Part 5

_Fruit produced._ Mr. Speechly does not seem to have had a fixed object as to the production of fruit, unless it was to have it good. Some cultivators, as Justice, aim at having all the fruit ripe at that season when they will attain the greatest size and most flavour, viz. in August and September; others aim at having some weekly throughout the year. It would appear that the former was Speechly’s object, and that he did not contemplate the other as now generally practised. “Large fruiting plants,” he says, “will sometimes show their fruit in the months of August and September, but these are generally thought of no value, and, consequently, thrown away. To prevent this, I frequently take such plants out of the hot-house as soon as their fruit begin to appear. I then set them in a shed or out-house for five or six weeks; at the expiration of which time I pot them as in the month of March, after shaking off their balls. After this I plunge them into the tan.”

What was the common weight of the Queen Pines produced at Welbeck, he does not inform us; but a fruit of the New Providence, produced in the gardens at Welbeck in 1794, weighed 5¼ lb., or 84 oz. He generally fruited the Queen Pine in the third season, being under two years of time; and the Providence and Antigua in the fourth season.

SECT. VII.

_Culture of the Pine Apple by James M’Phail, gardener to the late Earl of Liverpool, at Addiscombe, in Surrey, from 1788 to 1808._

Mr. M’Phail, when in practice, was reckoned one of the first growers of the Pine Apple in England; he grew the plants, and also fruited them chiefly in pits; the pots plunged in bark, and the bark inclosed by a perforated wall of his invention, and heated by linings of dung. He also grew them in larger buildings.

_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.

“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.

“Crowns and suckers taken from the parent plants later than October, should not be planted before the month of February or March; for in the winter time, probably, they would not strike root, but rot: they may be hung or laid in a dry part of the hot-house. By some writers on the culture of the Pine it has been observed, ‘that any off-sets from the Pine will succeed as well when planted in the hour they are taken off, as if laid by to dry till the wound be healed, provided the parent stock received no water for the ten days preceding.’ If off-sets or suckers be grown to such a size, so that they be easily separated from the parent plant, they may be planted immediately; for, in that case, it may be seen that they had begun to push forth roots, and required to be taken off and planted; but withholding water from the mother plant ten, or even twenty days, will not bring its offspring to a state of maturity fit for planting the day when taken off. So that it is best to let unmatured young suckers and crowns lie implanted, till their natural juices be so exhausted that there may be no danger of their rotting after being planted.

“The brick beds of my inventing, in which I struck and reared Pine Apple plants many years, were close and warm, the crannies between the lappings of the glass being filled up with putty; consequently, in these close frames, especially in the short days and long nights in winter, when the sun has little influence, the moisture arising out of the tan lodges on the glass, and drops from it, upon the plants; but, contrary to the opinion of some authors, who have advised to draw the water out of the hearts of plants when it falls into them in winter, I find, by experience, that it does them no harm, if the heat in the place where the plants be, is not too little. Indeed, if plants be kept in a climate which suits their nature, it is only reasonable to suppose that they are possessed of properties capable of disposing of water which happens to fall on them by accident or otherwise.

“No vegetable substance that I know of retains heat so long, and of a less violent nature, than oak bark after being used by tanners; and, as the vapours arising out of it are of a wholesome nature to plants, it is well calculated for helping to make the Pine Apple plant grow vigorously. Where the Pine Apple is wished to be cultivated, and tanner’s bark cannot be procured, horse-dung well prepared, by shaking and breaking it small, will do. If plenty of the leaves of trees can be had, they are preferable to dung. When leaves cannot be collected plentifully, dung and leaves may be mixed together, and used successfully; and if it be ascertained that a good lively heat cannot be kept in the bed for want of good materials, let the heat of the flues warmed by fire, or linings of dung, be close or near to the pit, which will cause the heat in the bed to be more brisk and durable.

“If it be intended to make a bed of leaves, they should be collected as soon as they have all fallen from the trees, and in a wet state, and thrown together in a large heap; and after fermenting a few weeks, they may be put into the pit for the pines. They should be well shaken, and trodden down gently when they get into a fermentation, which will keep them from sinking quickly afterwards, and prevent them from heating violently. When the heat in the bed declines much, it may be increased by turning and shaking the leaves over with a dung-fork.

“It sometimes happens that tanner’s bark heats too violently; but when that takes place, it is either because there is too great a body of it put together, or because the heat of the flues is too close to the bed. If a tan bed get into a violent heat, it will not keep its heat so long as if it heated moderately; for it must lose its heat as hastily in proportion as it is deprived of its moisture by violent fermentation.

“It frequently happens that Pine Apple plants designed to bear fruit do not show their fruit early enough in the spring or fore-part of summer, to ripen their fruit before winter, when there is not sunshine enough to give the fruit any flavour. This may happen because the plants have not come to a proper growth, or their roots may have been injured by too violent a bottom heat, or by being over-watered, or they may have been shifted too late, or been put into pots too large for their roots to have filled them before the end of the growing season. To make Pine plants shew their fruit at an early time in the spring, some authors have recommended the cutting off some of the roots at the autumn shifting; but long experience has convinced me, that cutting off the roots, or destroying them by any means, instead of making them show fruit, is an effectual mean to prevent them from showing fruit, till they have again made long roots. The fruit of the Pine Apple is formed, probably, not less than seven or eight weeks before it appears among the leaves; and if a plant be divested partially or totally of its roots, its growth is stopped till it has made roots of considerable length, when it will grow quickly. And, if before the roots were destroyed, the fruit had been formed in the hidden secret centre of the plant, the fruit will grow and show itself when the leaves of the plant, excepting those on the stem of the fruit, will make no appearance of growing. This, perhaps, may be the reason which induces some persons to think that cutting off the roots of the plant causeth it to fruit sooner than it would do were the roots suffered to remain.

“If Pine Apple plants, intended for fruiting the following year, be shifted late in the autumn into pots, which their roots do not fill well before the month of January, they probably will not show fruit till late in the spring or summer months. For this reason it is advisable, when they cannot be shifted early enough in the month of August or beginning of September, so as to fill the pots with roots before the winter come on, to let them remain unshifted till the fruit appear, and the stem of it be grown to its full height, and then shift the plants into larger pots, in the manner before directed, disturbing the roots of the plants as little as can be helped. After the plants are shifted, they must not get much water till the fresh growth of the roots has somewhat exhausted the moisture of the fresh earth put round them. Of two evils, it is better to give the plants too little water than too much. But let it be remembered, that while the fruit is in blossom, and for some days afterwards, the plants should not be watered all over their leaves, neither should the plants be watered all over their leaves nor fruit, after the fruit is fully swelled, nor should the earth in which their roots are, be, after that time, kept very moist, for they do not require it, because the plant has nearly performed its office, which it never has to do a second time--it dies and leaves its offspring to succeed it.

“Although the Pine Apple plant is of such a nature that it will live upwards of six months without earth or water, yet to bring its fruit to perfection, a plentiful supply of both these is required. From the time that the plants are set in earth till they perfect their fruit, it should be endeavoured to keep them constantly in a clean healthy growing state; and when they be thus managed, they will not fail to show fruit when they be grown to a natural size. For these reasons, I would advise that no methods contrary to nature, but methods to assist, be used to make them fruit at certain periods. If Pine Apple plants be planted in rich earth, and get a sufficiency of heat and water, they grow luxuriantly to a great size, and do not show fruit so soon as they do when they are planted in a poor, hungry, or stiff soil.

“If the roots of Pine Apple plants be not put in too great a heat, it is a difficult matter to raise the heat in a hot-house to such a degree as is able to destroy the plants. In the brick bed of my inventing, a powerful heat can be raised by means of the linings of dung and the sun-beams, and in it the insects on Pine and on other plants may be shortly destroyed by heat and water.

“Some persons may think that the Pine Apple cannot bear to be watered all over its leaves in winter, because it is of a succulent nature, and able to live long in a hot-house without being planted in earth or set in water. But, for instance, the common house-leek is of a very succulent juicy nature, and will bear the greatest heat of a hot dry summer on the warm tiles of a house: but it is well known that this plant thrives best when it gets occasional showers of rain. The case is exactly similar respecting the Pine Apple, and several other plants, of a similar nature. In regard, however, to the best method of cultivating the Pine Apple, there have been and will be persons who differ in opinion. I here give my opinion, which is founded on practice, that there is not the least danger in watering the plants plentifully all over their leaves in winter, or in any time of the year, provided there be a sufficient heat kept up in the tan bed and in the air of the house. But remember, I do not recommend watering the Pine Apple plants all over their leaves in winter as a general rule, only when it is necessary to free the plants from insects and filth; then the heat in the house among the plants must be kept strong, not lower than 70 in the morning, and raised to 85 or 90 in the course of the day.

“It is indeed evident that some of the most able writers on the culture of the Pine Apple have wanted that experience which may by practice be obtained. They have asserted, that it is impossible to keep the Pine Apple plant throughout a severe winter without the assistance of fire. But ingenious practical gardeners have ascertained, that Pine Apple plants require nothing more than a gentle heat in the tan bed, in which the pots of plants must be plunged, and a medium heat of air of about 60 degrees, to keep them through the most severe winters in England. To maintain this temperature of heat without the assistance of fire, is no difficult matter; it can be done by the assistance of horse-dung; for a dry heat is not at all necessary to preserve the plants, and to keep them in good health, in the brick beds, in which I kept Succession Pines all the year round without the aid of fire heat. The sun for about two months in winter had very little effect to warm or dry the leaves of the plants, so that during the dull months in winter, the plants were continually in a moist state, and water standing in the hearts of some of them, and the heat of the air among them was from 55 to about 65; and I do not recollect of having any of the plants die for want of heat.

_Insects._ By many experiments which I made, it is evident, I think, that in the process of managing and cultivating the Pine Apple, all injurious insects may be destroyed, and prevented from breeding on them, by a judicious application of the elements necessary, though in a less degree in regard to heat, for the production of any vegetables or fruits whatever. That this is true, may be proved by a reference to the state of fruits and vegetables growing, either spontaneously or assisted by cultivation, in every part of the kingdom, without the aid of artificial heat or impregnated air. For instance, the strawberry, the raspberry, and some other fruits, which grow naturally in some parts of this country, and peas, beans, cabbage, and cauliflowers in gardens, and the different sorts of corn and grass in the fields. These, in unkind seasons, we see affected by blights and by insects of various kinds, which prevent them from coming to good maturity, and make them less productive than we wish them to be. But in propitious seasons, the earth being refreshed occasionally by showers of rain, they are preserved from the inroads of insects and from blights, and are enabled to produce abundant crops, for the use of man and beast.”

Mr. M’Phail has thus the merit of being one of the first practical gardeners who freed themselves from the trammels of receipts and secrets for destroying insects. He says, “after having studiously observed the nature and causes of the vigorous growth and healthfulness of plants, and of fruit-trees of different kinds, I have been induced to believe that a fruit-tree or plant of any sort requires nothing but proper cultivation in good earth, and in a kindly climate adapted to its nature, to prevent it from being injured by insects, or by blights of any kind, and to enable it to produce, of its kind, abundant crops. However, I wish it not to be understood that I disapprove of using means of any kind to destroy insects which are injurious to plants; but I conceive that all methods used for that purpose, ought to be such as are conducive to accelerate the growth of vegetables, by having at least a tendency to purify the air, and to make the circumambient atmosphere about them congenial to their nature, unless when the destruction of the insects by the hand is effected.”