_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]