S30 ON THE ACCUMULATION OP SAP IN ANNUAL PLANTS. 



unpruned. Much fruit was in consequence soon offered, and I obtained 

 very good melons for any season, and perfectly well grown, in the latter 

 end of the last month (November), which fruit, I do not entertain any 

 doubt, was chiefly nourished by sap generated in the month of August. 



The quality of some Ispahan melons, which I have sent to the Society, 

 has afforded, I believe, satisfactory evidence that that variety has not 

 become deteriorated by having been raised through many successive 

 generations in the unfavourable climate of this place : but the following 

 statement, I think, affords strong evidence that, like other highly im- 

 proved varieties, it does degenerate under our ordinary modes of culture. 

 Sir Harford Jones Brydges, from whom I, many years ago, first received 

 seeds of this variety, informed me, in the beginning of the last year, that 

 it had so much degenerated and diminished in size, that he had ceased 

 to cultivate it. He then received a few seeds from me, from which he 

 assured me, in the last month, that he had obtained melons in the present 

 year, scarcely inferior to any he had eaten in Persia; conclusive evidence, 

 I think, that the finest Persian varieties of the melon do not necessarily 

 degenerate in the climate of England. 



Every gardener who has been in the habit of raising cucumbers in 

 winter perfectly well knows the advantages of raising his plants in July 

 or August, and preventing their expending themselves in the production 

 of blossoms or fruit till they have been introduced into the stove. The 

 general opinion of gardeners is, that such plants succeed best only because 

 their stems are more firm and ligneous than those of young plants ; but 

 I feel confident that the real cause of their succeeding best is the 

 existence of accumulated sap within them. I have a melon-plant now 

 growing in the stove, which sprang from a seed sown in the end of July, 

 but upon which no fruit was made to set till the 1st day of November. 

 The plant possesses abundant foliage, and the fruit has grown tolerably 

 well, and it will, I conclude, be ripe about Christmas. Upon the 23d of 

 October I placed a blossom, which had been produced by a Dampsha 

 melon-plant, from which I had a few days before taken the fruit, within 

 the distance of an inch of a very warm flue, where the temperature of 

 the air was never below 86. In this situation the fruit set well, and 

 grew with most extraordinary rapidity, though it was so near the front 

 wall, and so far (nearly three feet) from the glass, that no direct ray of 

 the sun could fall upon it. At the end of seven days precisely from the 

 period when the pollen was put into the flower, I measured the fruit, 

 when it was seven inches long, and seven inches and a half in circum- 

 ference. On the 10th day the fruit suddenly ceased to grow, having 



