By G. J. Towers, Esq. 



471 



plant I transferred into a pot of light earth, to which the roots 

 immediately accommodated themselves ; for the plant did not droop 

 for an hour, but grew well, and was shortly removed to another pot, 

 in which it continues, and is this day (October 5th) nearly two feet 

 high. 



This young plant has, from the early period of its removal to a 

 pot, been furnished with laterals, all bearing the germs of flowers 

 and fruit ; but the lateness of the season precludes the expectation 

 of a crop. In order to obtain as many facts as possible, I employed 

 cuttings of the shoots of cucumber plants growing in a bed in the 

 open air ; and in one instance, I took a single leaf only. Roots 

 were protruded as freely from shoot and leaf as from those of the 

 melon ; and I have now by me a pot wherein there is a healthy 

 cucumber plant that, with its first shoot, showed a young fruit an 

 inch in length : a rooted leaf is in the same pot, but has not as yet 

 produced any appearance of a shoot. 



From the various experiments adverted to, and others that I 

 have undertaken, I am satisfied that the following facts are 

 established. 



First. — That the melon will protrude roots into water, which 

 will ramify therein most abundantly: that they will not rot or 

 become inert in water; and that, so far from the melon plant 

 becoming diseased by this fluid medium, the foliage will remain 

 healthy and in full activity, and the fruit attain to perfect maturity. 



Second.— That cuttings of the melon and cucumber plants, also 

 single leaves, will strike speedily and almost with certainty in pure 

 water, and may be removed into soil with safety ; in which, if the 

 quality be appropriate, the roots will strike without loss of time. 

 The heat, need not exceed 70 degrees; perhaps less would be 

 sufficient. Although leaves will strike root, I am not as yet in 

 possession of facts to prove that germs will be produced from 

 rooted leaves. The melon leaf, in fact, perished; not, however, in 



