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XXIX. A practical Account of the Culture of Early Melons. 

 By Mr. Patrick Flanagan, Correspofiding Member of 

 the Horticultural Society, Gardener to Sir Thomas Hare, 

 Bart. F. H. S. ; at Stow Hall, in Norfolk. 



Read, June, 6th 1820. 



The two Melons exhibited by me to the Society in the first 

 week in May, were produced by a mode of cultivation which 

 I have successfully adopted for several years. The following 

 details will, I natter myself, enable other practical garde- 

 ners, who may desire to pursue the same plan, to obtain 

 equal success. 



I grow my early Melons under three-light frames, which 

 are eleven feet long, by four feet and a half wide, two feet 

 deep at the back, and fourteen inches in front : the lights of 

 these frames are glazed with the best crown glass, well fitted 

 in the laps, and puttied ; they are made so perfectly close, 

 that no air can gain admittance into the frames, except 

 when I give it by raising the lights. 



Each frame is placed upon the top of a hollow brick pit,* 

 which is four feet deep within side : the lower part (about 



* After this Paper was communicated to the Society, I was informed that 

 a plan of a pit on the construction above described, is given in Mr. Mac- 

 phail's book on the Cultivatiou of the Cucumber (see Macphail cm the Cucum- 

 ber, London, 8vo., 1794), but, I understand, for I have not seen the book, 

 that he recommends cross flues under the divisions of every light, so that he 

 has two cross flues under each three-light frame: but my pits are without these. 



