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in deep, moist, rich loam, where it bears most abundantly for a num- 
ber of years. On light, moist soil, well limed and manured, the 
plant makes more leaf growth than on heavy lands and could well 
be planted wider apart, say, 12 to 15 feet. After bearing three or 
four full crops, the vines, unless judiciously thinned and heavily 
manured with bone and blood and potash (four of one and two of 
the other), and well cultivated, give a large proportion of immature 
fruit. The seeds are hard, and do not germinate very readily. The 
young plants are easily raised by squeezing ripe fruit in a sandy 
seed bed in boxes, like tomatoes. When the plants are strong 
enough, in their second leaf, they are picked out and transplanted 
in tins or pots and finally set out in the spring and trained on trel- 
lises like grape vines. The system of trellis recommended is des- 
cribed in a previous chapter dealing with pruning. Unless the situ- 
ation is well sheltered from the wind, the young plants do best when 
protected by a wind-break, made of a strip of hessian or bagging 
fastened to three stakes, driven in a triangle, round the vines, As 
the young plant grows, the young shoots are tied to the wires until 
the vine is well established, when the ties are cut off lest they cut 
into the growing canes. 
If the Passion vines have been well treated, they will bear a 
fair crop the second season, i.e., the third year from planting, and 
under favourable conditions three to four cases per vine are not un- 
common. 
In practice the fruits are not picked from the vines, but allowed 
to drop on the soft and well cultivated land. The fruit, which is 
egg-shaped, is ripe when it turns chocolate colour. It contains a 
watery pulp of a pleasing aromatic flavour, with a delicate acid 
taste. It carries well. The best way to eat it is as one takes a boiled 
egy, that is, eut off one end and take the contents with a spoon, 
adding a few drops of port wine instead of salt and pepper. 
For marketing, half-cases are of handy size; they are lined with 
paper and hold of first grade fruit three rows. 
The remainder is further graded into second grade, which is 
like the first grade, but smaller, and into third grade or “culls,” 
which comprises small fruit deformed and of bad colour. 
It is worth repeating there that the winter crop and not the 
summer crop is the profitable one, and the methods of securing the 
result aimed at are further explained in the chapter on pruning. As 
the plants are not long-lived, fresh planting must be arranged to 
seeure a continuance of cropping. 
_MELons. 
A quick return on newly cleared and cultivated land may be 
derived from water melons, rock melons or pumpkins, while the 
young fruit trees are growing. 
