314 A METHOD OF OBTAINING VERY EARLY CROPS OF GREEN PEAS. 



intervals soon ceased to be visible ; and a prospect of an abundant crop 

 was afforded. I therefore conceive myself to have raised an exceedingly 

 early and valuable crop of peas, without any loss of time to my melons ; 

 plants of which, of proper size and age, .and growing in pots, had been 

 made ready to occupy the frames whence the peas were taken. 



LXIX. UPON THE CULTIVATION OF THE PERSIAN VARIETIES OF 



THE MELON. 



[Read before the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, May Isi, 1831.] 



I SENT to the Horticultural Society, in the last season, a couple of 

 Ispahan Melons ; one in August, which, I had the pleasure to hear was 

 thought very excellent : and the other (which did not ripen till the latter 

 end of October) not more inferior than might have been anticipated, on 

 account of the diminished powers of the sun in the latter period. Both 

 were the produce of very ill-treated plants : but both had the advan- 

 tages of very excellent machinery ; and the effects of the management 

 were so singular, that a statement of them may prove alike interesting to 

 the mere practical, and to the physiological horticulturist 



Having, during several years, observed, that fine Persian melons were 

 preferred at my table to almost every other species of fruit, I was led to 

 erect, early in the last spring, a small forcing-house for the almost exclusive 

 culture of them, and by means of heat obtained from fire only, under an 

 impression that in some seasons and states of the weather, the power of 

 commanding a dry atmosphere, and high temperature, would prove highly 

 beneficial to the quality of the fruit. This forcing-house consists of a 

 back wall nearly nine feet high, and of a front wall nearly six feet high, 

 inclosing a horizontal space of nine feet wide ; and the house is thirty 

 feet long. It might as well have been forty feet long ; but the smaller 

 size was sufficient for my purpose. The fire-place is at the east end, very 

 near the front wall, and the flue passes to the other end of the house 

 within four inches of the front wall, and returns back again, leaving a 

 space of eight inches only between the advancing and returning course of 

 it; and the smoke escapes at the north-east corner of the building. The 

 front flue is composed of bricks laid flat, as I wished to have a temperate 

 permanent heat, and the returning flue of bricks standing on their edges', 

 as is usual ; the space between the flues is filled with fragments of burned 

 bricks, which absorb much water, and gradually give out moisture to the 



