7] [ Tlin PRACTICAL C AR DT. N f.n . 



Air should be less freely admitted to melons than to cucum- 

 bers, as the former require a higher temperature ; however, 

 in sunshine, the thermometer should not be allowed to rise 

 above 75° or 80^, which is a temperature sufficiently high for 

 their production. 



In Persia, where they possess very superior sorts of melons, 

 and where they have been cultivated from the earliest ages, great 

 attention has been paid to their culture, growing them in fields, 

 which are rendered capable of being frequently irrigated, and 

 using for their principal manure large portions of pigeons' dung ; 

 indeed, so much importance do they attach to this manure, that 

 the melon-growers keep dove-cots on purpose to procure it in 

 abundance, and even purchase it at an extravagant price. This 

 mode of supplying melons with additional nourishment, has of 

 late years been recommended by many, and practised by se- 

 veral eminent horticulturists. Some add the pigeons' dung in 

 their compost, while others use it diluted in water, and ap- 

 ply it in its liquid state, taking care that none of it falls upon 

 the leaves. We have for several years practised both modes, 

 but never found that the melons were of better flavor, nor more 

 abundant in crop, than when grown in fresh virgin-loam taken 

 from a sheep-walk, and used without any previous preparation 

 whatsoever. Melons may probably be grown to a larger size 

 by the application of such powerful manures ; but large melons, 

 like most other fruits of magnitude, are seldom of good flavor. 



Few fruits, the pine excepted, possess higher flavor than 

 melons, if of good sorts and well cultivated, but the larger 

 Forts of them are seldom fit to eat ; hence the disrepute into 

 uhich this excellent fruit has fallen. 



Those who compete for the prizes awarded for the highest- 

 flavored melons, are very particular in this matter. They 

 most generally grow very small sorts, principally of the scar- 

 let-flesh rock sorts, although sometimes gi'een-fleshed ones 

 succeed. They seldom use any manure whatever, and are 

 always very sparing of water ; never giving more after the 

 fruit attains its full size than what is merely sufficient to keep 

 the plants alive, and admitting plenty of air while the fruit is 

 ripening. 



