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.”