TRAINING HOUSE MELONS. 211 



September 10 ; first fruit picked December 6 ; crop all 

 harvested for Christmas.* If a crop is desired on the 

 first of November, the seeds should be sown from the 

 middle to the 25th of July. Fig. 72 (page 210) shows 

 the size of a good melon plant as it leaves a 4-inch pot 

 for the bench. It is very important that the plants should 

 not become pot-bound, nor stunted in any other way. It 

 is only strong, pushing plants which give satisfactory 

 results. 



Training. The plants are "stopped " the tip of the 

 leader taken off as soon as they become established in 

 the bench. This pinching-in is practiced for the purpose 

 of setting the plant at once into fruit-bearing, and to 

 make it branch into three or four main shoots. All the 

 weak or "fine" shoots are removed as fast as they ap- 

 pear, so that the plant does not expend its energy in the 

 making of useless growth. The three or four main vines 

 or arms are trained divergently upon a wire trellis, and 

 as soon as a shoot reaches the top of the trellis 4 or 5 

 feet it is stopped. Some growers prefer to have a 

 leader 4 or 5 feet long, and only two laterals and of 

 about the same length as the leader. The trellis is 

 made simply of light wire, strung both horizontally and 

 vertically, with the strands about a foot apart in each 

 direction. To these wires the vines and fruits are tied 

 with raffia, or other soft, broad cord. It must be re- 

 membered that the fruit is borne along the main 

 branches, and that all small or "blind" growths from 

 the main stem and branches should be nipped out as 

 soon as they start. The fruits should hang free from the 

 vine, never touching the ground. It will generally be 

 necessary to hang them to a wire, as shown in Fig. 73 

 (page 212), by making a sling of raffia, or resting them 



* It should be said that the forcing season at Ithaca is unusually 

 cloudy, and that, consequently, these dates of maturity are somewhat 

 later than they may be in sunnier regions. 



15 FORC. 



