THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



57 



plant one or more of your seedlings, turn- 

 ing them out of their pots adroitly, so as 

 to & keep their balls of earth entire. If you 

 want a few melons only of the largest size, 

 plant only one seedling ; if you prefer a 

 liberal supply of moderate-sized fruit, 

 plant three. I recommend the planting 

 of three, in preference to one or two. 

 "Water them, and cover them close with a 

 bell-glass. You may have given the first 

 pinching to your plants while still in pot, 

 before turning them out. Once for all, 

 let me state emphatically, that all the 

 pinching and pruning which I, the writer, 

 would allow, is this, and no more : When 

 your plants have made five true leaves, 

 nip off the top of the shoot with your 

 thumb-nail, leaving four. From the axil 

 of each remaining leaf a shoot will pro- 

 bably start ; when each shoot has made 

 six or seven leaves more, pinch again, 

 leaving five or six leaves. After this, 



and the thing is done. When the branches 

 peep out from under their bell, give the 

 pinchings directed, and do not let any of 

 the old school uersuade you to remove 

 another leaf. 



The lell-glasses remain suspended over 

 the crowns of the plants the ivhole summer 

 long. This is a very important point ; 

 they serve both as a night-cap and an um- 

 brella, protecting the most impressionable 

 portion of the plant, the collar. The 

 notched sticks admit of varying the height 

 of the bell from the ground, according to 

 the heat of the weather. When the blos- 

 soms appear, it is quite needless to fecun- 

 date the fruit-bearing flowers with those 

 which produce pollen only ; Nature has 

 provided sufficient agents for that in the 

 insects and the summer breeze. I also 

 advise you not to thin the fruit ; let your 

 plants bear all they can ; for, in fact, they 

 really thin themselves. You may, perhaps, 



pinch no more ; let your plants run wild 

 and matted. If, towards the close of sum- 

 mer, they encroach too far beyond the 

 base of their hillocks, chop off the ends of 

 the branches with a spade, exactly as you 

 would trim a grass-plot that was encroach- 

 ng on a flower-bed. 



After these two operations of the first 

 pinching and the planting-out, your plants 

 will sometimes appear to stand still for 

 a fortnight or so, and their vegetation 

 to languish. Do not be uneasy on that 

 account ; perhaps they are working hard 

 unseen, at the root. Cover at night with 

 mats, if spring-frosts threaten ; admit air 

 by day ; carefully weed your hillocks, and 

 give them a slight scratching ; then encase 

 them with an overcoat of well-rotten 

 manure, an inch and a-half thick. As 

 soon as the warm waters of the Gulf- 

 Stream have reached the coast, and there 

 is a prospect of fine and settled weather, 

 raise the bell-glasses on the notched sticks 



remove a fruit that would have come to 

 maturity, while you may leave one that is 

 destined to turn yellow and drop. After 

 a fruit is set, if you cannot see it grow 

 from day to day, you may be almost sure 

 it will come to nothing. "When a melon 

 is half-grown, it may be supported on the 

 side of its hillock by means of a little piece 

 of board, as in the accompanying figure ; 

 it may also be covered with a bell-glass, 

 which, however, is more easily done on a 

 horizontal surface than on a slope. 



In hot and dry weather, you must 

 water, with a fine-pierced rose, over the 

 leaves and all; although the melon-plant 

 dreads wet, it loves a tepid bath. Use 

 no admixture of liquid manure, but take 

 care that the water is at least as warm as 

 the atmosphere. Do not wait for the 

 leaves to flag before you water. Long- 

 continued rains and cold fogs are more 

 difficult to contend with than drought 

 the plant becomes surcharged with water, 

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