The different modes of cultivating the pine-apple: From its first introduction into Europe to the late improvements of T.A. Knight, esq.Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius)
History
The different modes of cultivating the pine-apple: From its first introduction into Europe to the late improvements of T.A. Knight, esq.
Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius)
Pineapple
They shift their plants in spring, and refresh the surfaces of the pots
in autumn, and they seem on the whole to fruit them in larger pots than
we do; but they leave off shifting them nine or ten months before the
fruit is expected to appear, wishing to have the pots filled with roots
at this crisis. They seldom fruit a crown plant under two years, and
more generally three, from the time it is taken from the fruit; large
suckers they fruit earlier, according to their size when taken off the
mother plant; some which come out from near the bottom of the stem they
earth up, and do not take off at all. These come early into fruit, but
it is not large.
SECT. II.
_Culture of the Pine Apple in Germany._
The Germans took their horticulture from the Dutch, as they did their
landscape gardening from the French. They seem to have tried the
culture of the Pine Apple almost immediately after its introduction to
Holland; for, according to Beckmann, it was ripened by Dr. Kaltschmidt
at Breslaw in 1702, who sent some fruit to the Imperial Court; but he
states also that its culture was first attempted by Baron Munchausen, a
great encourager of gardening, and a botanist who had a fine demesne and
garden at Schwobber, near Hamelin, in Westphalia. From the account of
these gardens in the _Neuremberg Hesperides_, they appear to have been
grown both in pits, and on stages in larger houses.
The king of Prussia grew the Pine Apple extensively at Potsdam; he
followed the Dutch manner in every thing, and had a gardener from that
country who attended exclusively to the forcing department at Sans
Souci. The quantity of glass there was greater than any where else in
Germany: the whole was kept in high order and good culture for many
years; but after the king’s death, in 1786, it soon fell into neglect;
the glass of most of the peach-houses and vineries was removed or
destroyed; the Pine plants were neglected and diminished in numbers,
from time to time. In 1813 the royal gardens at Sans Souci contained
only about two dozen of Pine plants, which were kept in a lofty opaque
roofed conservatory, and these, as may be easily imagined, were by no
means in a thriving condition.
Before the French Revolution, the Pine Apple was cultivated at most of
the court gardens in Germany; but in the year 1814, there were very few
in the empire.
SECT. III.
_Culture of the Pine Apple in Russia._
The Pine Apple is extensively cultivated in the imperial gardens in the
neighbourhood of Petersburg and Moscow, and also in those of a few of
the greatest nobility and mercantile men adjoining those cities. Nothing
can be more wonderful than to contemplate the resources by which this
plant, requiring not less than from 50 to 70 degrees of heat at all
times of the year, is preserved in existence through a winter of seven
months, during the whole of which the ground is covered with snow, and
Fahrenheit’s thermometer, often for weeks together, at 20° below Zero.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account