Varieties of Fruits. 



211 



that this excellent variety should have remained so long con- 

 fined to a private garden. A drawing of it, with the name 

 of the Cowdray White Nectarine, has been made for the 

 Society's collection. 



William Townsend Aiton, Esq., sent from the Royal 

 Gardens at Kew, specimens of a late Nectarine raised there 

 from seed. The fruit is very large, globose, but rather irregu- 

 lar, deeply cleft, and much indented at the end next the stalk. 

 Skin dark purple on the exposed side, and quite green where 

 shaded, much speckled with rough brown, and somewhat 

 streaked and dotted where the dark colour terminates. Flesh 

 greenish, firm, and closely adhering to the stone, round which 

 it is of a deep purple red, rich, and high flavoured. The stone 

 is small in proportion to the size of the fruit, and very rugged. 

 In favourable seasons this will doubtless prove a valuable ac- 

 quisition, but from its large size it will require a favourable 

 exposure, as it does not ripen before the middle of September. 

 Mr. Aiton considers it as most resembling the old Newing- 

 ton Nectarine ; it has been called Aiton' s Seedling Nectarine. 



Melons. 



Mr. Isaac Oldaker exhibited a very curious and excel- 

 cellent Melon, grown by him in the garden at Spring Grove. 

 He brought the seeds with him to England in 1812, from 

 St. Petersburg, where he had successfully cultivated the 

 fruit ; he had received them originally from Persia, where, 

 as he was informed, it is called the Dampsha Melon, and is 

 esteemed one of their best sorts. The fruit produced first in 

 the season is nearly cylindrical, and bluntly rounded at both 

 ends : the colour of the surface varies from pale yellowish 



