When a really aristocratic dessert has to be made up, a Pineapple is indispensable, and the season is at hand when it is more difficult to have a variety of fresh fruits fit for the table than any other; and Pineapples are more useful and valued than at any other time of the year. There are two ways of getting ripe Pines in April and May. The one is to start a batch of Early Queens into fruit in December or January, and push them on as rapidly as weather and other conditions will allow. There is no other Pine that we know of so serviceable for this work as the good old Queen. Another way of getting ripe Pines at the time named, is to take good care of all the Smooth Cayennes and Charlotte Rothschilds that start into fruit in the late autumn - say in November. We invariably have a dozen or two come into fruit that month, and could have more with the greatest ease, if it were necessary. By keeping these in a bottom-heat of from 85° to 90°, and an air temperature of 65° when cold, and 70° when mild, they swell fine fruit, and ripen at the same time as Queens started early, as referred to above. For this method of getting spring fruit, we know of no sorts so suitable as the two named.

All plants that have just started, or are swelling off fruit, should have the temperature named above steadily maintained; and the soil and air should be constantly moist. Put air on early in the day when the weather is sunny, but always shut up early, so as to have the glass at 80° for a time. All autumn suckers that are well rooted in 6- and 7-inch pots should be shifted into their fruiting-pots before the middle of this month. We think pots larger than 11 inches lead to a waste of soil, expense in pots, and extra labour, without yielding any desirable result whatever. An 11-inch pot full of healthy roots, well fed, we have always found superior to any larger sizes. The soil should be a rather light loam, with a good deal of the finer particles separated from it, and a 6-inch potful of bone-meal to every bushel of soil. Use it in a dry warm state, and ram it firmly into the pots. One of the cardinal points in producing good fruiting Pine-plants, and swelling off large fruits, is to have a pot full of fine fibrous roots, to be well fed; and we always find this in light rather than in heavy tenacious loam. Any suckers potted during winter, and not yet filling their pots with roots, should be encouraged with a bottom-heat of 85°, and an air temperature of 65° at night.

Keep them near the glass, and avoid crowding them. The batch of Queens to be started into fruit next month may have a slight increase of temperature, and rather more moisture. Smooth Cayennes, to start in summer, must not be kept too dry or cool, or they may start prematurely. Just keep the soil from being very dry, and let the temperature be as near 60° at night, all weathers, as possible. The bottom-heat for these should not exceed 80° for the present.