4S4 



THE GARDEN AND ITS FRUITS. 



[Chap. Y. 



the Long Green Prickly ; Long Greeu Turkey ; Stockwood Eidge ; and 

 Carter's Long Eidge. 



For early use, cucumbers may be planted in sods inverted in a box that 

 can be taken in and out of the house, according to weather, until it is warm 

 enough to set them in place. You can not make the hills for cucnml)ors 

 too rich. Some market gardeners divide the hills in quarters, and plant one 

 fourth at a time, a week apart ; so that if one planting fails, another will 

 succeed. The plants should be hoed frequently, and the liugs watched care- 

 fully. Seed improves by age ; an ounce will plant a hundred hills ; though 

 as they are planted on Long Island for market, an ounce would bo needed 

 for a dozen hills. The market gardeners put in such a quantity of seed, 

 that the l)ug3 are not able to eat all until some get too big for tliein. 



5i5. Miisk-Melons should not be planted till the earth gets warm, and 

 then in hills dug deep and made rich with well-rotted manure. It is a good 

 practice to pinch out the bud of the main shoot as soon as half a dozen 

 rough leaves are formed, as that causes lateral branches, and makes the fruit 

 set earlier. Light, dry, sandy loam made rich, and a dry, hot atmosphere, 

 if the plants are kept moist, will grow fine melons. We think the Green 

 citron, a small, rough green skin, roundish form, the best sort. The Pine- 

 apple and Jenny Lind are similar, and excellent. The Nutmeg melon 

 grows larger, with rough skin and greenish flesh, aromatic and sweet. 

 Skillman's Fine jSTetted looks as though the green melon was bagged in a 

 brown net, and is a very fine melon, and ripens early. The Christiana is a 

 yellow-fleshed sort that ripens very early. It is a ]\Iassachusetts seedling. 



5i6. Water-Melons, though grown in all the jS^orthern States, never come 

 to such perfection of excellence as they do in warmer climates. Here they 

 should bo planted in May in light, dry ground, and they often do best upon al- 

 most pure beds of sand, having hills prepared by digging out large holes and 

 tilling them with manure, and covering it with soil. If the plants are wa- 

 tered with a solution of two pounds of Peruvian guano in a barrel of water, 

 their vigor will be much increased. It is a great object to get them forward 

 as fast as possible. A very successful grower of water-melons upon the gra- 

 nitic soil of AVestchester County,- N. T., says : 



" I dig a hole three feet M-ide and three feet deep or more, and fill it with 

 cow-yard manure early in the season — say 1st of May, and cover this with 

 light soil, six or eight inches deep, before planting the seeds. For musk- 

 melons I manure with well-decomposed manure, sown broadcast and worked 

 into the soil. I would also work in a little of this fine manure in the top 

 of the water-melon hills." 



The vines fruit better if the leading shoots are frequently pinched back. 

 "Water-melon hills should bo ten feet apart in rich, sandy loam or artificially 

 enriched sand. Six or eight seeds to a hill, not over an inch deep, in fine, 

 black soil, over any amount of rich manure, will produce vigorous vines. 

 The varieties of water-melons are almost innumerable. The Mountain 

 Sweet and Black Spanish are our favorites. Cut-worms and bugs are the 



