584 PRACTICE OF GARDENING. Part III. 



p. $00.) It Is probaWe considerable advantage would be obtained by the use of liquid pigeons' dung ma- 

 nure, as in the case of the cucumber. (See 3224.) 



3301. Knight, finding that the leaves of melons sustained great injury from the weight of the water 

 falling from the watering-pot, pours the water on the tiles which cover the surface of the bed. 



3302. Earthing. Perform this operation as directed for the cucumber, after the heat 

 of the dung has become moderate, earthing up by degrees the intervals between the hills, 

 till the depth of the earth becomes equal. Eight or ten inches' depth of earth, M'Phail 

 states to be enough for the roots of the plants to run in, provided the bed, or fermenting 

 mass beneath, be made of leaves of trees, or of dung well prepared ; for if the bed under 

 the earth be in a good state, the roots will grow into it, and draw from thence consider- 

 able nourishment to the plants. The roots of the melon do not naturally run deep ; 

 they extend horizontally, not far from the surface, especially in forcing-frames, where 

 the moist warm air is more confined than in the open atmosphere. In early forcing, 

 leave unfilled up with earth a space of about seven or eight inches wide against the in- 

 side of the frames, immediately adjoining the hot linings. " By this method the heat 

 of the linings does more powerfully warm the air in the frames than if the earth was made 

 level home to the sides of the boards of the frames to which the linings adjoin. But if 

 melons be not planted earlier than the month of May, this precaution need not be at- 

 tended to, unless the weather prove uncommonly cold, and but little sunshine." (G. Rem. 

 p. 63.) 



3303. Training. As the plants advance into the first runners, three or four joints in 

 length, if no fruit be shown, stop them at the third joint, in order that they may produce 

 fruitful laterals ; and as the runners extend, train them over the surface of the bed with neat 

 pegs. Many of these runners, as the plant proceeds, will show embryo fruit at the 

 joints ; but a great many ban-en ones are occasionally produced, and hence it becomes 

 necessary to regulate them. Abercrombie says, " Cut out the superfluous, unfruitful, 

 or evidently useless shoots, especially the very weak and the most luxuriant; for the 

 middle-sized are the most fertile." * 



3304. Nicol says, melons should be kept moderately thin of vines, though not so thin as cucumbers, 

 (the foliage being smaller,) which should never be much lopped at a time, as they are also apt to bleed. 

 All bruised, damp, or decayed leaves should be carefully picked off as they appear, and the plants 

 6hould be cleaned from weeds, and other rubbish that may be conveyed into the frames by the wind, or 

 otherwise. 



3305. M'Phail directs to "cut out of the melon-frames all superfluous or decaying shoots. Stop the 

 shoots a joint or two before the fruit, and also cut off the ends of the long running shoots immediately 

 before a showing fruit, if there is a leading shoot coming out by the side of it ; for you ought to remem- 

 ber always in pruning melons, that a fruit will not swell well except there be a growing shoot before 

 it ; and this shoot, which is called a leader, because it leads or draws the sap from the roots to and past 

 the fruit, should be stopped before a joint that will, if the plant is in good health, sprout out again. 

 Do not let your plants get too full of leaves ; and cut off the oldest and worst leaves first. This ought 

 to be done, at least once or twice a-week ; by which method they will be nearly always in one medium 

 state of thinness, and the plants and fruit will derive advantages which they would be deprived of 

 were they to be suffered to become over-crowded with leaves and shoots, and then a great many cut 

 out at one time. If melons are of a large kind, no more than one or two fruit should be left on a plant 

 to swell off at one time ; if smaller, three or four fruit may be left." (G. Hem. p. 278.) 



3306. Knight, in an ingenious and philosophical paper on the culture of the melon, states, that his 

 crops of melons failed, because watering over the foliage, pruning, weeding, &c. had removed 

 the leaves on the extended branches, from their proper position, and these leaves being heavy, broad, 

 slender, and feeble, on long foot-stalks, were never able to regain it. " In consequence a large portion 

 of that foliage which preceded, or was formed at the same period with the blossoms, and which nature 

 intended to generate sap to feed the fruit, became diseased and sickly, and consequently out of office, 

 before the fruit acquired maturity." To remedy this defect, the plants were placed at greater distances 

 from each other, viz. one plant of the salonica variety, to each light of six feet long by four feet wide. The 

 earth was covered with tiles, and the branches trained in all directions, and hooked down over them with 

 pegs. They were thus secured from being disturbed from their first position ; the leaves were held erect, 

 and at an equal distance from the glass, and enabled, if slightly moved from their proper position, to re- 

 gain it " I, however, still found that the leaves sustained great injury from the weight of the water fall- 

 ing from the watering-pot ; and I therefore ordered the water to be poured from a vessel of a proper con- 

 struction, upon the brick tiles, between the leaves, without at all touching them ; and thus managed, 

 I had the pleasure to see that the foliage remained erect and healthy. The fruit also grew with very ex- 

 traordinary rapidity, ripened in an unusually short time, and acquired a degree of perfection, which I had 

 never previously seen. As soon as a sufficient quantity of fruit (between twenty and thirty pounds) on 

 each plant is set, I would recommend the further production of foliage to be prevented, by pinching off 

 the lateral shoots as soon as produced, wherever more foliage cannot be exposed to the light. No part of 

 the full-grown leaves should ever be destroyed before the fruit is gathered, unless they injure each other, 

 by being too much crowded together : for each leaf, when full grown, however distant from the fruit, and 

 growing on a distinct branch of the plant, still contributes to its support; and hence it arises that when a 

 plant has as great a number of growing fruit upon part of its branches, as it is capable of feeding, the 

 blossoms upon other branches, which extend in an opposite direction, prove abortive." {Hort. Trans, vol. i.) 

 In another paper {Hort. Trans, v. 238.) we find this ingenious horticulturist describing his mode of grow- 

 ing melons in large pots, and training the shoots on a trellis, fifteen inches under the glass. A mode evi- 

 dently less certain of success, and more expensive than the common mode : but it is good to try every thing. 



3307. Setting. As the fruit-bearers come into blossom, you may assist the setting of 

 the fruit, by impregnating some of the female blossoms with the male flowers, as de- 

 scribed for the cucumber. The melon, however, will also set naturally, and produce 

 fertile seeds, if the time of fructification fall at a season when the glasses can be left almost 

 constantly open. (Aber.) Nicol says, he has proved experimentally, that melons not 

 impregnated will not swell off so fair and handsome as impregnated ones, and, therefore, 

 considers it more necessary to attend to this operation in melons than in cucumbers. 



