“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.”