Tra7isactions of the London Horticultural Society. 8 I 



in which the melon was placed by nature, the first formed fruit probably 

 acquires a high state of perfection, possibly greater than it can ever be made to 

 acquire in less favourable climates. But this I am much disposed to question, 

 and to believe that, by proper management, the melon may be made to acquire, 

 in the climate of England, a degree of excellence which it is very rarely found 

 to possess in any climate ; and that the degeneracy of the finest varieties may 

 be totally prevented. 



" Very young plants of the sweet melon of Ispahan (the variety which, till 

 within the present year, I have chiefly cultivated) very rarely show fruit ; and, 

 in my melon-house, I never suffer a lateral shoot or blossom of this variety to 

 be produced at a less distance from the root than that of the fourteenth or 

 fifteenth joint above the seed leaves ; and, when I am anxious to obtain the 

 fruit and seeds in the highest state of perfection, I do not suffer a blossom to 

 be produced nearer the root than its eighteenth or twentieth joint. Under 

 this mode of management, the expenditure of sap, being confined to the 

 extremity of a single stem, is very small comparatively with the creation of it, 

 and it consequently accumulates, and the fruit is therefore most abundantly 

 nourished ; I conceive, more abundantly than it usually is in any natural 

 climate : and its growth is always enormously rapid. 



" 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. 



" By delaying the period of sowing the seeds of many species of plants (the 

 turnip and some varieties of the cabbage afford examples), those which would 

 have afforded flowers and seeds within the same season, form reservoirs of 

 accumulated sap in autumn, which becomes, during winter, the food of man 

 and other animals. 



" Proportionably late varieties of different species of annual plants generate, 

 in one part of their lives, the sap which they expend in another. I, every 

 season, plant, in the beginning of June, and a little earlier, a large quantity of 

 the very late variety of pea which bears my name ; and, by supplying the 

 plants abundantly with water, I prevent (as I have stated in a communication 

 to the Society many years ago), to a very great extent, the injurious effects 

 of mildew ; and by these means I regularly obtain a most abundant supply of 

 peas in September and October, and of better quality than I can obtain in the 

 month of June. In this case the sap which is prepared in the summer is 

 obviously expended in the autumn. 



" The good effects which I have proved to arise from planting large tubers 

 of the potato plant, obviously spring from the large accumulation of sap in 

 them. Fed by means of this, not only a large breadth of foliage is produced, 

 and exposed to sight more early in the year, but that foliage contains much 

 disposable organisable matter, which once formed a part of the parent tuber. 

 Any person who will pay close attention to the growth of produce of early 

 crops of potatoes which have sprung from large tubers, will readily obtain 

 ample evidence of the truth of this position. The variation in the comparative 

 growth of fruits of different species in similar seasons frequently arises, I have 

 good reason to believe, from the more or less perfect state of the reservoir 

 formed in the preceding year ; and every experienced gardener knows that, 

 under any given external circumstances, the blossom of his fruit trees sets 

 best when the preceding season has been warm and bright, and when his trees, 

 in such season, have not expended their sap in supporting heavy crops of 

 fruit." 



