156 



SUMMER TREATMENT OF GREEN-HOUSE PLANTS. 



Ed. What is to be done with these 

 small green melons which I see your man 

 gathering in his basket ? It is so late now 

 that they will not ripen, and they are the 

 perquisites of the pigs, doubtless. 



Sub. You never made a greater mis- 

 take. For the pigs ! Not if they were 

 Westphalia all over. Why, that is the 

 most delicious vegetable we have, at this 

 season of the year. "Butter would not 

 melt in your mouth" more quickly than 

 that vegetable, as you shall have it served 

 up on my table to-day. 



Ed. Pray, what do you mean ? 



Sub. That these tardy after-crop musk- 

 melons, trampled under foot and fed to the 

 pigs, are the greatest delicacy of the season. 



Ed. Fricaseed, I suppose ; or " cut and 

 dried," for winter use ! 



Sub. By no means ; but simply cut in 

 slices, about the fourth of an inch thick, 

 and fried exactly in the same manner as 

 egg plants. Whoever tastes them so pre- 

 pared, will immediately make a memoran- 

 dum that egg plants are thenceforward ta- 

 booed, and that melons, " rightly under- 



stood," are as melting and savory in their 

 tender infancy, as they are luscious and 

 sugary in their ripe maturity. 



Ed. We shall be glad to put it to the im- 

 mediate proof. But we must bring this talk 

 to a close, or we shall be suspected of 

 having lost all taste but the taste for the 

 flesh pots of Egypt. 



Sub. But not till I have shown you my 

 plat of "German greens," all growing for 

 use next March, and my fine Walcheren 

 cauliflowers, planted late, and which I 

 shall "lift" at the first smart frost, and 

 carry them into the cellar of my outbuild- 

 ings, where they will flower and give me 

 the finest and most succulent of vegeta- 

 bles all winter long, when my neighbors 

 have only turnips and Irish potatoes. But 

 you have taught the public how to manage 

 all this in the previous numbers of your 

 journal, so that I find every one begins to 

 understand that it is as easy to have fine 

 cauliflowers at Easter as Newtown Pippins. 

 And now let us end this gossip and take a 

 turn in the orchard, where I must show 

 you my Beurres and Bergamots. 



ON THE SUMMER TREATMENT OF GREEN-HOUSE PLANTS— NO. II. 

 BY R. B. LEUCHARS, NEW-HAVEN, CT. 



Watering. — Much of the success attend- 

 ing the operations of gardening, depends 

 upon the wisdom exercised in using means 

 adapted to the circumstances of the case. 

 The intense solar heat, which has pre- 

 vailed for some time past, is no doubt cal- 

 culated to make us give up plant growing 

 in despair; and many of us have had 

 enough to do lately to keep our plants 

 alive, without sitting down to write a long 

 article about the particular methods we 

 adopted for doing so. I am very certain, 



however, that a great deal of the water 

 carried lately, has been so much labor 

 thrown away. Of this fact, I have fully 

 satisfied myself by every day's observation. 

 Daily dribblings of water do little good, (if 

 not injury,) to plants thoroughly exposed to 

 the sun's rays, whether in pots or in the 

 open ground. Surface roots are encou- 

 raged, only to be killed when the sun 

 dries oflTthe surface moisture. The ground 

 becomes crested, and is rendered impervi- 

 ous to atmospheric action ; and not in one 



