IMPORTANCE OF SETTING FLOWERS. 469 



in gardens for a stock of seed, but their produce has as 

 frequently been of the worst description, bearing no resem- 

 blance to the parent. In such cases as these, it would seem aa 

 if bees and other insects were attracted from all quarters by 

 the gay colours, or odour, of such isolated individuals, and, 

 arriving from a hundred flowers which they had previously 

 visited, bring with them so many sources of contamination. 



When, however, the action of other flowers can be prevented, 

 as in the Melon and, other unisexual plants, by " setting," the 

 largest, healthiest, and most cultivated varieties will yield seed 

 of the purest and finest quality. The tendency of Persian 

 Melons to degenerate in this country was remarked soon after 

 their introduction : and for a long time it was thought impos- 

 sible to preserve them for many generations. Knight, in his 

 numberless experiments upon this fruit, found that to be the 

 case, for his fruit at one time became less in bulk and weight, 

 and deteriorated in taste and flavour. But when he came to 

 consider that " every large and excellent variety of the Melon 

 must necessarily have been the production of high culture and 

 abundant food, and that a continuance of the same measures which 

 raised it to its highly improved state must be necessary to pre- 

 ventits receding, in successive generations, from that excellence;" 

 the cause of his Persian Melons deteriorating became apparent, 

 and he found that by bringing the cultivation of the plants to a 

 state of great perfection, he succeeded completely in rendering 

 the original quality hereditary, as long as those precautions 

 were observed. No man was more successful in the cultivation 

 of the Melon than Knight, and it is in the memory of many 

 persons that the quality of his Sweet Melons of Ispahan has 

 very rarely been equalled. The peculiar methods that lie 

 adopted appear to have been the complete and most careful 

 preservation of the leaves from injury of whatever kind, the 

 full exposure of their surface to light, and the augmenta,tipn oif 

 the ordinary warmth of a Melon bed by availing himself of the 

 heat reflected from brick tiles with which his bed was paved. 

 To such an extent was his care of the leaves carried that he 

 would not allow even the watering to be performed " over- 

 head," but he caused his gardener to pour water from a vessel 



