Transactions of the Horticultural Society. 433 



been hitherto considered insurmountable." — How we should 

 have felt if two ripe Mangoes had been communicated to us 

 we can hardly tell ; we fear we should not have been able to 

 work our minds up to the extraordinary difficulties of their 

 culture, and could not therefore have appreciated the " very 

 signal triumph " of surmounting them. What the cares and 

 troubles of growing the Mangoes are, the secretary does not 

 inform us, unless indeed we can gather them from the follow- 

 ing passages : — " Two seedling plants were purchased from 

 Mr. Lee, of Hammersmith, in 1818, and they ripened their 

 fruit in September and October, 1826." ; — " It does not appear 

 that the management under which these Mangoes were ri- 

 pened possesses much peculiarity. The plants are in pots, 

 plunged in the tan-pit of a good stove, which, is maintained at 

 a temperature of from 70° to 96°." 



The tan-pit of a good stove, and seven years' patience, it 

 would appear, are all that are necessary to ripen the Mango 

 from seedling plants. The truth is, there is no more difficulty 

 in ripening the Mango than in ripening the pine-apple or the 

 orange ; more patience may be required, but that is all, and 

 even that may be greatly diminished in future by using grafted 

 plants. Either we can imitate a tropical climate in our hot- 

 houses, or we cannot ; if we can, then we can grow and 

 ripen every tropical fruit without any exception whatever. 

 But it is only lately that the idea of growing any other tropi- 

 cal fruits than the pine-apple has been thought of: if it should, 

 as we hope it will, become fashionable to grow them, we 

 should soon have all the best fruits of the world ripened in 

 our first-rate gardens. The Earl of Powis, a nobleman much 

 attached to horticulture, and whose ingenious mode of heat- 

 ing hot-houses by hot water we shall afterwards notice, has 

 the merit of showing how very easily this may be done ; but it 

 would be paying His Lordship and the public a poor compli- 

 ment, to suppose that he and they approved of the immense 

 importance that has been attached to the circumstance by the 

 secretary. Whatever tends to approximate the lowest classes 

 of society to those which are above them, must always be of 

 incomparably more public benefit, than any thing which tends 

 to render the very high still higher. 



67. An Account of Ten Varieties of Persian Melons. By Mr. 

 John Lindley, F.L.S. Assistant Secretary for the Garden. Read 

 September 19. 1826. 



Persian melons are distinguished by a thin and delicate skin, 

 and tender, rich, and sweet juicy flesh ; but their cultivation 

 Vol. II. — No. 8. f f 



