III.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER^ 



73 



at zhoui four feet from the ground, while the flower 

 is, perhaps, eight or ten feet from the ground! 

 What, then, is the bee (which visits only the flower) 

 to carry the matter to the flower, and is the flower 

 then to hand it down to the ear ? Oh, no I this is 

 much too clumsy and bungling work to be believed 

 in. The effect is, doubtless, produced by scent, or 

 smell; for, observe, the ear is so constructed, and 

 is, at this season, so guarded, so completely enve- 

 loped, that it is impossible for any matter whatever 

 to get at the grain, or at the chest of the grain, 

 without the employment of mechanical force. 



145. Away, then, I think wc may send all the 

 nonsense about the farina of the m^ale flowers be- 

 ing carried to the female flowers, on which so much 

 has been said and written, and in consequence of 

 which erroneous notion gardeners, in dear Old 

 England, have spent so much time in assisting Cu- 

 cumbers and Melons in their connubial intercourse. 

 To men of plain sense, this is something so incon- 

 ceivable, that I am afraid to leave the statement un- 

 supported by proof which, therefore, I shall give 

 in a quotation from an English work on Gardening 

 by the Rev. Charles Marshall, Vicar of Brix- 

 worth in Northamptonshire. *' Setting the fruit is 

 the practice of most good gardeners, as generally 

 insuring the embryos from going off*, as they are 

 apt to do at an early season ; when not much wind 

 can be suflfered to enter the bed, and no bees or in- 

 sects are about, to convey the farina from the male 

 flowers to the female. The male flowers, have beei*. 

 ignorantly called false blossoms, and so have been 

 regularly pulled oflr(as said) to strengthen the plants; 

 but they are essential to impregnate the female 

 flowers ; i. e. those that shew the ycHimg fruit at 

 their base ; This impregnation^ called setting the 



