Transactio7is of the Hortiailtural Society. 187 



some inches above the surface of the mould of the bed, and exposed to 

 light, whilst the air is permitted to pass freely under it. I send a few seeds 

 of the large melon above mentioned, with the hope that some other mem- 

 bers of our Society will succeed as well in cultivating the variety as I have 

 done ; and that they will find it, as I have done, superior in merit to any of 

 those which have subsequently been imported from Persia. 



" Whenever it is my wish to obtain seeds of the Ispahan melon, I do not 

 sow its seeds earlier than the middle of April, that my plants may grow and 

 blossom in June, during the brightest weather of our climate, and ripen 

 their fruit early in August. 



" I have some reasons for believing that very valuable varieties of the 

 melon may be obtained, for one generation at least, by cross-breeding 

 between the smaller and more hardy varieties of green and white fleshed 

 melons and the large Persian varieties. I obtained from one of our mem- 

 bers. Captain Rainier, R, N. (to whom our gardens are indebted for some 

 other valuable articles), a melon of a very singular character, from the 

 seeds of which, and the pollen of the Ispahan melon, I obtained plants of 

 more hardy and productive habits than those of the Ispahan melon, and 

 which afforded fruit scarcely, if at all, inferior to that. The colour of the 

 above-mentioned, which I received from Captain Rainier, is pale green, 

 with longitudinal stripes of very deep green ; and being very long and slen- 

 der whilst young, it excited in the minds of several persons, when they first 

 saw it, the idea of a snake lying amongst the leaves of the plant. During 

 the growth of the fruit the pale green part of it acquires a very bright yel- 

 low colour, and this, as the fruit approaches maturity, slowly fades into the 

 colour of box-wood. Its flesh being green and of good quality, though 

 inferior in richness to that of the Ispahan, and the plants extremely pro- 

 ductive of fruit, I introduced the pollen of the Ispahan melon into its 

 blossoms with very beneficial effects upon the offspring. In the last season, 

 I again introduced the pollen of the Ispahan melon into the blossoms of 

 the cross-bred varieties; and from the seeds thus obtained, of which I send 

 a small number, I confidently expect fruit of very great excellence. It is, 

 I believe, very generally supposed that the offspring of cross-bred plants, 

 as well as of cross-bred animals, usually present great irregularity and 

 variety of character ; but if a male of permanent habits, and, of course, 

 not cross-bred, be selected, that will completely overrule the disposition to 

 sport irregularly in the cross-bred variety alilie in the animal and vegetable 

 world, the permanent habit always controlling and prevailing over the va- 

 riable. The finest varieties of melons are usually supposed by gardeners 

 to be, comparatively with the pine-apple, fruits of easy culture : but expe- 

 rience has led me to draw a contrary conclusion, and to believe that more 

 skill, and still more trouble and attention, are requisite, in almost all sea- 

 sons, to insure a crop of melons in the highest state of perfection which 

 that fruit is capable of acquiring. If the leaves of a melon plant be sud- 

 denly exposed to the influence of the sun in a bright day, which has suc- 

 ceeded a few cloudy days, for a short time only, they frequently become 

 irreparably injured. If the air of the bed be kept a little too damp, the stems 

 of the plants often canker, and the leaves and stalks sustain injury in the 

 common hot-bed ; and if the air be too dry, the plants, and consequently 

 the fruit, are injured by the depredations of the red spider. The pine-apple, 

 on the contrary', I have found (as I have stated in former communications) 

 to be a plant of very easy culture ; and I much doubt whether any pine- 

 stove in the kingdom at the present moment contains as fine plants at the 

 same age, and confined within the same limits, as my houses contain, and 

 I am quite certain that the time and trouble expended in the care of these 

 is not one fourth part as much as an equal extent of melon-beds would 

 have required during any given period of the growth of the pine-apple 

 plants." 



(Tb be continued.^ 



