268 ON AN IMPROVED MODE OF CULTIVATING THE MELON. 



venture to calculate. The variety of melon, which I proposed to culti- 

 vate, was a Persian kind, chiefly grown in the vicinity of Ispahan, whence 

 it takes its name. Its form is nearly that of a cucumber, acquiring 

 frequently more than a foot in length, and weighing about seven pounds. 

 It possesses, in my estimation, very great excellence as a fruit ; but it is 

 of very difficult culture, the blossoms not setting freely, and the fruit, 

 on account of the excessive thinness of its skin, being very subject to 

 decay prematurely in the damp atmosphere of an ordinary hot-bed : and 

 I had, on these accounts, for some years wholly ceased to cultivate it. 



Having already described, with sufficient minuteness, the mode of con- 

 struction and plan of my hot-bed, I need not, at present, do anything 

 more than describe the manner in which my plants were managed in the 

 last season ; they were not planted till late in the spring, and therefore 

 did not produce blossoms capable of affording fruit till the second week 

 in July ; and it had consequently, in the last season, to grow and ripen 

 under a very cloudy sky. Each plant was placed by itself in a pot of 

 about eighteen inches in diameter in its widest part, and of about a foot 

 deep, inside measure, the mould in them being very rich and light, and 

 constantly kept sufficiently moist with manured water ; and the number 

 of pots was equal to the number of melons, which I proposed that my 

 hot-bed should contain at one time. These pots were supported at the 

 south and lowest side of the bed about fourteen inches below the glass 

 roof; and the plants were trained upon a trellis at the same distance 

 from the roof, and parallel to it. By these means, and by giving to each 

 plant a similar extent of space, I expected to see each melon swell, and 

 be equally well fed and ripened ; and I calculated upon the further 

 advantages of being able to give or to withhold water from each plant 

 according to the state of growth, or approaching maturity of its fruit ; 

 and also upon that of being able to introduce other pots and plants, as 

 soon as I had gathered the produce of each plant. My success in every 

 respect wholly exceeded my expectations, the bed proving an instrument 

 of much greater powers than I had calculated upon ; and I was assured 

 by Sir Harford Jones, who first supplied me with seeds of the variety, 

 (which he had brought from Persia,) that he had never seen plants of 

 more healthy growth, nor with fruit better swelled, even in its native 

 climate. The only enemy with which the gardener will, I believe, have 

 to contend, is the red spider ; and against the attacks of this he must 

 guard his plants, by frequently sprinkling their leaves lightly with clear 

 warm water. 



I had a singular opportunity in this experiment of obtaining evidence 



