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JOUBNAL OF HOKTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GABDENEE. 



[ October 30, 1866. 



frinched off, as the object in view is to have six nice little frait 

 .all of one size. If one Melon took the lead, the rest, if any, 

 would be very diminutive. All this is well known to " Cucumis 

 Hbi,o." A somewhat drier atmosphere is required to obtain a 

 .sufficient quantity of fruit-blossoms, which, when secured, 

 .should be impregnated. After the fruit is fairly set, a moister 

 atmosphere is required until the fruit approaches the ripening 

 state, when a drier or less humid one is the best. The usual 

 routine of watering, keeping the plants clean, and ventilation 

 is well known, and needs no comment here. 



I am not able to say where seed can be purchased, and am 

 sorry that "Cucusns Melo " has been put to so much in- 

 convenience in procuring it ; but to make amends for the 

 annoyance, I will, on receiving his address, forward him a 

 few seeds of the true sort, and in his hands I am quite sure 

 they will thrive; and when the gardener's friend," as hj calls 

 this Melon, comes to maturity, I hope he will tell us all about it. 



A Melon which I exhibited at the Eoyal Horticultural 

 ^Society's meeting of October Oth, was grown in a pot, and 

 weighed 4 lbs. 1 oz. It was a hybrid Cashmere, from seed 

 .^urehstsed of Mr. Meredith, of Garston, near Liverpool. 



A greater variety of Melons may be grown in a given space 

 in pots than when planted out in beds, and, like orchard-house 

 trees, the variety is charming. — John Perkins, The Gardens, 

 Tlufrnham Hall, Eye. 



P.S. — How would a houseful of Melons in pots look — say a 

 span-roofed house with a path down the centre, and two rows 

 • of plants on each side, some trained as standards, some as 

 })ushes, and some as pyramids ? Queen Anne's Pocket Melon in 

 such a house would look lovely in large pots, with fifty or sixty 

 fruit on each plant. — J. P. 



MUSHROOM TROUBLES. 



Of all things grown out of the earth, is there any one, or any 

 twenty, equal to Mushrooms in the subtle power they possess 

 ■ of disappointing one ? We make great preparations, and incur 

 •considerable cost, for what, if the seasons turn out wrong, is 

 all nothing ; and it strikes me the seasons never are right. 

 They are always either too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry. 

 The Mushrcom-bed is nine times out of ten a failure, and yet 

 no one can be blamed. It is only in "Farmers' Magazines," and 

 "Journals of Horticulture," that basketsful can be gathered 

 ^without trouble or expense. 



Mrs. Nicholls, across the green, makes up a fresh bed every 

 jear in the vain hope of growing them ; but the materials cost 

 lier nothing, and the labour she has for the asking, in the shape 

 of her son's gardener. This bed is made after her own design, 

 and I must say, like most other Mushroom-beds which have 

 come under my notice, is not a prolific yielder. Strange to say, 

 ike lady never loses heart or hope, but tries again. 



Once she found about a score had been splendid Mushrooms. 

 They should have been gathered a week, but she had been away 

 at Bedear, and no one had thought of the bed. They were the 

 srfiole season's crop. 



Then there is Mrs. Teasdale, living at Hilltop House ; she 

 has a piece of waste land facing the north, in which this year 

 r.hs planted a few rows of early Potatoes. All along the ridges 

 there came up of themselves thick, fat, fleshy Mushrooms ; 

 hat she never would tell how she managed it. She only said it 

 was all chance, they had never grown before, though she had 

 tried hard to make them, and this year she dare not eat them 

 for fear of the cholera. 



And yet, in spite of all this cost, and care, and trouble, and 

 uncertainty, we know that miles away from our great towns, in 

 tlie pleasant pasture fields, they spring up of their own sweet 

 will, such Mushrooms as we cannot grow. There is, however, 

 a drawback — unfortunately they are not always the real eatable 

 Mushrooms which we find growing ; and even when they are, 

 ptrauge to say they somehow or other change as they pass into 

 the cook's hands ; they then become either horse Mushrooms 

 cr poison. 



When a youug girl, I was sent into the country to get quit 

 of a barking cough, and playing on the banks of the river 

 Gose, a mile or two away from Selby, in Yorkshire — that dear 

 river, about which poets have sung until they have made a 

 memorial river to outlive even the real river — playing there I 

 found some fine Mushrooms, and took them home with me to 

 the lodgings, thinking what a great treat I would have, for I 

 was very fond of them, and had been brought up to regard 

 them as wiolesome food. 



" Oh ! they are not fit to eat, Miss ; they are horse Mush- 

 rooms, they'll make you ill ; very like kill you ; best throw 

 them away at once for fear of harm." 



" No, don't, Mrs. "Wilson, I beg ; they are good." I was too 

 late, the poor things were on their way over a backyard, a five- 

 feet stone wall, into the dusty high road, to be trodden under 

 the hoofs of the first cart horse that came that way. No use to 

 fret or stamp on the red brick floor as I did. Some little time 

 afterwards I was sent into the kitchen for a jug of water. It 

 was the dinner hour. A labouring man was hanging up his cap 

 behind the door ; the peg seemed unwilling to hold it, for it fell 

 down twice. A thick neck-of-mutton chop was steaming hot 

 upon the table, and some dainty Mushrooms in rich dark 

 gravy sent out a perfume which filled me with a strange 

 longing. I went away wondering why Mrs. Wilson's face 

 should be so very red, when it was a cool morning. I do not 

 wonder now. 



This was not my only disappointment in the Mushroom way. 

 I must confess to liking the "nasty things," as they are often 

 called, very much, perhaps too much. I soon grew wise enough 

 to know that cooks at lodging-houses never acknowledge any- 

 thing to be Mushrooms. They cover all over with, " It would 

 be such a dreadful affair if I were to poison you. Nobody would 

 ever come to my house again." 



A summer ago I was staying at Blackpool, in the warm month 

 of August. There, every morning during the week, country 

 women brought to the market hampers full of most lovely 

 Mushrooms — Mushrooms to dream about, they were so thick 

 and white, and had such a delicate soft pink lining. They 

 were gathered in the fields miles away, so they said. So one 

 day, tired of the great sea that was for ever beating up thou- 

 sands of star fish and tiny crabs on the rough, uncomfortable 

 shore, we started off to seek Mushrooms for ourselves. Leaving 

 the pier and the town behind, we went far on the north shore, 

 passed the new hotel then building, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and 

 far out among the fields, those almost flowerless and treeless 

 fields which stretch out to Fleetwood, catching now and then 

 glimpses of the ocean — pictures to be remembered in the long 

 dark winter nights — and picking here and there a Mushroom 

 which had been missed by the early gatherers. Oh, what a 

 day of warmth and beauty it was ! and many an exclamation of 

 joy escaped us, as we rested beneath the " blue unclouded," 

 and watched the still bluer butterflies skim merrily past us. 



Our little bags were full, when late in the evening we reached 

 home, and thinking to be wiser than of old, we sat down before 

 our large window that faced the sea to prepare our Mushrooms. 

 Pepper and salt, and milk, and butter, and Mushrooms were 

 properly mixed together in a basin, and the bell rung for our 

 pretty waiting maid. I am afraid, as Mrs. Poyser would say, she 

 thought more of her good looks thau her work. Many rules 

 and charges were given ; the Mushrooms were to be cooked 

 with all care, and brought up with our tea, for which we would 

 wait, though we were very hungry, and very tired. 



How the white waves did toss themselves up in the evening 

 light ; how untiringly they told and retold that old story we 

 have each one to interpret for ourselves ; how the crowds of 

 Lancashire, and Staffordshire, and Yorkshire people, trod and 

 retrod the pier ! I never could make out, what profit, or pleasure, 

 or health, or anything, they found in doing so — how lights 

 sprang up all along the shore, and long strings of poor, tired 

 donkeys, sought their way home ; and how at last crowds, and 

 sea, and lights, and music, and worry, and waiting were lost in 

 that snatch of dreamless sleep, the very tired alone know the 

 sweets of. 



Tea came, but the Mushrooms ? " Dear me, Madam, I am 

 so sorry, but I could not help it, it was not my fault. Missus 

 took the pan lid off to look in, and forgot to put it on again, 

 and all the soot in the chimney fell in, you could not eat them." 

 I did not believe either about the soot or the sorry ; both 

 were imaginary in the highest degree. No more Mushrooms 

 at Blackpool. 



A mouth ago I was out to supper at Mrs. Nicholls's, there 

 was a large dish of Mushrooms ; they were not her own growing 

 though, a present from some great gardener at Methley. 



" I say, wife, I would not have cooked these things, I am not 

 sure they are safe to eat. There is a long article in to-day's 

 " Mercury." They seized all the Mushrooms in the market on 

 Tuesday, as unfit for food. They say they are not as they 

 should be this year, owing to the wet." 



So Mr. Nicholls put back the Mushrooms he had been helped 

 to, and his daughters shook their heads, and would not have 

 any, though their dear Mamma ate her's with great relish, in 



