CULTURE OF THE MELON. 487 



pot, and plunge them in a bed of tan or of leaves of trees, in which is a 

 very gentle heat : a brick bed will answer the purpose very well ; or they 

 will do in the forcing-house, if there be room for them. Let them be put 

 into the house in the latter end of February or beginning of March, and 

 keep them sufficiently watered. When they are two years old, they will 

 be able to bear fruit ; the pots in that time having become full of roots. In 

 the month of November or December, turn the plants out of the pots, and 

 with a sharp knife pare off the outside of the ball, by which the plant will 

 be divested of its roots matted against the inside of the pot : then place them 

 into larger pots, filling up the vacancy round the balls with strong loamy 

 earth. During the winter, let them be kept in the green-house, or in a 

 glazed pit of a like temperature, till the month of February ; which will 

 be a means of preventing the fruit from falling off before it comes to 

 maturity. In this manner let them be treated every year, till the plants 

 become too large for the pots ; then set them into the forcing-house, where 

 it is intended they shall ripen their fruit." (Gard. Rem.) 



1035. Winter treatment. The glass of the fig-house should not be taken 

 off during winter, because it is an important object to preserve the embyro 

 fruit that are to produce the first crop in the following year. Hence, 

 wherever it can be accomplished, the sea-side temperature of Genoa or 

 Naples, which is rarely under 38 or 40, ought to be maintained in the 

 fig-house throughout the winter months. This is most conveniently and 

 economically done when the plants are kept in pots or tubs, as they can 

 then be removed to a shed or cellar, as is the practice in Germany. 



SECT. VI. On forcing the Plum, Apricot, Gooseberry, and other 

 Fruit-trees and Fruit-shrubs. 



In Germany, and more especially Russia, it is customary to force all our 

 hardy fruit-trees and fruit-shrubs, including even the currant and raspberry. 

 The plants are invariably kept in pots ; and, when the fruit is ripe, the pot 

 and the entire plant is placed on the dessert-table. The forcing is generally 

 carried on in the same house with various culinary vegetables, and being 

 ripened without the natural quantity of light and air, it is, as far as we have 

 tasted it, when in these countries in 1813 and 1814, without much flavour. 

 Plums and apricots are occasionally forced in Britain ; they are planted in 

 pots, and placed in pits, or in any forcing -house where there is room. The 

 temperature and treatment of the peach-house, it will readily be conceived, 

 is most suitable for them. 



SECT. VII. Culture of the Melon. 



SUBSECT. I. Natural and experimental data on which the Culture of the Melon 



is founded. 



1036. The melon (Cucumis Melo, L.) is an herbaceous trailing or climbing 

 annual, indigenous or cultivated in great part of the warmer districts of 

 Asia or Africa from time immemorial. In the warmer parts of Europe, it 

 has been cultivated at least from the time of the Romans. The melon is 

 extensively cultivated in Armenia, Ispahan, and Bokhara, and very generally 

 in Greece, Italy, and the shores of the Mediterranean. It succeeds in the 

 open air as far as 43 N. ; and its culture extends within the tropics, but 

 only when it is abundantly supplied with moisture. Its extremes of tern- 



