186 Transactiom of the Hortiadtural Society. 



58. On the Degeneracy of the larger and finer Varieties of Persian 

 Melons in the Climate of England. By Thomas Andrew Knight, 

 Esq. F.R.S. &c., President, Read Nov. 3. 1829. 



Mr. Knight thinks " that it would be strange if every large 

 and excellent variety of melon did not degenerate under 

 our ordinary modes of culture. For every large and excel- 

 lent variety of melon must necessarily have been the produc- 

 tion of high culture and abundant food ; and a continuance 

 of the same measures which raised it to its highly improved 

 state must be necessary to prevent its receding in successive 

 generations from that state." 



" Abundant food, it is true, is generally, perhaps always, given by the 

 British gardener to his melon plants; but sufficient light, under the most 

 favourable circumstances, can only be obtained during a part of the year ; 

 and a sufficient breadth of foliage to enable the melon plant properly to 

 nourish a fruit of large size and rich saccharine quality, so that it may 

 attain the highest state of growth and perfection which it is capable of 

 acquiring, has rarely, and probably never, been given, in any season of the 

 year, by any British gardener." 



Mr. Knight has cultivated the Sweet Ispahan melon, and 

 found it a very superior variety. We shall give his mode 

 of culture in his own words : — 



" The taste and flavour of the fruit, under the mode of culture which I 

 have adopted, and which 1 shall proceed to describe, appear to me to be 

 now quite as perfect as when the variety first came into my possession ; 

 and the weight of the largest fruit 1 obtained in the last season exceeded by 

 more than 2 lbs. the weight of the largest which I raised under the same 

 mode of culture from the seeds first put into my possession, it having 

 weighed 10 lb. 6 oz. 



" I have cultivated this variety generally in a brick pit surrounded by 

 hollow walls, through which warm atmospheric air at all times enters abun- 

 dantly ; putting each plant in a separate large pot, and suffering it to bear 

 one melon only. But the fruits set and succeed sufficiently well in a com- 

 mon hot-bed ; and the important point to which I wish to draw the atten- 

 tion of the gardener is, the weight of fruit which any given extent of glass 

 roof is capable of producing in high perfection. I have found that 13 in. 

 square of glass roof will afford me 1 lb. of excellent fruit ; but 1 sometimes 

 obtain more : though, whenever I wish to save seeds, my wishes are to 

 have rather less. This quantity will probably appear small to many who 

 are in the habit of cultivating some other varieties ; but, if the roof of a 

 vinery were seen with a bunch of grapes of 1 lb. weight, at 13 in. distance 

 from each other over the whole extent of its roof, the crop would be 

 thought extremely great ; though the vine has alwa^^s the advantage of 

 having its roots and stems, and leaves and blossoms, prepared in the pre- 

 ceding year, whilst the melon plant has every thing to do within the space 

 of three or four months. 



" The rind of the Ispahan, as of other Persian melons, being very soft and 

 thin, the fruit is apt to sustain injur}' upon its under side, if it be not pro- 

 perly supported ; and I, therefore, when I raise any of those varieties in a 

 hot-bed, always place the fruit, v^hilst very young, upon a little machine in 

 the form of a short broad ladder, of 1 ft. long and 4 in. wide. This, which 

 has four slender cross bars, is supported at its corners b}' four forked pegs, 

 which are stuck into the mould of the bed ; and the fruit is thus raised 



