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.
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“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.