GARDEN VEGETABLES. 57 



manure. It must be admitted to be rather a shy yielder, but if 

 purchasers would pay proper prices, it could be more generally 

 raised and brought to market. He thought it would be for the 

 benefit of both buyer and seller that this should, by some means, 

 become better understood. 



He thought the subject of proper fertilization was one on which 

 much that had been published was very unreliable. He gave as 

 an instance the extravagant commendation of kelp as a fertilizer, 

 which was diligently put forth some twenty years ago, though now 

 generally forgotten. It came from a man who had the imagina- 

 tion of a poet and missed his calling. The speaker would lay 

 down one general principle : supply phosphoric acid to the land, 

 and it will not leach away (unless on very sand}' soil) ; on fair 

 tillage land it will stay till taken off in crops. 



Mr. Rawson confirmed the statement of the last speaker as to 

 the inferior ripeness of the melons commonly offered in the market 

 by our gardeners ; but thought it impossible to do an}' better with 

 the native or common kinds. He recommended the Montreal 

 green-fleshed melon as firmer in texture when thoroughly ripe than 

 the common kind, and as bearing handling with less injury. 



In reply to a question from a Revere gardener, whether Arling- 

 ton men could raise a hundred bushels of spinach on twelve 

 hundred square feet of land, Mr. Rawson said that that product 

 could be attained anj'where with plenty of fertilizer and moisture. 



Mr. Endicott called attention to a collection of tubers of 

 IStacliys tuberifera exhibited by him. It is a new vegetable 

 highl}' prized in France. His opinion of it was not high. The 

 tubers are small, deeply creased, and very diflScult to keep over 

 winter except in the ground, it being hardy. 



A paper on the " Cultivation and Diseases of the Peach," by 

 J. H. Hale, of South Glastonbury, Conn., was announced for the 

 next Saturday. 



BUSINESS MEETING. 



Saturday, February 4, 1888. 



An adjourned meeting of the Societ}^ was holden at 11 o'clock, 

 the President, Henry P. Walcott, in the chair. 



