52 General Notices. 



men of his management, nor is it a suitable tree to receive it. The main 

 branches are not placed near enough at bottom, and the stem is too long; 

 so that this tree will always remain out of due form. There are maiden 

 trees planted and intended for Mi'. Seymour's method, with which they may 

 succeed, especially if they attend to laying in the young shoots in proper 

 time. Of this I have no doubt, as the person charged with the execution 

 has a competent knowledge of, and much approves, the system." Though 

 this method of training the peach, is, similar in principle to the mother- 

 branch-training of the French gardeners, described in various horticultural 

 works published in that kingdom, and particularly by Mr. Smith in the 

 Transactions of the Caledonian Horticultural Society; yet originality cannot 

 be denied Mr. Seymour in his early stopping the summer shoots intended 

 to bear fruit the following year. His practice in this is entirely new, and 

 may, therefore, be called the spur-bearing, with as much propriety as it has 

 been called the mother-brancli-bearing, system. — J. M. 



Destroying the Apple Bug (A^phis lanigera). — I have found oil and soot 

 well mixed together and rubbed in with a brush, an effectual cure for the 

 A'phis lanigera on apple trees : for though it has appeared again on the 

 same tree, it has never attacked the same parts whicii had been once well 

 saturated with the mixture. — B. B. Sept. 6. 1831. 



Hardihood of hybrid Melons, Sf-c. — Sir, My purpose now is to afford } 7 ou 

 another instance of the greater hardihood of newly originated hybrids, in 

 corroboration of your remark (Vol. VII. p. 696.); but I have rather attri- 

 buted their ability to resist unfavourable circumstances to the greater degree 

 of vigour observable, than to any specific hardihood peculiar to the indi- 

 vidual ; for I do not consider that they will retain the property after being 

 frequently reproduced from seed, uninfluenced anew by foreign fecundation. 

 I have this summer met with better success in my cultivation of melons, in 

 an unprotected state, from the seeds of hybrids obtained by cross impreg- 

 nation the season previous, than with old varieties. The offspring of three 

 different hybridisations (one more especially, of which the parents were the 

 two most dissimilar varieties I could select) each yielded more ample and 

 finer produce than any one of between twenty and thirty established 

 varieties, under no other dissimilar circumstances than that some of the 

 latter were raised from older seed. I send you copies of two letters 

 received from the secretary to our Horticultural Society, in allusion to a 

 melon I had sent him, which was raised from seed, and grown throughout 

 in the open air and common ground. The second letter was written in 

 consequence of my expressing a doubt as to his sincerity, and intimating 

 that he had been lavish of his praise merely to yield me gratification. 



" Worcester, Sept. 27. 

 " Sir, I beg to forward you the melon seed, as. requested, and to state that the melon 

 which you kindly presented me was by far the finest-flavoured I ever eat, and this was the opi- 

 nion of others who tasted it. I consider it far superior to those grown by heat. Yours, &c. 

 " To J. C. K., Esq. J. Evans." 



" Worcester , Oct. 1. 

 " Sir, The colour of the melon was deep orange ; and I assure you that what I said respecting 

 its flavour was not exaggerated ; especially when I inform you that a person who had frequently 

 tasted melons grown in pits, &c, but would never partake of them, nevertheless eat plen- 

 tifully of the one you favoured me with, and said it was far superior to any he had ever tasted. 



" Yours, &c. 

 " To J. C. K., Esq. J. Evans." 



The melon in question weighed 2Albs. ; the largest of that sort weighed 

 a quarter more; but of other hybrids I cut one 5lbs. 12oz. ; and yet others, 

 with the assistance only of a garden hand-glass, attained to 41bs., 51bs., and 

 even 6lbs. On reference to the account of the meeting for September, 

 you will note that I there received two prizes for such. (See p. 121.) I 

 will next year, provided I am equally fortunate, send you a fruit, to enable 

 you to judge for yourself. Some that I eat myself were equal to the best 

 produce of my frames ripened in July and August; which latter, all who 

 tasted, and, among others, an Eastern traveller, avowed they had never 



