04? Or RAISING MELONS. 5ECT. XIV. 



soil to grow in than cucumbers, and more heat, both 

 at bottom and top, and need less water : they take 

 up more room, so that one plant, or at most two, 

 will be enow under one full sized light. Cucumbers 

 may be raised on a seed bed till fit to plant out on 

 thejfr^Y bed ; but melons will (generally at least) 

 require an intermediate bed. During the whole time 

 of the cultivation of melons, (till high summer) they 

 must have a lively bottom heat, in order to bring 

 them forward, and succeed well; and, if melons are 

 late, as soon as September enters, a strong lining of 

 hot dung may be put to the bed, to afford some de- 

 gree of heat to the outer roots, as an equivalent to 

 the failure of the season. Melons never do well in 

 a shady summer. As cucumbers are about three 

 months coming in, so melons are about four. They 

 set their fruit in about two months, and are about 

 the same time in ripening, though forty days will 

 sometimes effect it. 



The seed of melons (procured from well ripened 

 and fine flavoured fruit) should be about four years 

 old, though some prefer it much older, as judging it 

 so much the less likely to run to vine : If it is too 

 old, however, it comes up weak, and is apt to rot, 

 when the mould is not sufficiently dry, and the seed 

 bed not very warm. If new seed only can be had, 

 it should be carried a week or two in the breeched 

 pocket, to dry away some of the more watery parts: 

 The earlier the seed is sown, the older it should be. 

 IVlelon seed may be sown in a cucumber bed, that is 

 in a brisk heat, in pots plunged towards the middle ; 

 but a bed should be ready to move the young plants 

 into before the cucumber bed gets too cool. Sow 

 only three or four seeds in each pot, and cover a lit- 

 tle more than half an inch : The earth in which the 

 Seed is sown, should not be so strong as that in which 

 the plants are to grow for fruit. When the seedlings 



