MELONS AND CUCUMBERS. 5! 



plants through any cold spell, even one that would kill plants 

 in a box with glass on it, for it can never be made air-tight, 

 like the earth box. After the seeds come up, the glass should 

 be drawn down half way in good weather, until the third 

 leaf is out, to prevent running up ; then thin out to a stand, 

 to prevent crowding. In all cold, chilly and rainy weather 

 keep the glass down tight, and never leave a crack at night. 

 When all danger is over and the vines crowd the hole, level 

 down and stick the pane of glass slanting over the plants on 

 the north side. This will entirely break any ordinary frost. 



As to the proper fertilizing for melons, I have alluded to it, 

 and especially the need for potash, in my powder article on 

 cabbage. Bone meal, or a good complete fertilizer, will give, 

 with plenty of potash, a much sweeter and better netted 

 cantalope than barnyard manure or cotton-seed meal, and 

 mature the crop earlier. I have never seen any mention 

 made of the fact that a free use of ammonia will cause canta- 

 lopes to become smooth and net poorly, but it is a fact that 

 it does have that effect, as well as to make the quality very 

 much inferior, and also causes them to split open more 

 easily at the blossom end. I have time and again tested the 

 effect of pinching the ends to increase earliness and produc- 

 tiveness, but with no adequate advantage. 



While the watermelon is not liable to rot on the under 

 side in wet seasons, thousands of cantalopes are lost from this 

 cause, even in seasons of ordinary moisture. It is always 

 best, when the fruit is about half grown or larger, to go over 

 and pick the melons out of the little nests they make them- 

 selves by settling after rain, and place them on the firm 

 ground nearby, but always with the same side exposed to the 

 sun, as the skin quickly blisters in hot weather if the tender 

 under side is turned up. The great enemies of melons and 

 cucumbers are lice, and they are so difficult to kill, and spread 

 so rapidly, that the best plan by all odds is to keep a sharp 

 lookout, and remove promptly every affected plant. Whale- 

 oil soap, as well as the kerosene emulsion, will kill them 

 while the plants are young, but I never knew them to fail 

 to come back later on the same plant. Prompt removal is by 



