On the Degeneracy of Persian Melons. 585 



taste and flavour, and the consistence of its flesh, were most 

 excellent ; but I found it difficult to get its blossoms to set. 

 Having spoken to Sir Joseph Banks of its excellence, he told 

 me that he had received seeds at different periods of his life 

 of many of such large and excellent varieties of melons ; but 

 that he had found every variety soon to lose its good qualities, 

 and that I should not be able to preserve those of the variety 

 in praise of which I had been speaking. I did not, at that 

 period, believe his opinions to be well founded ; and I sus- 

 pected that his Melons had lost their good qualities by in- 

 termarriages with inferior varieties; but I have since had 

 ample reasons for believing that his opinions were perfectly 

 well founded, for my fruit became less in bulk and weight, 

 and deteriorated in taste and flavour. 



I have subsequently cultivated another somewhat similar 

 variety, with the same ill success, my plants setting their 

 blossoms more and more freely as the good qualities of the 

 fruit gradually disappeared ; and I now think that it would 

 be strange if every large and excellent variety of Melon did 

 not degenerate under our ordinary modes of culture. For 

 every large and excellent variety of Melon must necessarily 

 have been the production of high culture, and abundant food ; 

 and a continuance of the same measures, which raised it to 

 its highly improved state, must be necessary to prevent its 

 receding in successive generations from that state. 



Abundant foo.d, it is true, is generally, perhaps always, given 

 by the British gardener to his Melon Plants ; but sufficient 

 light, under the most favourable circumstances, can only be 

 obtained during a part of the year ; and a sufficient breadth 

 of foliage to enable the Melon plant properly to nourish a 



vol. vn. 4 G 



