AMERICAN GARDENER. 81 



that it is impossible for any matter whatever to 

 get at the grain, or at the chest of the grain, 

 without the employment of mechanical force. 



145. Away, then, I think we may send all the 

 nonsense about the farina of the male flowers 

 being carried to the female flowers, on which so 

 much has been said and written, and in conse- 

 quence of wkich erroneous notion gardeners, in 

 dear Old England, have spent so much time in 

 assisting Cucumbers and Melons in their connu- 

 bial intercourse. To men of plain sense, this is 

 something so inconceivable, that I am afraid to 

 leave the statement unsupported by firoof, which, 

 therefore, I shall give in a question from an 

 English work on Gardening by the Rev. CHARLES 

 MARSHALL, Vicar of Brix worth in Northampton- 

 shire. " Setting the fruit is the practice of most 



* good gardeners, as generally insuring the em- 



* bryos from going off, as they are apt to do at 



* an early season, when not much wind can be 



* suftered to enter the. bed, and no bees or in- 

 ' sects are about, to convey the farina from the 



* male flowers to the female. The male flowers 



* have been ignorantly called false blossoms, 



* and so have been regularly pulled off (as said) 



* to strengthen the plants ; but they are essential 



* to impregnate the female flowers ; i. e. those 



* that shew the young fruit at their base : This 



* impregnation, called setting the fruit, is arti- 



* ficially done thus: as soon as any female flowers 

 ' are fully open, gather a newly opened male 



* flower, and stripping the leaf gently off from 

 4 the middle, take nicely hold of the bottom, and 



* twirling the top of the male (reversed) over the 



* centre of the female flower, the fine fertilizing 



