362 FORCING GARDEN. 



THE MELONIIY a department deriving its name froir? 

 ihe melon, the principal plant cultivated in it is an im- 

 portant appendage of the forcing garden. After noticing 

 some of the most necessary apparatus employed in it, we 

 shall treat of the melon, cucumber, and gourd, and their 

 culture respectively. 



The common hotbed frame is most usually employed ;. 

 and it is so well known as scarcely to require description, 

 It is a rectangular box, with sliding sashes, which may be 

 single, in pairs, or in threes. The length of the sash is 

 generally five or six feet, and its breadth about three feet 

 and a half. The back of the frame is about double the 

 height of the fro-nt, it being intended that the slope should 

 be set towards the south. When used r it is placed on a 

 bed of fermenting vegetable matter, from three to six feet 

 in thickness, according to the purpose to which it is to be 

 applied, or the severity of the season. Stable-litter is the 

 fermenting material most commonly employed ; but tree- 

 leaves, exhausted tanners' bark r or flax-dressers' refuse^ 

 are also used. Tree-leaves, when moderately dry and well 

 trodden, are more equable in their fermenting heat, and 

 retain it longer than the other materials mentioned. If a 

 layer, half a foot thick, of bark be placed over a bed of 

 leaves five feet thick, a gentle and uniform temperature 

 may be commanded for several successive months. 



The Alderston Melon Pit, of which the following is a 

 section, is partly above and partly below ground. The 



Fig. 47. 



