THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



[June. 



a sufficiency of water, which gi-eatly tends to sweeten the at- 

 mosphere, and makes it congenial to vegetables as well as to 

 animals. Nothing will eradicate disease from melon-plants 

 but plenty of heat, and a due portion of water sprinkled all 

 over their leaves, and air given in a quantity sufficient to keep 

 the atmosphere of the beds pure, and also in a state of change. 

 Plants much diseased, or much infested with insects, never 

 can produce good fruit. The mildew generally makes its ap- 

 pearance upon the old leaves of the plants of melons, and 

 also on the extremities of the young shoots, and is caused by 

 their not having healthy nourishment comprehended in the 

 elements in which they grow, or that those elements do not 

 harmonize in the proportion of the growth of the plants. It 

 is observed by cultivators, that when a bed gets into a stag- 

 nated sour state, the plants cease to prosper, the air in the 

 frames becomes saturated with unhealthy particles, and so also 

 must the juices be, which are imbibed by the plants by their 

 roots or leaves. These, consequently, breed diseases, if means 

 be not used to prevent them. 



Melon-plants at all times, particularly when approaching to 

 maturity, are subject to the attack of that minute and destruc- 

 tive enemy, the red spider. Whenever the temperature is high, 

 and water withheld for any length of time, it is almost sure to 

 make its appearance. Upon most plants it is easily got rid of, 

 by simply attending to use the garden engine or syringe freely, 

 and with considerable force upon the parts infected ; but upon 

 melons it is not so easily subdued, as those means can seldom 

 be applied, considering that too much moisture applied would 

 injure the plants, and the necessary force required to dislodge 

 it, would be more than the tender frame of those plants could 

 bear with safety. The following remedy has been recom- 

 mended by M'Phail, and we have always found it effectual in 

 practice : " Get plenty of horse-dung, thrown up into a large 

 heap ; turn it over once or twice, shaking and mixing it well, 

 and let it lie till its rankness be somewhat evaporated ; if 

 if there be linings at the beds, take them entirely away, ex- 

 amine the dung in the beds, and if it be wet and have a bad 

 smell, take a sharp-pointed stake, and make holes all round 

 in the sides of the beds, into their centre, in such a slanting 



