THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



55 



family are vigorous trailers, delighting in 

 the emission of loug shoots, with plenty of 

 leaves, in all directions, for the perform- 

 ance of which nature has provided them 

 with tendrils. But routine gardeners will 

 try to persuade you that melon-plants must 

 be stopped and pinched till they are pre- 

 vented from growing in any direction 

 whithersoever ; that they must be cut 

 back, and stunted, and pruned, till their 

 constitutional vigour is equivalent to that 

 of a Chinese dwarf oak growing in a pint 

 pot. It often happens that plants so 

 treated come to an untimely end, without 

 fruiting at all. But it should be remem- 

 bered that the pruning to which we sub- 

 ject a perennial tree, for the sake of bring- 

 ing it into a certain condition two or three 

 years hence, may be quite inapplicable to 

 an annual plant, from which all that you 

 can expect is an immediate and short-lived 

 burst of vigour and productiveness. 



My own gardener, a worthy man, but 

 with some conceit, and a slave to tradi- 

 tional rule, has yet sense enough to con- 

 sent to garden according to the notions of 

 the person who pays him, and in opposi- 

 tion to his own ideas. If I am wrong, 

 the loss is mine, not his, he says. And it 

 is not every gardener who will condescend 

 to that degree of humility. But I could 

 not get him to let my melons run wild to 

 my liking. When I talked of a single 

 plant, or even a cluster of three planted 

 close together, bearing five or six melons 

 each, and more, if he would only let them 

 alone, he looked me hard in the face, but 

 was too polite to say what he thought of 

 my assertion. Talking was clearly a waste 

 of breath ; so, one morning, I said, "Put 

 on your Sunday clothes ; I am going to 

 treat you to a short railway trip." At 

 the end of the journey, instead of any fur- 

 ther discussion or explanation, I walked 

 him into a garden kept by a small nur- 

 seryman, pointed to a mass of luxuriant 

 foliage, amidst which were lying fruits as 

 big as his head, in plenty, and simply said, 

 " There !" I then conducted him to ano- 

 ther garden, managed by a sensible and 

 amiable lady amateur, and again said, 

 " There ! " He returned a willing convert 

 to the mode of melon-growing which is 

 now about to be detailed. 



The problem to be solved is this : — 

 The melon requires about four months to 

 complete the circle of its vegetation from 

 the seed to the ripened fruit. That is the 

 garment which we have to cut out, or to 

 patch up, from cloth of our ordinary sum- 

 mer, which may be stated as consisting of 

 three months of warm weather, i, e., from 



the middle of June to the middle of Sep- 

 tember. It is clear, then, that as our na- 

 tural summer is not long enough to serve 

 our purpose, we must lengthen it artifi- 

 cially ; and as, towards the close of the 

 season, the plants have to contend with a 

 constant diminution of light and heat, we 

 find that it is easiest and most seasonable 

 to lengthen our summer at the beginning. 

 So far, we are in accordance with the 

 growers of melons in hotbed frames ; and 

 we continue in accordance with them (or 

 nearly so) as long as the artificial period 

 lasts. 



But our apparatus is very simple ; it 

 consists of a collection of bell-glasses (like 

 thoseused by the market-gardeners around 

 Paris) , made of glass slightly tinged with 

 green, 17 inches in diameter at the mouth, 

 and 13 inches in perpendicular height. I 

 procure them from Douai, and they cost 

 me, after breakage and carriage are paid, 

 about two shillings each. As the top of 

 the bell, where the blow-pipe was attached 

 in making it, forms a sort of bull's-eye, or 

 rude lens, which acts as a burning-glass 

 when the sun is powerful, it is prudent to 

 screen it with a circular patch of white 

 paper, pasted inside the bell-glass, at the 

 top. If bell-glasses are not to be had, 

 hand-glasses will do ; try even oiled-paper 

 caps, rather than 

 give up the ex- 

 periment for 

 want of appli- 

 ances. For each 

 bell-glass you 

 must have three 

 notched sticks, 

 like that in the 

 cut, to fix into 

 the ground, in 

 order to support 

 the bell - glass 

 over your plant 

 LEVEL at any given 

 height which 

 maybe rendered 

 desirable by the 

 state of the 

 weather. 



For young 

 plants, early in 

 March stick melon- seeds, two in each 

 pot, in leaf-mould, and force them as 

 you can ; in a hotbed and frame is the 

 "ordinary way. I start mine by covering 

 each pot with a cracked tumbler, and put- 

 ting them to bake on the top of the Prus- 

 sian stove in my study, watering as re- 

 quired. In a few days, the seed-leaves are 

 above ground, when the plants are re- 



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