KITCHEN GARDEN. 195 



cles contained in it ; an advantage to be anywhere 

 commanded by dissolving a little salt in the water 

 employed to moisten them. 



If we want melons at a period earlier than this 

 method will give them, we must employ a higher 

 degree and longer continuance of artificial heat ; in 

 a word, we must resort to hotbeds ; and in these the 

 point most important, and, at the same time, the 

 most difficult of attainment, is to secure a certain 

 degree of heat, and no more, throughout the whole 

 process. To lessen the difficulty in this case, gar- 

 deners who understand their trade make choice of 

 those varieties which have the thinnest skins and 

 the least bulk; as experience proves that, other 

 things being equal, they require less heat* than 

 those of thicker rinds and greater size, and are, of 

 course, less subject to some of the accidents to 

 which this species of culture is exposed. In choo- 

 sing the seeds, those of the last year are only to be 

 used, because they are of quicker vegetation than 

 old ones, and, accordingly, best fulfil the intention of 

 the hotbed, which is to give early fruit. Another 

 practice conducive to the safety of the plants is to 

 sow the seed in small pots, and then to plunge them 

 into a hotbed. If the heat be deficient, they are, in 

 this case, made no worse than they would have 

 been if sown directly in the bed ; and if it be ex- 

 cessive, it is only necessary to raise the pots, with- 

 out in the smallest degree disturbing the plant. 

 These things being premised, it only remains to 

 show what ought to be the subsequent management 

 after the seed has been sown and the pots placed 

 under the frames. One of the most important points 

 now to be observed is sufficiently to ventilate the 



* No one is ignorant that surfaces augment as the squares, 

 and that solids follow the proportion of cubes. If, for instance, 

 the surface of the melon be four, the quantity of its matter will 

 be eight ; and if the surface of another melon be nine, its matter 

 will be equal to twenty-seven. 



