MELILOTUS. 



MELON CULTURE. 



odious scent to a sort of blister plaster, called 

 by its name, of no use whatever. 



MELILOTUS (Lat. mel, honey, and lotus, a 

 leguminous plant). The plants are similar to 

 the lotus, and are the favourite haunt of bees. 

 These are, for the most part, honey-scented 

 plants, with upright stems, and long erect 

 racemes of small yellow or white flowers, re- 

 sembling those of clover, of which they were 

 formerly considered distinct species. In some 

 parts of Europe two or three varieties are cul- 

 tivated as annual fodder plants. 



The Melilotus leucantha major is the celebrated 

 Sohkara Tree Clover, a plant which Mr. Robert 

 Arthur, of Edinburgh, says, "claims a place in 

 every flower-garden, for its beauty. It is an 

 herbaceous plant of very striking appearance, 

 10 or 12 feet in height, covered with spikes of 

 white pea-blossoms, which also shed a sweet 

 perfume. Hence it is sometimes called Sweet 

 Fiowering Clover. 



"I esteem its value in agriculture of greater 

 importance. The objections to its cultivation 

 are, that cattle give a preference to other green 

 food, and that the stem contains too much 

 woody fibre. The plant, however, is new to 

 Britain, and we know that man and animals 

 frequently require successive trials of new 

 food before taste is acquired for it. As a proof 

 of this, I understand that some cattle are get- 

 ting very fond of this clover; and we know 

 that the tissue of plants in general is changed 

 more and more into woody fibre as they pro- 

 gress towards maturity. Nature increases the 

 woody fibre of this clover for support as it 

 elongates its gigantic stein. If, however, it is 

 cut for cattle, when about 2 feet in height, it 

 will be found nearly as succulent as the com- 

 mon red clover. 



"I exhibited plants of it at the Highland So- 

 ciety's show, last September, 9 feet in height, 

 being the second crop of it that season, from 

 poor sandy land. I know no plant whatever 

 that will produce so much weight of vegetable 

 matter in equal time and space; and were it 

 only for the production of vegetable manure, it 

 is a boon to the agricultural world. In my ex- 

 periments with it last summer, as a manure, 

 for new varieties of Alsike (?) Clover, I found 

 it the very best and cheapest manure. 



"In the economical formation of manure, it 

 might be liberally supplied, with other food, 

 throughout the summer, to young cattle and 

 pigs, in an open straw-yard profusely bedded 

 over with layers of turf, peat-earth, whins, 

 broom, brushwood, ferns, straw, weeds, &c., 

 and thus save much outlay on the purchase of 

 foreign manures. 



" The Bokhara Clover may be sown at any 

 time throughout the growing season; but the 

 most profitable time to sow it is immediately 

 after a crop of early potatoes, or even after 

 grass, barley, wheat, &c. The land being well 

 manured, ploughed over, and harrowed smooth, 

 it may be sown in shallow drills 18 inches 

 apart; being cut once in autumn, it will pro- 

 duce a much earlier spring crop than tares, 

 Italian rye-grass, &c. It should always be cut 

 very close to the ground, as the shoots pro- 

 duced from beneath the surface are the most 

 luxuriant, and it will thus stand a severe win 

 806 



ter much better than when its vitality is ex- 

 posed on long stubble. Treated in this way 

 with me, it stood two successive winters, and 

 acquired all the characteristics of a perennial 

 root. I have no doubt of its continuing pe- 

 rennial and more vigorous with the age of the 

 plants, if only cut close in autumn, and top- 

 dressed with rich compost." 



Mr. James Gowen, who resides at Mount 

 Airy, near Philadelphia, has been much in the 

 practice of keeping up a considerable stock of 

 uncommonly fine cattle, and soiling them in 

 summer upon lucern, rye, and red clover. 

 He has raised patches of the melilotus, and 

 from his observation says, " there is no grass 

 or plant I have yet seen that affords to me such 

 promise as the Sweet-scented or Bokhara 

 Clover." (Cultivator, Nov. 1842.) 



MELON, THE COMMON, or MUSK (Cu~ 

 cumis melo). An herbaceous, succulent, climb- 

 ing, or trailing annual, cultivated for its fruit 

 in hot eastern countries from time immemorial. 

 The varieties of the melon are numerous ; yet 

 few of them comparatively are worthy of cul- 

 tivation in England. The larger varieties espe- 

 cially are deficient in flavour and richness. 

 Mr. Knight says, that whoever is acquainted 

 with the green-fleshed, and Salonica, or white- 

 fleshed, will cultivate no other. 



The cantaleups are varieties characterized 

 by their rinds being universally covered with 

 reticulations. With the exception of the green, 

 or oblong-ribbed, these bear round fruit, more 

 or less approaching a flattened spheroid. Their 

 common name is derived from that of one of 

 the country-seats of the pope, where they are 

 much cultivated. 



MELON CULTURE. The warm summers 

 of the Southern and most of the Middle States, 

 are highly favourable to the culture of melons 

 of every description, which in some places 

 constitute a very profitable crop. The follow- 

 ing communication relative to the culture of 

 the musk melon or cantaleup, addressed to the 

 Editor of the Cultivator, by T. G. Bergen, a per- 

 son well versed in the business, will show how 

 this is managed on Long Island, for the New 

 York market: 



The kind which we at present cultivate, 

 says Mr. Bergen, and with which the New 

 York market is principally supplied, is known 

 among us by the name of Skillman melons, 

 They average about 6 inches in diameter, are 

 nearly round, have a rough skin, and their 

 flesh is of a green colour. This is the sixth 

 variety which has been in vogue during my 

 recollection, and the finest of them all. The 

 seed from which all these varieties originated, 

 I believe to have been imported from the coasts 

 of the Mediterranean. They soon degenerate 

 unless care is taken in the selection of the 

 seed. We prefer for melons a rich sandy soil, 

 and on this they flourish better than on any 

 other, and are not so liable to speck in rainy 

 weather. When planted on a red clover sod I 

 have seldom failed having a good crop; but 

 when this is not to be had, we prefer preparing 

 the ground by sowing with rye in August or 

 September of the preceding year, as described 

 in my former communication on the cultiva- 

 tion of cucumbers : the ground is also pre- 



