358 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



sometimes even when they are transplanted. This pinching-in is 

 practiced for the purpose of setting the plant at once into fruit- 

 bearing, and to make it branch into three or four main shoots. All 

 the weak or " fine " shoots are removed as fast as they appear, so 

 that the plant does not expend its energy in the making of useless 

 growth. The three or four main vines or arms are trained diverg- 

 ently upon a wire trellis, and as soon as a shoot reaches the top of 

 the trellis — four or five feet — it is stopped. This trellis is made 

 simply of light wire strung both horizontally and vertically, with the 

 strands about a foot apart in each direction. To these wires, the 

 vines and fruits are tied with raffia, or other soft cord. It must be 

 remembered that the fruit is borne along the main branches, and 

 that all small or "blind" growths should be nipped out as soon as 

 they start. The fruits should hang free from the vine, never touch- 

 ing the ground. It will generally be necessary to hang them to a 



59 — Pistillate or female flower of melon. Natural size. 



wire, as shown on the title-page, by making a sling of raffia. They 

 will then not hang too heavily on the vine, nor break oil — as they 

 sometimes do if unsupported. 



Pollinating. — The flowers must be pollinated by hand. Melons 

 are monoecious — that is, the sexes are borne in separate flowers 

 on the same plant. The first flowers to open are always males or 

 staminate, and it may be two weeks after these first blossom 

 appear that the females or pistillates begin to form. There is 

 nearly always a much larger number of males than females, evens 



