning to the back wall in the usual manner. As the
houses are all heated by steam, however, these flues are erected merely
by way of security, in case of any accident happening to the boiler or
the pipes (_d_, _e_), and are therefore seldom used. Besides the vines
trained over the back path, there are others which are led up the
rafters; both root into excellent soil, and their shoots are withdrawn
in autumn to give them three months’ rest in the open air. Those at the
back wall are withdrawn through an opening in the angle of the upper
sash; those in front through an angle of the front sash.
The pits are sunk in the ground to the sill of the sashes in front, and
within eighteen inches, or two feet of the sill behind. In all of them,
the tan is inclosed by brick walls; they are generally about seven feet
wide within walls, but some are as wide as fourteen feet, with the front
wall six inches above ground, and the back wall two feet ten inches. The
sashes in these broad pits are in two lengths, as in hot-house roofs;
none of them have any flues, being all heated together, with the
hot-houses, and various other descriptions of pits, by an extensive
steam apparatus. This apparatus was erected by Mr. Mainwaring, of
Blackfriars, and is one of the most complete of its kind, excepting in
the circumstance of the steam-pipes having what are technically called
_spigott_ and _faucet_ joints, which, it is alleged, are more apt, by
their contraction and expansion, to allow the escape of the steam than
the _flanched_ joints. The advantage of the former mode of jointing is,
that the steam-tube contracts and expands in parts; and, of course, that
this contraction and expansion must be very trifling on every part;
whereas, when iron tubes are joined by flanches, they become, in effect,
one tube; and the contraction, or expansion, takes place throughout
their whole length.
_Soil._ Good garden earth, enriched with well-rotted hot-bed dung; the
soil of the open garden at Earlscourt, is a rich black loam, and seems
to suit the Pine Apple as well as virgin earth brought from a distance.
_General management._ Much the same as that of Mr. Andrews. Mr. Gunter
tried to substitute the heat of steam for that of tan, as a bottom heat,
but did not succeed. He formed a chamber, or vacuity of about six
inches in depth, and covered it with perforated oak-plank; on this he
placed the earth, in which, in some cases, he turned the plants out of
the pots; and, in others, plunged the pots in the earth, or in rotten
tan. The steam was admitted to fill the chamber; the quantity of heat
imparted to the earth was very great, but, contrary to his expectation,
no vapour ascended into the mould, which became excessively dry and
husky; nor was he able, by frequent waterings, to keep it in a state fit
for vegetation; the roots of the plants in it, in spite of every
precaution, become shrivelled and dry.
_Insects._ None of any consequence have yet appeared at Earlscourt, nor
is it likely they will ever become numerous there, while steam is used.
Were they to become ever so abundant, keeping the air of the house
filled with steam for two or three days together, would effectually
destroy them.
_Fruit produced._ The object of every commercial gardener is to have
some fruit ripening in every month of the year, but especially in
winter, when the price is high. In summer great numbers are imported, or
sent in from the hired-out gardens of country gentlemen, which greatly
reduces the market value below the real value, or actual cost of
production.
The Pine Apple is extensively cultivated by Mr. Grange, of Kingsland,
and Mr. Wilmot, of Isleworth, in nearly the same manner as by Mr.
Andrews and Mr. Gunter. Those of Mr. Wilmot’s are, at present, in the
most luxuriant and prosperous state; Mr. Grange’s are also in a very
respectable condition. In both, the plants are grown and fruited in
pits, and larger houses, which resemble those of Earlscourt (fig. 12.)
as nearly as possible; in both, also, the heat is communicated by steam.
SECT. XIV.
_Culture of the Pine Apple, by Mr. Isaac Oldacre, gardener to Lady
Banks, at Spring-grove, Middlesex._
Mr. Oldacre is an excellent kitchen-gardener, and an ingenious and
curious man. He was several years head-gardener at one of the Emperor of
Russia’s residences near Petersburg, and has the merit of having
introduced from that country, the German mode of rearing mushrooms.
Having returned to this country about the year 1813, for his health, he
some years afterwards became gardener to Sir Joseph Banks, in whose
gardens he has cultivated the Pine Apple with moderately good success,
and we have introduced this Section on purpose to notice some
peculiarities of treatment which he adopts, and some strange opinions
which he holds, or lately held.
_Form of House._ The plants are brought forward in dung, or tan-frames,
or hot-beds, and also in flued-pits; but generally fruited in houses
combining the culture of the Vine and the Pine. Mr. Oldacre has two of
these houses, one is built of timber, in the usual way, (fig. 13.) and
the other is of the same form, but roofed with copper sashes. A full
command over the air of these houses is obtained by the returns made by
the flue in the back path (_a_); the curb of the pit is about three feet
from the glass in front (_b_); and about five feet from it behind (_c_);
vines are trained up the rafters, but none are grown in the back path
(_e_), which is paved.
[Illustration: 13]
In addition to the flues, steam is also employed as a medium of
communicating heat. But the apparatus was erected chiefly as matter of
patriotism, when steam first came in vogue, and is on a very imperfect
plan, and of little real use. The boilers are placed over the furnaces,
and the same fire which heats the water of the boiler, passes along the
flue; the steam tube of the boiler is laid on the top of the flue, and
extends no farther than it extends. It is evident, therefore, that
scarcely any advantage can result from the use of the boiler, unless it
be that the heat is thus sent more effectually to the opposite end of
the house to that at which the fire enters, or that the vapour is very
readily admitted from the steam-pipe to fill the air of the house. None
of these advantages, however, will compensate the expense of the
apparatus; the first is hardly wanted where houses are placed in a
connected range, as the two outside ends of the houses are kept warm by
the flues entering there; and in the other houses a warm end is placed
against a cold one.
_Soil._ At first, Mr. Oldacre used good sound loam and dung, with a
little sand, when he found it necessary; but he has for the last four
years grown his fruiting plants chiefly in powdered bones, in which he
thinks they thrive better, and produce more highly-flavoured fruit. We
have not, however, been able to discover any thing in the appearance of
either fruit or plants, to lead us to suppose that powdered bones are
more congenial to the Pine plant than good loam and dung; his plants are
certainly not equal to Mr. Baldwin’s, nor superior to those grown by Mr.
Andrews, or Mr. Aiton. We, therefore, consider their thriving in this
compost a proof more of the hardy nature of the Pine, than of any thing
else; we have no doubt it would grow in powdered granite, or coal, or
almost any powder, not even excepting gunpowder, if a due proportion of
well-rotted manure were added, and water, heat, light, and air, duly
supplied.
_General management._ In this, Mr. Oldacre has nothing particular; he is
careful not to let the temperature of either frames or pits, containing
Pine plants fall under 60° in winter, but is not afraid of a heat of 90°
or 100° in summer. After shifting, and occasionally during very hot
weather, he shades the plants in the frames and succession-pits, well
knowing that the want of abundant and extended roots must lessen that
supply of moisture essential to the vigour of plants, during high
sunshine, when evaporation is so powerful. His fruiting-plants he keeps
in large pots, rather broad than deep, and so liberally supplies them
with water, that evaporation and transpiration go on even in the hottest
sun-shine, without injuring the plants. He waters often with liquid
manure, generally the drainings of dunghills; frequently steams the
house by watering the paths and flues when the steam apparatus is not at
work; sometimes he waters the plants over the top; and at all times he
keeps up a good bottom heat.
It may be further noticed, that in the hottest weather, from June to
September, he permits the temperature of the atmosphere of the house to
rise to upwards of 100 degrees during the day, but leaves sufficient
number of sashes open during the night, to lower the heat of the air
within very nearly to that of the air without. This is perfectly natural
treatment, consistent with what takes place in those countries where the
Pine Apple is grown in the open air, and consonant with the practice of
Mr. Knight.
_Insects._ These he keeps off by regimen, watering with clear water, and
filling the house with steam. In short, Mr. Oldacre’s opinions and
practices, as far as circumstances have required practice, are in
perfect unison with Mr. M’Phail’s: and it is not, perhaps, too much to
assert, that experience will bring every gardener to the same result.
_Fruit produced._ Mr. Oldacre considers that the fruit he produces in
the copper-roofed house is never so high-flavoured as that grown in the
other with a timber roof, though the treatment be in all other respects
the same. This certainly appears a very singular circumstance, and not
to be accounted for in the present state of human knowledge. The bars of
iron, or copper sashes, might possibly (but not probably) make some
difference in the electrical state of the air of the house, but this is
the utmost degree of variation we can conceive a metallic roof capable
of making. If it admits more light, or abstracts more heat, these are
effects easily counteracted, if desired, and must have been so, if they
existed in any degree, as Mr. Oldacre asserts the culture in both houses
was exactly alike.
On the whole, we must suspend our opinion on this subject; or rather
conclude that it is more probable, Mr. Oldacre is mistaken in thinking
the culture he gives to the plants in both houses the same, than that
the single circumstance of a metallic roof on one of them, should make
such difference in its produce. This report, which had been made current
at the Horticultural Society, excited the attention of Sir Thomas
Baring, who, having an extensive range of metallic hot-houses, at East
Stratton Park, his seat in Hampshire, soon afterwards sent a very fine
Pine Apple to the Society, to be tasted at one of their meetings. At
this meeting we were present, but though we tasted of this Pine Apple,
yet not having sufficient opportunity of comparing it with any other, we
could not discern any difference. When a great many fruits are tasted in
rapid succession, and of each such small portions as hardly to afford
its real taste, the impression on the palate is evanescent; or at any
rate, it is not, perhaps, too much to say, that under such
circumstances, it is difficult to form a solid judgment.
SECT. XV.
_Culture of the Pine Apple, by William Townsend Aiton, Esq.,
gardener to the King, at Kew and Kensington._
It is only within the last four years, that the Pine culture, in the
royal gardens, has been above mediocrity; before 1817, and as far back
as we have had an opportunity of observing, they were in a very poor
state, those at Kew more particularly. At present, the Pines in both the
gardens mentioned, are equal to any within ten miles of London; and,
with the exception of the New Providence, Black Antigua, and some other
sorts, are not surpassed, even by those of Mr. Baldwin. The culture
pursued in the royal gardens, is as simple as it is successful; and as
economical as if the fruit were grown for the market by a commercial
gardener. The whole does the highest credit to Mr. Aiton, and those whom
he employs.
[Illustration: 14]
_Form of House._ The plants are struck, and brought forward in pits, or
frames, (fig. 14.) constructed exactly in Mr. Baldwin’s manner, with
this difference, that the sub-soil at Kensington being moist, they are
raised on a small platform (_a_..._b_) above the surface, instead of
being sunk under it, as Baldwin’s are. They have, also, the addition of
a gutter in front (_c_), which, though at first sight it may appear
trifling, yet, in practice, is of very material consequence, by keeping
the lining dry, and not chilling and interrupting the heat in the very
part where it should penetrate to the interior of the pit.
[Illustration: 15]
Occasionally some plants are fruited in these pits, especially at Kew,
but, in general, they are removed to a low house (fig. 15.) of a most
economical and judicious construction, and calculated both for the
growth of Pines and Vines. This house is fifteen feet wide within walls;
the pit (_a_), is nine feet wide; the back path (_b_), forms a border
for the roots of the Vines; the pit is surrounded by a flue (_c_, _d_);
the curb, or plate is two feet three inches from the glass in front
(_e_), and four feet eight inches from it behind (_f_); the Vines are
planted in the back border (_b_), and trained under the roof directly
over it and over the back flue; and others are planted in the front
border (_g_); and trained up the rafters.
The length of the houses in the royal gardens at Kensington, varies from
thirty-three to fifty feet (fig. 16.): each house has two furnaces, one
for constant use, and another for giving an extra supply of heat in
very severe weather. The first (_a_), proceeds directly to the front
corner (_b_), thence along the front to the opposite end (_c_), then
along the back of the pit (_d_, _e_), passing under the back path, or
border, and terminating in a chimney (_f_) beside the furnace.
[Illustration: 16]
The other furnace is placed at the opposite end of the house (_g_); has
a short flue under the back path, which conducts it to the back course
of the principal flue (at _d_), which it joins, and the smoke of the two
fires moves in the same tunnel, (from _d_ to _e_) and passes out by the
same chimney. When this second furnace is not in use, its connection
with the flue of the first is cut off by a damper at the point of
junction (_d_). A very small fire made in this furnace in severe
weather, not only adds to the heat of the house by its own power, but by
increasing the draught, or rate of burning, of the fire in the other
furnace.
[Illustration: 17]
In addition to the fire heat, a steam apparatus has been lately erected,
and the tubes conducted round the houses on the tops of the flues (fig.
15. _d_, _e_); this is found to give a great command of heat, and also
to admit of filling the house with vapour at pleasure. The height of the
house from the ground to the top of the back wall, is only nine feet
(fig. 17.); the rafters of the roof are placed about four feet apart,
centre from centre; or about twenty-four sashes are given to every
hundred feet; the front sashes (_a_), are only eighteen inches high, and
slide past each other; the middle end sash (_b_), also slides; the sill
of the door (_c_), and the back path, or border, are on a level with the
outer surface of the ground, to admit the easy wheeling in of tan, &c.;
the front border (_d_), is raised considerably above it, on account of
the wet bottom; the back sheds are low and neat, and the furnaces sunk
three feet below the surface (fig. 16, _h_ _h_) to give them a better
draught; and this also serves to drain the back border.
The houses are placed in pairs, the furnaces for general use at the
extreme ends of the range, and the auxiliary ones in the middle, where
the steam-boiler is also placed, but worked by a fire apart.
On the whole, no plan of Pine-stove that has yet appeared, is more
simple, neat, economical, and complete than this; the only fault we have
to them, is, that owing to the great thickness of wood employed on the
bars of the sashes, they are rather dark and gloomy within; but this
might easily be remedied by the substitution of light iron rafters, with
wooden framed sashes sliding in them, but the bars of the sashes formed
of iron. It is true, gloomy as these houses are, the Pines thrive in
them as well as can be wished, but probably by having more light, they
might thrive, so as to surpass all expectation.
_Soil._ Good yellow loam, with a third of rotten dung, and some road
grit to serve as sand. This is well mixed together, and passed through a
wide screen, and the pots are well drained with three or four pieces of
potsherd.
_General management._ This differs in little or nothing from that of Mr.
Andrews; and only from that of Mr. Baldwin in the crowns and suckers
being struck in pots, instead of the bark, as is Mr. Baldwin’s practice.
Supposing the crowns and suckers potted in September, they are not
disturbed till the following March; such as are very forward, are
shifted at once into large pots, and will show fruit in the course of
that autumn, or within the year, and ripen their fruit in November or
December, very desirable periods for the royal table, equally
expeditious, as in Mr. Baldwin’s mode, and more so than in Cuba or
Jamaica. The plants which are in a less forward state are disrooted
entirely, put into pots according to their sizes, nursed all the summer
in the pits, and moved to the larger houses in autumn, where they show
fruit at various periods, during the winter, and in the following
season; thus ripening their fruit at different periods, from eighteen
months to two and a half years, from the time they were taken from the
parent plants. The pots in which these plants are fruited, seldom exceed
twelve inches in diameter.
_Insects._ Various modes of getting rid of these was attempted both at
Kew and Kensington; that which was finally successful was steeping for
two or three hours in strong tobacco-water, as recommended by Miller;
then washing in pure water two or three times--drying, planting,
shading, and applying a brisk bottom heat, a moist atmosphere, and
giving a little air. This recovered the plants, and future regimen
continued them in the vigorous state of health in which they now are.
_Fruit produced._ The object, and it is most successfully attained, is
to have handsome Pines on the royal table every day in the year; they
cannot, of course, be very high-flavoured in the winter and spring
months; but appearance, in some cases, is every thing--they look well,
the golden hue of the Apple, mimic grandeur of the crown, and the
presence of such a rare fruit at an uncommon season, accords well with
the pomp and splendour of a royal table. As to flavor, indeed, by the
time the desert appears on great occasions, the palate is generally
seasoned with wine, and a few drops of alcohol are already transferred
to the ventricles of the brain; when that is the case, every fruit has
just what flavor it ought to have; for the fine phrensy of a warmed
imagination knows no degree of merit but the superlative.
CHAP. V.
IMPROVEMENTS RECENTLY ATTEMPTED IN THE CULTURE OF THE PINE APPLE.
The Pine Apple has never been so generally cultivated in this country as
it might have been, from an idea that its culture is attended with more
difficulty and expense than that of all other fruits; and, also, from
the circumstance of the greater number of gardeners being ignorant of
its cultivation. With respect to the difficulty of cultivating this
fruit, every gardener, who knows any thing about it, knows it is much
easier grown and fruited than the cucumber early in spring, or the melon
at any period of the year. In short, with the single difference of
requiring an artificial temperature, it is as easy, or easier to grow
than a common cabbage:--it is not nearly so liable to insects as that
plant is in dry seasons; and of two plantations, the one of crowns or
suckers of Pines, and the other of seedling cabbages, we may venture to
assert, that more of the former will perfect their fruit than those of
the latter will perfect their loaf or head.
With respect to the expense of cultivating the Pine Apple, it must be
acknowledged that it is greater than that required to cultivate any
other fruit; from the length of time requisite to bring it to
perfection; the keeping up a high temperature during the winter months,
and the unremitting attention required throughout the year. Another
source of expense, and in some cases of difficulty, has been the
procuring of tan, or other materials, to supply a bottom heat; and the
last one that may be mentioned is, that gardeners who undertake to
cultivate the Pine Apple, generally are paid a higher remuneration than
those who confine themselves to the other fruits.
These circumstances have lately induced some amateurs, and also some
practical gardeners, to devise means of simplifying the culture of the
Pine Apple, and lessening the expenses attending it. The principal
amateurs are T. A. Knight, Esq. the President of the Horticultural
Society, and Peter Marsland, Esq. of Woodbank, near Stockport; the
principal practical gardeners are Mr. Gunter, of Earlscourt, Mr. Hay, a
Horticultural architect in Edinburgh, and some others, who have made
less extensive trials.
SECT. I.
_Of the improvements in the culture of the Pine Apple, proposed by
T. A. Knight, Esq. F.R.S. P.H.S., of Downton-Castle, Herefordshire._
Mr. Knight’s improvements consist chiefly in the disuse of bottom heat,
and in the application of a much higher temperature during sunshine at
all seasons, but especially in the summer season, and a much lower
temperature during winter, and during the night, at all times, than is
generally adopted by gardeners.
Mr. Knight had no experience in the culture of the Pine Apple till the
year 1819. In that year, he informs us (in a paper published in the
third volume of the Horticultural Transactions) that he tried the effect
of a very high temperature during the day, in bright weather, and of
comparatively low temperature during the night, and in cloudy weather. A
fire of sufficient power only to preserve the house in a temperature of
about 70° during summer, was employed; but no air was given, nor its
escape facilitated, till the thermometer, perfectly shaded, indicated a
temperature of 95°, and then only two of the upper lights, one at each
end, were let down about four inches. The heat of the house was,
consequently, sometimes raised to 110°, during the middle of bright
days, and it generally varied in such days from 90° to 105°, declining
during the evening to about 80°, and to 70° in the night. Late in the
evening of every bright and hot day, the plants were copiously sprinkled
with water, nearly of the temperature of the external air. The melon,
water-melon, Guernsey lily, fig-tree, nectarine, orange and lemon,
mango, Avocado-pear, Mammee-tree, and several other plants, part of them
natives of temperate climates, grew in this hot-house so managed
“through the whole summer, without any one of them being etiolated, or
any way injured, by the very high temperature to which they were
occasionally subjected; and from these and other facts,” Mr. Knight
continues, “which have come within my observation, I think myself
justified in inferring, that in almost all cases in which the object of
the cultivator is to promote the rapid and vigorous growth of his
plants, very high temperature, provided it be accompanied by bright
sunshine, may be employed with great advantage; but it is necessary that
the glass of his house should be of good quality, and that his plants be
placed near it, and be abundantly supplied with sand and water.” In the
above case liquid-manure was employed.
It is added, “My house contains a few Pine Apple plants, in the
treatment of which I have deviated somewhat widely from the common
practice; and I think with the best effects, for their growth has been
exceedingly rapid, and a great many gardeners, who have come to see
them, have unanimously pronounced them more perfect than any which they
had previously seen. But many of the gardeners think that my mode of
management will not succeed in winter, and that my plants will become
unhealthy, if they do not perish in that season; and as some of them
have had much experience, and I very little, I wish, at present, to
decline saying more relative to the culture of that plant.” _Hort.
Trans._ iii. 465.
The above information, the result of Mr. Knight’s experiments in 1819,
was communicated to the Horticultural Society in the autumn of that
year. On the 7th of March following, a paper was read to the Society on
the same plants, of which the following is a transcript:
Of those gardeners who doubted whether the plants would stand the
winter, it is stated, “The same gardeners have since frequently visited
my hot-house, and they have unanimously pronounced my plants more
healthy and vigorous than any they had previously seen: and they are
all, I have good reason to believe, zealous converts to my mode of
culture.
“I had long been much dissatisfied with the manner in which the Pine
Apple plant is usually treated, and very much disposed to believe the
bark-bed, as Mr. Kent has stated, (_Hort. Trans._ iii. 288.) ‘worse than
useless,’ subsequent to the emission of roots by the crowns or suckers.
I therefore resolved to make a few experiments upon the culture of that
plant; but as I had not at that period, (the beginning of October,) any
hot-house, I deferred obtaining plants till the following spring. My
hot-house was not completed till the second week in June (1819,) at
which period I began my experiment upon _nine_ plants, which had been
but very ill preserved through the preceding winter by the gardener of
one of my friends, with very inadequate means, and in a very
inhospitable climate. These, at this period, were not larger plants than
some which I have subsequently raised from small crowns, (three having
been afforded by one fruit,) planted in the middle of August, were in
the end of December last; but they are now beginning to blossom, and in
the opinion of every gardener who has seen them, promise fruit of great
size and perfection. They are all of the variety known by the name of
Ripley’s Queen Pine.
“Upon the introduction of my plants into the hot-house, the mode of
management, which it is the object of the present communication to
describe, commenced. They were put into pots of somewhat more than a
foot in diameter, in a compost made of thin, green turf, recently taken
from a river-side, chopped very small, and pressed closely, whilst wet,
into the pots; a circular piece of the same material, of about an inch
in thickness, having been inverted, unbroken, to occupy the bottom of
each pot. This substance, so applied, I have always found to afford the
most efficient means for draining off superfluous water, and
subsequently of facilitating the removal of a plant from one pot to
another, without loss of roots. The surface of the reduced turf was
covered with a layer of vegetable mould obtained from decayed leaves,
and of sandy-loam, to prevent the growth of the grass-roots. The pots
were then placed to stand upon brick-piers, near the glass; and the
piers being formed of loose bricks (without mortar), were capable of
being reduced as the height of the plants increased. The temperature of
the house was generally raised in hot and bright days, chiefly by
confined solar heat, from 95° to 105°, and sometimes to 110°, no air
being ever given till the temperature of the house exceeded 95°; and the
escape of heated air was then, only in a slight degree permitted. In the
night, the temperature of the house generally sunk to 70°, or somewhat
lower. At this period, and through the months of July and August, a
sufficient quantity of pigeons’ dung was steeped in the water, which was
given to the Pine plants, to raise its colour nearly to that of porter,
and with this they were usually supplied twice a day in very hot
weather; the mould in the pots being kept constantly very damp, or what
gardeners would generally call wet. In the evenings, after very hot
days, the plants were often sprinkled with clear water, of the
temperature of the external air; but this was never repeated till all
the remains of the last sprinkling had disappeared from the axillæ of
the leaves.
“It is, I believe, almost a general custom with gardeners, to give their
Pine plants larger pots in autumn, and this mode of practice is
approved by Mr. Baldwin. (_Cult. of Anan._ 16.) I nevertheless cannot
avoid thinking it wrong; for the plants, at this period, and
subsequently, owing to want of light, can generate a small quantity only
of new sap; and consequently, the matter which composes the new roots
that the plant will be excited to emit into the fresh mould, must be
drawn chiefly from the same reservoir, which is to supply the blossom
and fruit: and I have found, that transplanting fruit-trees, in autumn,
into larger pots, has rendered their next year’s produce of fruit
smaller in size, and later in maturity. I therefore would not remove my
Pine plants into larger pots, although those in which they grow are
considerably too small.
“As the length of the days diminished, and the plants received less
light, their ability to digest food diminished. Less food was in
consequence dissolved in the water, which was also given with a more
sparing hand; and as winter approached, water only was given, and in
small quantities.
“During the months of November and December, the temperature of the
house was generally little above 50°, and sometimes as low as 48°, and
once so low as 40°. Most gardeners would, I believe, have been alarmed
for the safety of their plants at this temperature; but the Pine is a
much hardier plant than it is usually supposed to be; and I exposed one
young plant in December to a temperature of 32°, by which it did not
appear to sustain any injury. I have also been subsequently informed by
one of my friends, Sir Harford Jones, who has had most ample
opportunities of observing, that he has frequently seen, in the east,
the Pine Apple growing in the open air, where the surface of the ground,
early in the mornings, showed unequivocal marks of a slight degree of
frost.
“My plants remained nearly torpid, and without growth, during the latter
part of November, and in the whole of December; but they began to grow
early in January, although the temperature of the house rarely reached
60°; and about the 20th of that month, the blossom, or rather the future
fruit, of the earliest plant, became visible; and subsequently to that
period their growth has appeared very extraordinary to gardeners who had
never seen Pine plants growing, except in a bark-bed or other hot-bed. I
believe this rapidity of growth, in rather low temperature, may be
traced to the more exciteable state of their roots, owing to their
having passed the winter in a very low temperature comparatively with
that of a bark-bed. The plants are now supplied with water in moderate
quantities, and holding in solution a less quantity of food than was
given them in summer.
“In planting suckers, I have, in several instances, left the stems and
roots of the old plant remaining attached to them; and these have made a
much more rapid progress than others. One strong sucker was thus planted
in a large pot upon the 20th of July, (1819;) and that is (March 1820)
beginning to show fruit. Its stem is thick enough to produce a very
large fruit; but its leaves are short, though broad and numerous; and
the gardeners who have seen it, all appear wholly at a loss to
conjecture what will be the value of its produce. In other cases, in
which I retained the old stems and roots, I selected small and late
suckers, and these have afforded me the most perfect plants I have ever
seen; and they do not exhibit any symptoms of disposition to fruit
prematurely. I am, however, still ignorant whether any advantage will be
ultimately obtained by this mode of treating the Queen Pine; but I
believe it will be found applicable with much advantage in the culture
of those varieties of the Pine, which do not usually bear fruit till the
plants are three or four years old.
“I shall now offer a few remarks upon the facility of managing Pines in
the manner recommended, and upon the necessary amount of the expense. My
gardener is an extremely simple labourer, he does not know a letter or a
figure; and he never saw a Pine plant growing, till he saw those of
which he has the care. If I were absent, he would not know at what
period of maturity to cut the fruit; but in every other respect he knows
how to manage the plants as well as I do; and I could teach any other
moderately intelligent and attentive labourer, in one month, to manage
them just as well as he can: in short, I do not think the skill
necessary to raise a Pine Apple, according to the mode of culture I
recommend, is as great as that requisite to raise a forced crop of
potatoes. The expense of fuel for my hot-house, which is forty feet
long, by twelve wide, is rather less than sevenpence a-day here, where I
am twelve miles distant from coal-pits: and if I possessed the
advantages of a curved iron-roof, such as those erected by Mr. Loudon,
at Bayswater, which would prevent the too rapid escape of heated-air in
cold weather, I entertain no doubt, that the expense of heating a house
forty-five feet long, and ten wide, and capable of holding eighty
fruiting Pine plants, exclusive of grapes or other fruits upon the back
wall, would not exceed fourpence a day. A roof of properly curved iron
bars, appears to me also to present many other advantages: it may be
erected at much less cost, it is much more durable, it requires much
less expense to paint it, and it admits greatly more light.” _Hort.
Trans._ iv. 72.
Mr. Knight adds, “I have not yet been troubled with insects upon my Pine
plants (having only had nine plants for about as many months), and have
not, of course, tried any of the published receipts for destroying them.
Mr. Baldwin recommends the steam of hot fermenting horse-dung: I
conclude the destructive agent, in this case, is ammoniacal gas; which
Sir Humphry Davy informed me he had found to be instantly fatal to every
species of insect; and if so, this might be obtained at a small expense,
by pouring a solution of crude muriate of ammonia upon quick-lime; the
stable, or cow-house, would afford an equally efficient, though less
delicate, fluid. The ammoniacal gas might, I conceive, be impelled, by
means of a pair of bellows, amongst the leaves of the infected plants,
in sufficient quantity to destroy animal, without injuring vegetable
life: and it is a very interesting question to the gardener, whether his
hardy enemy, the red spider, will bear it with impunity.”
[Illustration: 18]
In the year 1820, in June, Mr. Knight had such a house as he has hinted
at, erected. Its general appearance (fig. 18.), is simple, and the roof
admits as much light, as any roof that can be constructed in the present
state of knowledge, in the combination of wrought iron and common glass.
[Illustration: 19]
The plan of this house, or pit (fig. 19.), is fifty feet in length, and
ten feet wide; the furnace (_a_) is placed at one end; the flue
proceeds from it directly to the front parapet (_b_), and passing along
close under it to the opposite end, there terminates in a chimney (_c_).
Instead of a pit, a curious stage is constructed, by forming cross walls
(_d_), or rather piers, connected by arches, and finished by a gradation
of flat surfaces, or steps, on which the pots are placed, so as to stand
as near the glass as possible (fig. 20.)
[Illustration: 20]
Air is admitted by shutters, which open outwards, immediately under the
stone plinth of the parapet (fig. 20. _a_), in which the lower ends of
the iron bars are fixed; and allowed to escape by similar shutters,
opening outwards, immediately under the stone coping of the back wall
(_b_), in which the upper ends of the same bars are leaded in. The path
behind is on a level with the exterior surface; the width of the cross
walls the length of a brick, or nine inches, and they are finished with
foot tyles; the width between them is about fifteen inches, by which
means, any ordinary sized person may pass from the back path to the
front flue, and water or examine the plants on each side.
This house being finished, was immediately stocked with Pines, some
figs, and various other plants, all of which, Mr. Knight stated
verbally, in May 1821, to various members of the Horticultural Society,
succeeded admirably; but by neglect of the gardener, or rather labourer,
who attended them, they were killed by an over-heat in Mr. Knight’s
absence from home.[1]
[1] The poor man had probably overheated himself, and comparing by
his feelings the temperature of the Pinery with his own, found the
latter much in its usual state; not knowing “a letter or a figure,”
of course, he could not take a hint from the thermometer.
The house was again stocked with plants, which Mr. Knight, in a paper
read to the Horticultural Society, in November last (1821), stated to be
in a most thriving condition; and a friend of ours who had made an
extensive gardening tour in the North and West of England, and who saw
the Pine plants at Downton Castle, also in November, declares they
appeared the most magnificent he had seen on his journey; “the plants,”
he says, “were stocky, and the leaves long, broad, and green; the
largest were in pots fourteen inches in diameter, and their leaves
reached to the glass.”
In the paper alluded to, Mr. Knight goes on to say, “I possess more than
sufficient evidence to enable me to assert with confidence, that, in the
culture of the Pine Apple, the bark bed, or other hot-bed, if the plants
be plunged into it, is worse than useless, after the scions, or crowns,
have emitted roots; and that the Pine Apple, when treated in the manner
I have recommended, is a fruit of most extremely easy culture.
“It is contended, in favour of the bark-bed, that the soil in
inter-tropical climates is warm, and that the bark-bed does no more than
nature does in the native climate of the Pine Apple. And if the bark-bed
could be made to give a steady temperature of about ten degrees below
that of the day temperature of the air in the stove, I readily admit
that Pine plants would thrive better in a compost of that temperature,
than in a colder. But the temperature of the bark-bed is constantly
subject to excess, and defect, and I contend, and can prove, that the
above-mentioned temperature is very nearly given in my stove. For the
temperature of the day being about 90° or 95°, and that of the night
70°, the mould in the pots will necessarily acquire nearly the
intermediate temperature of 80°. It is true, that two disturbing causes
are in action; the evaporation from the mould, and porous surface of the
pots, and the radiant heat of the sun. But these causes operate in
opposition to each other, and probably nearly negative the operation of
each other, as far as respects the temperature of the mould in the pots.
“A very great number of gardeners have within the last twelve months
visited my garden. Some of these were at once convinced of the
advantages of the mode of culture which they saw; others have paid a
second, or third visit; but every one has ultimately declared himself a
zealous convert. I have never yet seen plants of the same age equally
strong, nor any producing fruit better, nor indeed so well swelled; nor
any equal in richness and flavour. But I have never taken off, nor
shortened a root, nor taken any other measures to retard the period of
fructification, with the prospect of obtaining larger fruit; and my
plants have almost always showed fruit when fourteen or fifteen months
old, though propagated from small and young suckers, or crowns. A great
part of my Queen Pines (I have hitherto scarcely ever cultivated any
other varieties) have, however, at that age, shown fruit with eight, and
some with nine rows of pips; and I often see fruit of less weight
growing upon plants of nearly double that age. Whether I shall be able
to retard the period of fructification, or not, I have yet to learn; but
I believe, I shall succeed by crowding my plants close together, so that
each may receive less light.
“Pine plants will, however, grow perfectly well in composts of different
kinds; but I have found that they have succeeded best when the materials
have been fresh, and retaining their organic form, particularly if the
pots be large, relatively to the size of the plants, which, I think,
they always ought to be, for the mode of culture recommended. I have
used, with advantage, the haulm of beans cut into lengths of about an
inch.
“Very contrary to the conclusions which I should have been led to draw
from writings upon the culture of the Pine Apple, I have constantly
found that my plants succeed best in the part of my house where the flue
first enters, and where the temperature is very high, varying from about
85° to 105°, and the air excessively dry. I have pointed out this
circumstance to every gardener, whom I have seen in my house, and all
have expressed their astonishment at the circumstance. I expected that
this excess of heat would have occasioned the plants to show fruit
prematurely, but this has not occurred in a single instance. What would
be the quality of the fruit, if it were to be ripened in so high a
temperature, I have not yet had an opportunity of knowing.
“In raising young plants, I have deviated from the ordinary mode of
practice by breaking off the suckers when very young; that is, when they
are not more than four or five inches long. The fruit is much benefited
by their absence; and the cuttings, if placed very close together in a
hot-bed, are made to emit roots with little trouble, and afford better
plants than they do when they are suffered to remain long upon the
parent stem. When the whole are removed at an early period, one or more
very strong suckers usually spring out below the level of the soil; and
from these, suffering only one to remain attached to the parent stem,
and preserving the roots as entire as possible, I have propagated with
much advantage, and have obtained plants which showed fruit strongly at
seven months, dating from the period at which the sucker appeared, like
a strong head of asparagus, at the surface of the soil.
“The success of my experiments, in the first house which I erected, (and
to which the foregoing account exclusively refers,) led me to erect
another house (figs. 18. 19. and 20.) in the summer of 1829. In this I
attempted to obtain the greatest possible influence of light, and
command of solar heat; inferring, from having observed Pine Apples to
ripen tolerably well with very little light, that I should be able to
ripen them in perfection late in the autumn, and early in the spring,
particularly at the latter period, in which, alone, I set a very high
value upon the species of fruit. The height of the back wall (fig. 20.)
of this house is eight feet six inches, and that of the front wall is
one foot six inches, and its breadth ten feet, inside measure, with an
iron curvilinear roof, (fig. 18.) of the kind of bar invented by Mr.
LOUDON, of Bayswater. This house is fifty feet long, (fig. 19.) and
capable of containing two hundred fruiting Pine plants. The curvature of
the roof rises just one foot in twelve. The glass is laid in a
composition of two parts white lead, with oil, and three of flint sand,
and the overlaps of the glass are closely filled with the same material.
It is, consequently, very nearly air-tight; and no means are given for
the air to enter, or escape, except by apertures immediately under the
copings of the front and back wall, (_a_ and _b_, fig. 20.) which can
be efficiently closed at any time. It is, consequently, an instrument of
very great power, and requiring, of course, much attention to
ventilation: of which I had rather a lamentable proof in the last
spring, when my plants were all burned, and spoiled in a few hours; the
person who had the care of them having left them in a bright day closely
shut up. The fault was not, however, in any degree in the house, for the
plants were, previously, much the strongest, and the best I ever saw;
and I believe, they would have afforded most beautiful fruit. I
furnished the house again with plants as expeditiously as I could,
chiefly in July; and I have since kept the temperature of it nearly
between 70° and 95°, with a wish to make the plants show fruit and
blossom in the present month (October.) In this, I have in part
succeeded, though many of my plants have flowered a fortnight or three
weeks sooner than I wished. The fruit is swelling well, and, I believe,
will receive sufficient light through the winter to enable it to ripen
in much perfection. The excellence of a few Pine Apples, which ripened
in this house in the last winter, leads me almost to doubt, whether the
fruit in it will not ripen better, early in the spring, than in the
middle of the summer, for I have observed that this species of plant,
though extremely patient of high temperature, is not, by any means, so
patient of the action of very continued bright light, as many other
plants: and much less so than the Fig and Orange tree: possibly, having
been formed by nature for inter-tropical climates, its powers of life
may become fatigued, and exhausted by the length of a bright English
summer’s day in high temperature. Being a plant of low stature, nature
has also probably given it the power to ripen its fruit and seed, in the
shade of other plants, in its native climate; and I discovered in the
last summer, that it possesses the power to ripen its fruit perfectly in
a lower temperature than I previously thought it capable of growing in.
“In the month of June, I gave a couple of Pine plants, which had shown
fruit at six months old, and were of small size, and no value, to a
child of one of my friends, to be placed in a conservatory, in which no
fires were kept during the summer. In July, a storm of hail destroyed
nearly, or fully, half the glass of the conservatory; and its
temperature, through the summer and autumn, had been so low, that the
Chasselas grapes in it were not ripe in the second week in September. In
the second week of the present month (October) one of the Pine Apples
became ripe, having previously swollen to a most extraordinary size,
comparatively with the size of the plant; and upon measuring accurately
the comparative width of the fruit, and of the stem, I found the width
of the fruit to exceed that of the stem in the proportion of seven and
three-quarters to one. The fruit had, of course, been propped during all
the latter part of the summer, the stem being wholly incapable of
supporting it. The taste and flavour of this fruit were excellent, and
the appearance of the other, which is not yet ripe, and is of a larger
size, is still more promising. I purpose to profit by this result in the
next summer; and I hope to be able to communicate some further
information to the Society in the autumn. I feel perfectly confident,
that if the roots of these plants had grown in a hot-bed of any kind,
their sap would have been impelled into other channels; and that their
fruit would not have attained, in any degree, the state of perfection
which I have described.”
This is the latest printed account of Mr. Knight’s experiments on the
Pine Apple. It would be premature to draw any general conclusions in so
early a stage of their progress, and might excite prejudice to
anticipate the final result. That the Pine plant will grow and thrive
without what is technically called bottom heat, is an obvious truth,
since no plant in a state of nature is found growing in soil warmer than
that of the superincumbent atmosphere. But to imitate nature, is not
always the best mode of culture; for the more correct the imitation, the
less valuable would be the greater part of her products, at least as far
as horticulture is concerned. What would our celery, cabbage, and apples
be, if their culture were copied from nature? Though the Pine Apple will
grow well without bottom heat, it may grow with bottom heat still
better; and though the heat of the earth, in its native country, may
never exceed that of the surrounding atmosphere, it does not follow that
earth heated to a greater degree may not be of service to it, in a state
of artificial culture. But admitting, for the sake of argument, that the
Pine plant could be grown equally well with, as without bottom heat;
still it appears to us that the mass of material which furnishes this
heat, will always be a most desirable thing to have in a Pine stove, as
being a perpetual fund of heat for supplying the atmosphere of the
house, in case of accident to the flues or steam apparatus. Besides it
appears from nature, as well as from observing what takes place in
culture, that the want of a steady temperature and degree of moisture at
the roots of plants is more immediately and powerfully injurious to them
than atmospheric changes. Earth, especially if rendered porous and
spungelike by culture, receives and gives out air and heat slowly; and
while the temperature of the air of a country, or a hot-house, may vary
twenty or thirty degrees in the course of twenty-four hours, the soil at
the depth of two inches would hardly be found to have varied one degree.
With respect to moisture, every cultivator knows, that in a properly
constituted and regularly pulverized soil, whatever quantity of rain may
fall on the surface, the soil is never saturated with water, nor, in
times of great drought, burnt up with heat. The porous texture of the
soil and sub-soil being at once favourable for the escape of
superfluous water, and adverse to its evaporation, by never becoming so
much heated on the surface, or conducting the heat so far downwards as a
close compact soil.
These properties of the soil relatively to plants can never be
completely attained by growing plants in pots, and least of all by
growing them in pots surrounded by air. In this state, whatever may be
the care of the gardener, a continual succession of changes of
temperature will take place in the outside of the pot, and the compact
material of which it is composed being a much more rapid conductor of
heat than porous earth, it will soon be communicated to the web of roots
within.
With respect to water, a plant in a pot surrounded by air is equally
liable to injury. If the soil be properly constituted, and the pot
properly drained, the water passes through the mass as soon as poured on
it, and the soil at that moment may be said to be left in a state
favourable for vegetation. But as the evaporation from the surface and
sides of the pot, and the transpiration of the plant goes on, it becomes
gradually less and less so, and if not soon re-supplied, would become
dry and shrivelled, and either die from that cause, or be materially
injured by the sudden and copious application of water.
Thus, the roots of a plant in a pot surrounded by air, are liable to be
alternately chilled and scorched by cold or heat, and deluged or dried
up by superabundance or deficiency of water, and nothing but the
perpetual care and attention of the gardener to lessen the tendencies to
these extremes could at all preserve the plant from destruction.
To lessen the attention of the gardener, therefore, to render the plant
less dependent on his services, and, above all, to put a plant in a pot
as far as possible on a footing with a plant in the unconfined soil,
plunging the pot in a mass of earth, sand, dung, tan, or any such
material, appears to us a most judicious part of culture, and one that
never can be relinquished in fruit-bearing plants with impunity. Even if
no heat were to be afforded by the mass in which the pots were plunged,
still the preservation of a steady temperature which would always equal
the average temperature of the air of the house, and the retention, by
the same means, of a steady degree of moisture, would, in our opinion,
be a sufficient argument for plunging pots of vigorous growing,
many-leaved, or fruit-bearing plants.
Such are the observations that we think may be made relatively to Mr.
Knight’s plan, without prejudice to whatever new lights he may throw out
on the subject. Had it been brought forward by a less eminent
horticulturist, it would not have claimed so much attention, as the plan
of growing Pines without bottom-heat is generally considered to have
been tried first by M. Le Cour, and subsequently by various others, and
abandoned. In Mr. Knight’s hands, however, whether it fail or succeed,
it is certain of doing good, by the observations it will elicit from
the fertile and ingenious mind of so candid and philosophical a
horticulturist.
Sir William Edward Rous Boughton has erected a house or pit at Downton
Hall, similar to that of Mr. Knight, but rather wider.[2] Pines are
grown in it on Mr. Knight’s plan, but the plants were not in a thriving
state in November last. Charles Holford, Esq. of Hampstead, is also a
disciple of Mr. Knight as to the culture of this fruit, but he has not
yet been very successful.
[2] The roofs, both of this house and that of Mr. Knight, were
furnished by Messrs. W. & D. Bailey, of Holborn, London.
SECT. II.
_Of other Improvements in the Culture of the Pine Apple, by
different persons._
We shall first notice the improvements which respect bottom-heat, and
begin with noticing an attempt made by Mr. Thomas Jenkins, of the
Portman Nursery, London, to warm both the pots in which the plants are
grown, and the air of the house, by the heat generated by fermenting
stable-dung placed in a vault beneath.
It is only within the last three years that Mr. Jenkins has begun to
grow the Pine Apple to any extent; he brings forward the plants in
hot-beds and deep frames, inclosing beds of tan, and heated by linings
of dung. As an economical part of the construction, we may mention that
he substitutes wattled hurdles for the lower part of the frame, in
contact with the tan, by which means a saving in the first cost is
effected, and the heat of the dung penetrates much more readily to the
tan.
[Illustration: 21]
Most of the plants are fruited in these pits, but some are fruited in a
house, (_fig. 21._) which “though furnished with flues, yet these have
been very little used. The heat imparted to the plants is produced by
the fermentation of stable-dung in a pit below the plants, the top of
which is covered by tiles supported by iron rafters, with the joints
closely cemented, to prevent the passage of steam into the house. The
pots are neither bedded in tan, nor in mould, but stand on the tiles,
and the interstices between them warm the air of the house.”
[Illustration: 22]
The dung is managed as in West’s pit (_fig. 22._), but with the addition
of being watered after it is thrown in, which is found to promote
fermentation, and the intensity of the heat.
One of the earliest instances of steam being used as a bottom-heat with
which we are acquainted, was that by Mr. Butler, gardener to the Earl of
Derby, at Knowlesly, near Liverpool, in or about 1792. It had been used
twenty years before, but chiefly for other purposes. Speechly, in 1796,
knew only two instances in which steam was applied as bottom-heat; and,
with M’Phail, does not think it will finally answer as a substitute for
tan. Instances in which it is adopted, are now much more numerous; but
time sufficient has not elapsed, and the opinions of gardeners are yet
too unsettled on its merits to enable us to recommend it for adoption in
general practice. For heating the atmosphere of hot-houses, there seems
little (or at least much less) doubt of its being preferable to
fire-heat.
Count Zubow, at St. Petersburg, employed steam to heat a pit or cistern
of water, over which, at about three inches distance, a frame, covered
with faggots, was placed, and on this was laid the earth, in which his
Pines and other exotics were planted without being in pots. The plan is
said to have succeeded, and a wholesome temperature to have been
obtained and communicated to the mould above the faggots.
Mr. Gunter, as before observed, (Chap. IV. sect. 13.) had already tried
the use of steam as a bottom heat without success.
Mr. John Hay, horticultural architect, tried the use of steam so early
as 1794, when gardener at Preston Hall, near Edinburgh, and he gives the
following account of his apparatus and success in the Memoirs of the
Caledonian Horticultural Society. “The application of steam to
forcing-houses early caught my attention. The first that I designed and
executed in Scotland on this plan, were at Preston Hall in Mid-Lothian,
in the year 1794. The fruiting Pine-stove, which is in the general suite
of houses, with two peach-houses on the west, were originally adapted to
steam. I entertained the hope, that steam thrown into a chamber, in the
bottom of the plant pit, would act as a proper substitute for bottom
heat in place of tan, as none of that substance was to be found nearer
than four miles distant, and when wanted was often difficult to be
procured. Other more general considerations also made me desirous of
procuring some substitute, particularly the necessity of repeatedly
shifting the plants to renew the heat, when the bark in the plant-pit
gets cold: these shiftings, besides the trouble, often retard the growth
of the plants. Again, if the heat of the fermentation of the tan rise
much above ninety-six degrees, (which it often does), and if the pots be
fully plunged in the tan at such a time, many instances have been known
of the roots of the plants being burned, and some of them being
destroyed altogether. This, indeed, may be considered as one of the
principal reasons why so many are unsuccessful in the culture of this
fine fruit. With the view of obviating the above difficulties, the
bottom of the fruiting Pine-pit was constructed with a chamber below,
into which steam was introduced by means of copper and lead pipes from a
boiler placed in the shades behind: the top of the chamber was
constructed of rafters, on which were placed broad grey slates, laid on
loose, without filling up the vacancies between them. The not making
them close, I afterwards found to be an error; for the moisture, from
the condensation of the steam, penetrating through the openings at the
joining of the slates, communicated too much wetness to the bottom of
the pots; but I found, that there was a sufficient quantity of heat to
be obtained from the steam for heating the plant-pit, provided the
bottom were close. I therefore discontinued this plan; and I had not an
opportunity of making any farther experiment on the subject in this
place. From the same boiler, I conducted into the two peach-houses
adjoining, a range of pipes furnished with steam-cocks. They passed the
whole length of the houses, (101 f. 6 in.). By means of these, the
peach-houses were regularly steamed near one hour a-day in the evening,
in the time of flowering and of fruit-setting. Steaming, it may be
remarked, is very important at these times. In after periods, when I had
not an apparatus for the purpose, I always steamed the peach-house with
a large piece of cast-iron, made red hot in one of the furnaces, and put
into a white-iron pail nearly full of water; the whole water thus
evaporating into steam. I was always successful, while in practice as a
gardener, in raising a full crop of peaches; and think that much was
owing to attention to steaming.
“I afterwards erected Pine-stoves for John Hervey, Esq. of Castlesemple,
to be heated by steam; and one of the plant-pits had a chamber below,
with a close bottom, into which chamber, steam was thrown by means of
cast-iron pipes. About the same time, I was applied to by Sir Hew
Hamilton Dalrymple, Bart. (through Mr. James Dodds, his gardener), to
examine his Pine-stoves at Bargany, and to report whether I thought they
could be improved, as he hitherto had not been so successful in
Pine-Apples as he expected. One principal cause was, the difficulty of
obtaining tan. Upon my report, it was to be determined, whether to give
up the Pine-Apple culture altogether, or endeavour to improve the
stoves.
“Upon examining, I advised the heating of the atmosphere of the houses
with steam; and in place of using tan, the heating of the bottom of the
plant-pit with steam also.” This advice was adopted, and eighteen months
after the plan was executed, the gardener, Mr. James Dodds, gives the
follow-account of his success.
“It is now eighteen months since I first began to heat the Pine-stoves
here with steam. I have thus been enabled to give it a fair trial, and I
am fully satisfied that it is superior to the old method of heating by
fire-flues. I have found the plants to grow more luxuriantly, and
perfectly clean of any kind of _insects_. The moist heat arising from
steam is well known to be hostile to all kinds of vermin. It is,
besides, more economical: our Pine-stoves here are seventy feet long, it
formerly took two fires to keep up the heat of the atmospheric air of
the house, whereas in the new method of heating by steam, one fire to
heat the boiler is sufficient, except in very cold nights, when I have
found it necessary to light a very small fire to the flue, to meet the
decline of the steam in the morning, and this only to the fruiting-house
in the spring months, when the Pines begin to show their fruit. In
short, I have found no difficulty in keeping up the heat of the house to
sixty degrees, by making up the fire to the boiler at ten o’clock at
night, and at six o’clock in the morning.
“With regard to the bottom heat for the Pine-plants, by steam from the
same boiler, I find, by allowing the steam to remain in the chamber
below the plants about two hours a day, the pit is kept constantly at
the temperature of from ninety to ninety-five degrees, which I have
found to be as high as the roots of the plants are able to bear. I
would, therefore, say ninety degrees to be the standard height, which I
have myself adopted, allowing it to fluctuate down. If our succession
Pine-pit had been altered to have been heated by steam, as the fruiting
one is, which the boiler is perfectly able to do, the saving in tan
alone would more than pay the interest of all the money laid out on
erecting the whole steam apparatus.
“The above is my candid opinion on the subject, as far as my practice
has enabled me to speak. I am, &c.
“JAMES DODDS.”
* * * * *
The best stoves for combining the culture of the Pine and Vine in
Scotland, have been constructed by Mr. Hay, of which fine examples
occur at Lord Duncan’s, Lundie-house, near Dundee, and the Earl of
Roseberry’s, at Dulmeny-park (_fig. 23._), near Edinburgh.
[Illustration: 23]
As substitutes for tan, leaves are the common resource, but any
vegetable matter of slow putrefaction may be employed, as chopped spray
of hedges or copse, wood-shavings, saw-dust, &c. and in Scotland, it has
been found that flax-dressers’ refuse keeps up a moderate heat for a
longer period than any other material.
The mode of employing the vigour remaining in the old stock or plant
after the fruit is cut, to nourish, for a certain time, the sucker or
suckers which may be growing on it, was practised by Speechly; but
scarcely to the extent which it has been carried lately. This, we think,
a considerable improvement, if kept within certain limits; but, if
carried too far, what might be gained by the sucker coming earlier into
fruit, would be lost by the retardation of the plant’s own suckers.
On Nov. 3. 1818. “A Queen Pine, grown by Peter Marsland, Esq. of
Woodbank, near Stockport, was exhibited to the Horticultural Society. It
weighed three pounds fourteen ounces, measured seventeen inches in
circumference, and was peculiarly well-flavoured. The singularity of
this Pine was its being the produce of a sucker which had been removed
from the parent-root only six months previous to the time the fruit was
cut. The plant on which the sucker grew had produced a fruit, which was
cut in October, 1817; the old stem, with the sucker attached, was
allowed to remain in the Pine-pit till May, 1818; at that time the
sucker was broken off, potted, and plunged into a fresh pit; it soon
after showed fruit, which, in the course of four months, attained to the
weight and size above stated. Mr. Marsland is in the practice of
producing Pines in this way with equal success and expedition. His
houses are all heated by steam.” _Hort. Trans._ iv. 52.
On the 17th of Oct. 1819, specimens of the New Providence, globe, black
Antigua, and Enville, were exhibited, all which were produced in a
similar manner to the above. P. Marsland considers, that “though not of
the largest description, yet as far as beauty of form and richness of
flavour are concerned, they would not yield to fruit of more protracted
growth.” The success which has attended this gentleman’s mode of
“treating the Pine, so as to insure the production of fruit within
twelve months from the cutting of their previous produce, has been
perfectly satisfactory;” and the following is his account of it. “In
November, 1819, as soon as the fruit had been cut from the Pine plants,
which were then two years old, all the leaves were stripped off the old
stocks, nothing being left but a single sucker on each, and that the
strongest on the plant; they were then placed in a house where the heat
was about sixty degrees, and they remained till March, 1820. At this
period the suckers were broken off from the old stocks, and planted in
pots from eight to twelve inches in diameter, varying according to the
size of the sucker. It may be proper, however, to observe, that the
length of time which the young sucker is allowed to remain attached to
the mother plant, depends in some degree upon the kind of Pine; the
tardy fruiters, such as the black Antigua, and others, require to be
left longer than the Queen, and those which fruit readily.
“After the suckers had been planted, they were removed from the house,
where they had remained while on the old stock, to one in which the
temperature was raised to seventy-five degrees. Immediately upon their
striking root, the largest of the suckers showed fruit, which swelled
well, and ripened between August and November, being, on the average,
ten months from the time the fruit was cut from the old plant, and
seven months from the time the sucker was planted. The fruit so
produced, though, as may be expected, not of the largest description, I
have invariably found to be richer and higher flavoured than that grown
on older plants. The suckers of inferior strength will not show fruit in
the same season, but in the following they will yield good fruit, and
strong suckers for a succeeding year’s supply. Those suckers are to be
preferred which are produced on plants that have ripened their fruit in
November, for those taken from plants whose fruit is cut in August, or
earlier, are apt to show fruit in January or February, while yet
remaining on the mother-plant. But whenever this happens, the sucker
should be broken off immediately upon being perceived, and planted in a
pot so as to form a root of its own, to maintain its fruit.” _Hort.
Trans._ iv. 392.
This experiment shows what can be done; though it must be obvious that a
considerable part of the saving in time is lost by the small size of the
fruit. Mr. Baldwin, in our opinion, has hit on the proper use of this
mode, the principle of which, as already observed, consists in the
employment of the otherwise lost vigour of the old stock. He contrives
to produce tolerably sized fruit, and to have such a degree of vigour in
his suckers, as that they are able, in their turn, to throw out other
vigorous suckers to succeed them. In aid of this, he often earths up the
old stock, so as to cover the lower end of the sucker; and partially
wrenching it off, he, by these means, obtains for it a good stock of
roots before he renders it an independent plant.
Where heat is to be supplied from fermenting horse-dung, we should
recommend for trial a pit invented by J. West, of Castle Ashby, in
Northamptonshire. (_fig. 22._) Nine years’ experience enable its
inventor to recommend it for neatness of appearance, the power of
regulating the heat to the greatest nicety, and for forcing asparagus,
strawberries, and the most delicate kinds of cucumbers. By raising the
walls of the pit higher above the earth, it is evident it would answer
equally well for growing Pines, or forcing shrubs or tall growing
plants.
The dung is placed in a chamber (E) three feet and a half deep, being
about eighteen inches below the surface-line; the walls (G) which
surround it are nine-inch brick-work; both on the front and at the back
of the chamber are two openings (A), about two feet six inches square
each, with moveable doors, through which the dung is introduced; the
doors fit at bottom into grooves (B), and are fastened by a wooden pin
and staple at top. In front of the doors, is a small area (C) sunk in
the ground, surrounded by a curb of wood, by which the introduction or
removal of the dung is facilitated. Along the centre of the chamber is a
bar (D), which serves as a guide for packing the dung; and across the
top, at intervals of twelve inches, are placed, on their edges,
cast-iron bars (H), two inches wide, and three quarters of an inch
thick, to support a layer of small wood, bushes and leaves (I), over
which is laid the soil for the plants (K). Just below the level of the
bars all round the dung-chamber, are holes (F), passing in a sloping
direction through part of the wall into a cavity (G) in the upper part
of the wall at the back front and both ends of the pit. In the exterior
part of the back wall, are holes with plugs (L), to let out the steam
and heat at discretion.
At the commencement of forcing, half the chamber is filled
longitudinally with dung, and if the doors are kept shut, this will
afford sufficient heat from twelve to eighteen days. As the heat
declines the other half of the chamber is filled, and the temperature is
kept up by additions to the top of the dung, on either or both sides, as
it settles. When the united heat of the two sides ceases to be
sufficient, the side first filled must be cleared out, and mixed with
fresh dung and replaced, and so on, adding and turning as circumstances
require. _Hort. Trans._ iv. 220.
[Illustration: 24]
As an improvement on the construction of this pit, we would suggest the
perforation of the whole of the side walls (_fig. 24. a_), in order to
admit the steam more readily than it can find admittance by the single
range of openings adopted by Mr. West. Where pits on Mr. West’s plan
are already built, a substitute for this perforation in the side walls
may be found in the application of a wattled hurdle against them (_fig.
24. b_), as has been adopted by Mr. J. B. Mackay, in the Comte de
Vande’s garden at Bayswater.
_Remarks._--All the schemes of improvement detailed in this section, are
either of a nature never to become general, if they do succeed, as that
of Count Zuboff; or not yet sufficiently proved by experience to be
recommended for adoption, as the application of steam as a bottom heat
by Mr. Hay. We therefore leave them to work their way with the public;
and, in the mean time, till these, as well as Mr. Knight’s experiments
have established something better, we recommend all those who wish to
grow the Pine Apple in the first style of excellence, and at a moderate
expence, to adopt the pits and houses of Mr. Baldwin or Mr. Aiton; and
to imitate their practice, or that of Mr. Andrews.
THE END.
LONDON:
Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode,
New-Street-Square.
Transcriber’s Notes
Except as mentioned below, this text follows the original book in
spelling and hyphenation, including inconsistencies. In some places
the quote marks do not match; this has not been corrected.
Changes made to the text:
Some missing or erroneous punctuation has been corrected silently
page iv managemant changed to management
page 8 frustrum changed to frustum
page 13 flater changed to flatter
page 20 plat changed to plot
page 23 matts changed to mats
page 25 grêênth changed to green
page 38 cocus changed to coccus
page 91 he sifted changed to be sifted
page 94 unstruct changed to unstruck
page 104 quote mark added after insipid
page 112 quote marks added before and after he says
page 117 lengh changed to length
page 124 excitment changed to excitement; of of the wood-work changed
to of the wood-work
page 145 alchohol changed to alcohol
page 149 Avo-ado-pear changed to Avocado-pear
page 159 intoit changed to into it
page 163 curviliar changed to curvilinear
page 182 about to feet changed to about two feet.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The different modes of cultivating the pine-apple - From its first introduction into Europe to the late - improvements of T.A. Knight, esq." ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.