JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ January 13, 1863. 



eo that the hollowed space will be about 18 inches deep. Place 

 a few barrowloads of litter on the bottom, and then two cart- 

 loads of dung, thrown together about the 1st of April, but not 

 so much sweetened as in the first case. Get that into the hole 

 by the 1st of May, put your frame on with the earth close to 

 the outsides, allow the heat to rise, level the surface nicely, cover 

 with 15 inches of your stiff loam, let the sun have full access 

 during the day, and cover up at night, and as soon as the soil 

 from heat and sun is about 80° turn out your plant9, tread the 

 soil firm, and attend to air-giving, ,&c, as necessary; in fact, 

 the training and air-giving wi'.l be pretty nearly all the trouble. 

 The dung may be used less sweet, because covering the bed all 

 over with soil, and tramping it firm, espeoially near the sides, 

 will prevent all steam from rising. To prevent cracking, keep 

 the surface loose for half an inch or so in depth. 



A Third and Easier Mode. — Set your frame full south, 

 raise it up behind, so as to give the glass roof an angle of 70° 

 instead of 80°, which is the usual slope for a frame. The 

 raising the ground for the frame to Btand on will do all that ; 

 then remove some 6 inches or more of the natural soil, and 

 supply with fresh incorporated with the old. About the middle 

 of May keep the frame shut, and cover-up with mat or tarpaulin, 

 in cold nights. The soil inside will soon become warm from 

 the sun alone; turn the soil frequently, so that it may be heated 

 all through, and by the 8th or 10th of June turn out the 

 Melon plants that had been raised and hardened-off by degrees 

 in the greenhouse. By such means, in the climate of Reading, 

 where you reside, you may obtain fine Melons through the 

 autumn. 



The Fourth Pian is what you Bhould try if you wish to 

 astonish your friends by giving them plenty of Melons as proofs 

 of your good will. Your greenhouse is 30 by 18 feet ; you do 

 not say whether you have Tines in it or not, we presume not. 

 You do not say where your heating medium is ; we shall, for 

 argument's sake, presume it is near the front. Well, in this 

 case we would sow the seeds in the first or second week in April, 

 even if you should want a second hot-water box for the seed- 

 lings, which, in this case, should be potted singly. By the 

 1st of June all the hardy greenhouse plants may be moved out 

 of doors to a eholtered place. Such plants as Azaleas, Epacris, 

 and even Camellias may be left at the back, a little shaded until 

 they have formed their wood, and then be hardened-off by de- 

 grees. If floral decoration were deemed necessary, then grow such 

 annuals as Cockscombs (common and feathered), Portulaeas, &c, 

 and such tuberous-rooted plants as Gloxinias and Achimenes, 

 which will keep in a cool dry state in winter. Then we would 

 have twelve large pots, set near or over the heating medium in 

 front of the house, each pot about 15 inches in diameter at 

 least, well drained, and filled to within an inch of the top with 

 your good loamy soil, with nothing in it but a little sweet leaf 

 mould. When the soil is warmed, turn out a stiff stout 

 single plant in the centre of the large pot, water and shade a 

 little for a few days until it is growing freely, and fasten the 

 shoot to a string or rod, keeping it always, at the least, 

 15 inches from the glass. We prefer, for this work, that each 

 plant should have only one shoot or stem, and that this should 

 be a secondary and not the primary shoot of the plant. This 

 was all recently explained, but we will recapitulate thus far. 

 The primary shoot is the leading upright shoot of the seedling 

 which the Melon sends up as naturally as the Oak. But we do 

 •not let this grow; on the contrary, as soon as it can be Been 

 after two or three rough leaves are visible, the point is nipped- 

 out with a penknife. This, of course, seems to arreBt the growth 

 of the plant for a little ; but we have an object in view. Ere 

 long two or three incipient shoots will appear instead of one. 

 All are nipped-out with the point of a penknife when very 

 small, except one, and this one we train and grow on from the 

 pot, until, from the space at our command, the shoot is from 

 3 to 6 feet in length before stopping it at all. Erom every leaf 

 of that Bhoot, or nearly so, at the point where the leaf joins 

 the stem, would come first a little bud and then a shoot, what 

 we think wa3 previously called a tertiary shoot ; and if we 

 nipped-out the point of our main shoot, to throw strength into 

 these side tertiary ones, almost every one of them would show 

 •fruity We do not stop the main secondary stem bo soon, and 

 wo pick-out every one of these incipient buds or shoots for 

 more than half the length of what we intend the stem to be, 

 because we do not wish our space to be filled with small shoots 

 and foliage, and because we wish our plant to be strong and 

 vigorous before any fruit shows. For this purpose, when we 



do stop the point of our stem, we leave from six and onwards 

 of these young shoots in the axils of the leaves unpicked-out, 

 and these then come strong, show fruit boldly, and then them- 

 selves are stopped one joint beyond the fruit. So much for 

 the front of the house. But it would be just as easy to cover 

 the whole house with Melons, by having another range of pota 

 on the stage at the back, which would give 9 feet of roof for 

 each row, or a row might be placed likewise in the middle of 

 the house, which, in addition to the front glass if there is any, 

 and the length of the upright glass, will give fully 6 feet of roof 

 for each set of Melon plants. 



Be it clearly understood that, in disbudding as above recom- 

 mended, care should be taken that the older leaves on the stem 

 should not be injured. All that is necessary to turn such a 

 greenhouse into a first-rate melonry, is the removing all plants 

 that extra heat would injure, and then using bb much fire heat 

 as would secure an average temperature of from 65° to 70°. If 

 a little air is left on at night, and more given early in the 

 morning, the plants will stand a rise of 10° to 15° from sun 

 heat without injury ; 60° would do at night if the roots had 

 bottom heat, but without that, and as the pots will cool by 

 radiation and evaporation, we would, in such cases, approve 

 of from 65° to 70°. We know that fruit thus obtained will, 

 in general, be much superior to those raised on dung-beds. 

 We forgot to mention that, in trying Melons without any hot 

 dung below the Boil, the frame should be shut up early in the 

 afternoon to enclose sun heat, and great care Bhould be taken 

 not to overwater, and at any rate to prevent the surface being 

 deluged or sloppy. A few open drain tiles set upright, furnished 

 with plugs, will enable you to keep the soil beneath moist 

 enough, whilst the surface is dry. A flooring of slates over 

 the soil would also absorb and then radiate the heat. These 

 remarks apply to your specific circumstances, and we shall be 

 glad both to give more details if necessary, and to hear of your 

 success. R. Fish. 



APEICOTS IN OECHAED-HOUSES. 



It is very satisfactory to be able to put " Constant Sub- 

 scriber " in the way of succeeding with Apricots under glass. 



My trees have generally been too much crowded with fruit 

 for some years past, and particularly in 1860 and 1861 ; but in 

 1862, in Bpite of what I thought to be good management, there 

 was a failure, and on my large trees I had but half a crop, or 

 barely that. Now I knew, when the trees were in blossom in 

 April, that the dull, still, cloudy, moist weather was most un- 

 favourable to the pollen being, as it should be, dry and dusty, 

 and so I gave a portion of air to the house, even when the 

 nights were frosty, so as to prevent stagnation. In spite, how- 

 ever, of all I did, the blossoms dropped by thousands, leaving 

 but a scanty crop of fruit. I did not, as usual with ns frail 

 mortals, " do as I ought to have done;" I ought, on observing 

 such unfavourable weather, to have had a pan of chareoal 

 lighted at 9 a.m., have kept all the doors and ventilators open, 

 so as to have brought on aetive currents of dry air, which, as is 

 well known, a bright fire always does. The pan should have been 

 replenished with ireBh charcoal at 7 P.M., and this kept burning 

 all idght, with all the ventilators open. Three or four days of 

 such treatment would have made nearly every blossom set. 

 Dry, briskly-moving air, no matter if cold, as long aB the ther- 

 mometer does not descend below 27°, is most necessary to the 

 Betting of Apricot blossoms. Just let us imagine the hills of 

 the Caucasus, " the mountains there to the top being covered 

 with Apricot trees ;" and let us picture to ourselves a March 

 day there, when the Apricot trees are in the full glory of their 

 blossoming — a dry, cold, biting wind, with a bright sun, and 

 the air full of the impalpable pollen dust. The same, or nearly 

 the same atmospherical state must exist on the northern coast 

 of Africa and the slopes of the Atlas, where the Apricot is so 

 abundant. Well, is it not our duty to give our Apricot treep, 

 when in full bloom, a humble imitation of the climates in which 

 they succeed so well ? 



As to the effects of frost on the blossoms of Apricot trees, it 

 is, when the trees are under glass, of much less escsequence 

 than moist stagnant air, and I can illustrate this very pointedly. 

 Last July I happened to be looking into one of my hedge-houses, 

 those most useful structures. In one of them, with' a Beech 

 hedge for its back wall, about 8 feet in height, and the same for 

 its front wall, about 4 feet high, I found some bushes of Moorpark 

 Apricots in 13-inah pots: these- were placed there foj-tke pur- 



