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.
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