THE SOIL AND ITS DEPTH. 2OQ 



by great care in watering. As the fruits begin to ma- 

 ture, water the house very sparingly. "The less water 

 given, the higher will be the flavor of the fruit."* Inas- 

 much as old or fruiting plants require a dry house, and 

 young plants thrive best in a moister atmosphere, it is 

 not advisable to attempt to grow successive plantings of 

 melons simultaneously in the same house. 



Recent English instructions, by James Barkham.f give 

 the following advice about melon soil: "The top spit 

 from an old pasture is what I prefer, if such is obtain- 

 able, soil such as a good, strong, yellow loam being 

 most suitable. This should be broken up with the spade 

 to about the size of a duck's egg. Do not use any 

 manure, but to every cartload of loam add two bar- 

 rowloads of old mortar or plaster, broken up and run 

 through an inch mesh sieve, and one barrowload of half- 

 decayed leaf soil, turning the whole two or three times, 

 so as to thoroughly mix it. Mistakes are often made in 

 preparing soil for melons by making it too rich by add- 

 ing manure, which encourages a too luxuriant growth. 

 When this is so, it is an impossibility to obtain satisfac- 

 tory results, as the growth becomes so succulent that 

 instead of the fruit setting it turns yellow and decays." 



The bench should not be above 7 inches deep, and 

 perhaps 5 inches is better. If the soil is too deep, the 

 plants grow too much, and are late in coming into bear- 

 ing. If the bench is 4 feet wide, two rows of plants, 

 ^Yt feet apart in the rows, may be grown ; but if the 

 bench is an outside one, it may be handier in training 

 if there is but a single row, with the plants about 18 

 inches apart. It should always be borne in mind, how- 

 ever, that at least twice the number of plants should be 

 set in the beds which are ultimately to grow in them, 



* George Mills, A Treatise on the Cucumber and Melon, 73. 

 tjimes Barkham, F. R. H. S., in Journal of the Royal Horticul- 

 tural Society, xx. p. i (1896). 



