KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. ClIAP, 



in a heap, mixed with dung from a sheep-yard, about one 

 fifth dung and four- fifths loam. This loam should be 

 turned in a heap several times during one summer and 

 one winter, and then it is fit for use. You should begin 

 to raise melons a month or six weeks later than you begin 

 with early cucumbers. Your seeds may be sowed in a pot 

 in the cucumber-bed, if you have one ; if not, you must 

 make one for the purpose, as in the case of the early cu- 

 cumbers ; though the season when you begin will be later, 

 the bed must be equally warm with that for the early 

 cucumbers j there must be linings, and every thing neces- 

 sary to keep up a steady bottom heat. A second crop of 

 melons may succeed the first, in the same way that the 

 two crops of cucumbers succeed each other 5 but, as to 

 putting melons out upon ridges to be covered with hand- 

 glasses or paper-frames, it never succeeds, one time out 

 of twenty. Melons want hotter ground than is hardly 

 ever to be had in England. There should be but one 

 plant in a hill. I have had ten fine melons from one 

 single plant, and I never saw the like of that from any 

 hill that contained two or three plants. If once the plants 

 get spindling, they never bear fruit of any size or good- 

 ness. You will see many fruit appear before any one 

 begins to swell. If a solitary one should begin to swell 

 before the vines have got to any extent, pinch it off; for, 

 if left on, it will generally prevent the plant from bear- 

 ing any more. There should be three or four upon a 

 plant beginning to swell together, or about- the same 

 time, in order to encourage you to expect a fine crop. 

 Melons are very frequently raised, as pines sometimes 

 are, in pits, with foundations for frames built upon the 

 ground, or, going a little way beneath the top of the 





