FORWARDING MELONS UNDER HAND GLASSES, 



ALTHOUGH our citizens have an opportunity of procuring 

 Melons without artificial aid, as their continuance is short, 

 it may not be amiss to remind the gardener that the direc- 

 tions already given for maturing Cucumbers under glass 

 will apply to Melons, with very few exceptions ; care, how 

 ever, must be taken that they be kept away from each other 

 at the time of fruiting, as instances often occur of whole 

 crops being entirely ruined, by plants of the same genus 

 being raised too near each other. Those who wish to for- 

 ward Melons, may prepare a hot-bed in March or April, to 

 raise plants in ; the bed may be formed and the plants 

 managed in precisely the same manner as is directed for 

 Cucumbers. If the ridging system be adopted, and a hand- 

 glass applied to each hill, Melons may be obtained one 

 month earlier than the usual time. 



Gardeners raising Melons for the supply of city markets^ 

 may gratify the public by pursuing the forwarding, if not the 

 forcing system. Ridges may be prepared in the following 

 manner. In April or May, a trench may be dug in a warm 

 border about two feet deep and three wide, and of sufficient 

 length for as many hand-glasses as are intended to be 

 employed, allowing three feet for every hill. Some good 

 heating manure should be laid in the pits, managed the same 

 as a common hot-bed ; to this must be added good rich 

 mould to the depth of eight or ten inches for the plants to 

 grow iir; as soon as the mould is warm, the seedlings may 

 be planted, three plants in each hill, after which the hand- 

 glasses should be set on, and shaded. After the plants have 

 taken root and begun to grow, the glasses should be raised 

 in fine days, and propped up so as to admit fresh air, and as 

 the warm weather progresses, they may be taken off in the 

 middle of fine days, so as to harden the plants gradually to 

 the weather; and by the latter end of May they may be left 

 to nature. 



