_Fruit produced._ We have already noticed the circumstance of Mr. Andrews’ plants being often sold before they arrive at the stage for fruiting. His stock, however, has been lately greatly increased by the erection of additional houses, and the easy mode of heating them from the steam apparatus; he now, therefore, sends a number to market, and chiefly in the winter season, and early in spring, when the price is highest. Their fruit weigh from one to four pounds, and are almost exclusively of the Queen Pine. SECT. XIII. _Culture of the Pine Apple, as practised by Mr. Gunter, at Earlscourt, near Kensington; Mr. Grange, at Kingsland; and Mr. Wilmot, of Isleworth._ The family of Mr. Gunter have long possessed the very extensive gardens of Earlscourt, and grown in them kitchen vegetables, excellent hardy fruits, and melons, for the London market; but it is only within the last seven years that they have commenced the culture of the Pine Apple for the same purpose. This Mr. R. Gunter has done on the most liberal and extensive scale, and with great and merited success. _Form of House._ Like Mr. Andrews, Mr. Gunter uses both pits and large houses; in the pits he both nurses the plants, and fruits them, and in the large houses he fruits the Pine Apple, and produces very early grapes at the same time. [Illustration: 12] The large houses (fig. 12.) are, in what may be called the usual form; they differ from M’Phail’s, and the houses built by Speechly, and originally by Nicol, in not having a path in front; and from those of Mr. Aiton, erected in the royal gardens at Kensington, in the pit being farther from the glass. They are about fourteen feet wide inside measure; the pit is ten feet three inches wide, three feet deep, three and a half feet from the glass in front (_a_), and about six feet and a half behind (_b_). The back path (_c_) is a border regularly dug and manured, to encourage the roots of the vines, which pass under the bark bed to the front border. Each house is forty feet long, and has a flue proceeding from the back wall to the front, and along the front to the opposite end, returning to the back wall in the usual manner. As the houses are all heated by steam, however, these flues are erected merely by way of security, in case of any accident happening to the boiler or the pipes (_d_, _e_), and are therefore seldom used. Besides the vines trained over the back path, there are others which are led up the rafters; both root into excellent soil, and their shoots are withdrawn in autumn to give them three months’ rest in the open air. Those at the back wall are withdrawn through an opening in the angle of the upper sash; those in front through an angle of the front sash.