HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 245 



take the melon. In England the climate not being perfectly adapted to its 

 perfection, the plants are entirely monoecious. Here, where they grow in 

 rich soil, out of doors, are quite at home, they are Polygamous, bearing 

 frequently perfect Hermaphrodite flowers. If we attempt to force them 

 it is quite another affair ; their flowers being then pistillate. In this inr 

 stance, I have shown how by a perfect conjunction of circumstances, a plant 

 which in other circumstances, would produce but pistillate flowers, produces 

 hermaphrodite. 



I fear I trespass too long on your valuable space, or I should like 

 to continue these notes, I will conclude with one more instance of how 

 stamens may be produced or rendered abortive by cultivation. Every Bot- 

 anist knows that the Brugmansia or Datura is a Pentandrous or five stam- 

 ined plant. The B. Kniglitii is a double one, or the flower has two corollas % 

 with the five stamens and one pistil perfect. But suffer it, after having 

 been well grown, to become starved and stunted, and it will become single 

 but with ten stamens instead of five-— we change the petals into stamens by 

 cultivation. 



Who now believes in the permanancy of stamens in a strawberry flower 

 or otherwise ? Let him take a pistillate plant, propagate from it, keep them 

 in pots of poor soil, let them come forward naturally in a cool, shady place, 

 on a north aspect where no direct sun can ever reach them, and if ten to 

 one who try the experiment fairly do not get HerniaphrocUte flowers froni 

 these plants, I have done. 



Some of the advocates of the theory offer me ten thousand dollars if 

 I can prove them wrong. If they will please to convince themselves in 

 the manner I have detailed, they can forward me a check for the amount 

 on any of our city banks, or of New York. 



Thomas Meejian. 



CALENDAR OF OPERATIONS, 



[Continued from last No.) 

 Green House. 

 Cultivators must begin to turn their attention to next year's stock. A 

 commencement is generally made with the Pelargonium. In England the 

 first thing in order is to prepare a hot bed, to obtain bottom heat. Here it 

 is perfectly unnecessary. A few trials of the thermometer in August or 

 September, will show the earth at that time to be several degrees warmer 

 than the atmosphere, which is all that is required of temperature to success- 

 ful propagation. A bed of sandy soil made up out of doors, with a frame 



