By Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. 



89 



the benefit of more light. I have mentioned in a former commu- 

 nication upon the culture of the Melon, that a single Melon, or 

 Gourd, will put in requisition, during the period of its rapid 

 growth, the services of the most distant leaf, and cause the most 

 distant blossom to fall off abortively. But I was, at that period, 

 wholly unprepared to offer any conjecture whatever respecting the 

 power by which the sap generated in very distant leaves could be 

 conveyed to the extent indicated to the fruit. 



The above mentioned discoveries of M. Dutrochet appear to 

 me to have thrown some light upon this mysterious point, for if the 

 fluid within the fruit be denser than that in the leaves and stems, 

 (and in certain states at least of the growth of the fruit it certainly is 

 so) the lighter fluid must rush into the denser ; and that the sap flows 

 in very large quantity into the growing Melon, can I think scarcely 

 be doubted. I am well satisfied that a very large quantity of the 

 sap of the plant, or more properly of the aqueous part of that 

 fluid, passes through the fruit into the vessels of the plant again ; 

 but by what means it can be propelled, I am wholly at a loss to 

 conjecture. Much must, I conceive, be done by some operation 

 of the fruit itself, for it is totally absurd to suppose that a distant 

 leaf can by any mode of action properly its own cause the true sap, 

 which it generates, to flow to, and into, the fruit. Previously to 

 the maturity of my late crop of Melons, I had prepared some strong 

 Cucumber plants, which I had protected from the frost ; and these 

 being brought into the place, whence the Melon plants had been 

 taken, afforded me a crop of fine Cucumbers in November and 

 December. I have now Cucumber plants growing in great health 

 and vigour, from which I do not entertain any doubt of obtaining 

 an abundant crop of Cucumbers in March and the beginning of 

 April, when, it is my intention to introduce strong Ispahan Melon 

 plants; and I feel confident that by having a proper plant ready 

 to supply the place of every one which affords a ripe fruit, I shall 



▼OL. I. 2nd series. n 



