GLEANINGS ON HOllTICUI-TURR. 



.39 



nccount to a free application of water at certain j)criods, while 

 those who use adhesive loams apply little water to the roots. If 

 planted in light soils, containing much vegetable matter, the 

 plants will, of course, grow very luxuriantly ; and then, if a check 

 ensue through drought, they will generally become a pi'ey to red- 

 spider. For such reasons, there is nothing better than a sound 

 loam of considerable depth. 



Nevertheless, as every amateur cultivator cannot always obtain 

 this valuable article, it is well to know that any moderately rich 

 garden soil will succeed, if deep enough ; and if poor, it may be 

 enriched with a portion of manures, or vegetable matters in a 

 half-decomposed state. In making the mounds, it is a good plan 

 to fill the hollow formed to receive the soil with lumpy turf, fresh 

 from the pasture or common, and on this the hillock of compost. 



As to raising the young plants, the process is similar to that 

 observed in cucumber culture ; only, it may be remarked, that 

 the melon cannot well endure so low a temperature as the 

 cucumber. We consider seventy degrees as indispensable ; 

 eighty degrees, however, will be found more suitable. They are 

 potted off as soon as the seed-leaf is fully developed ; and when 

 they shoot, the central point is in general pinched out: this 

 causes them to push a couple or more of shoots, and those are of 

 a more fruitful character than those first formed, and will be 

 required, without further stopping, to train over the bed. We 

 consider two plants enough for a mound, and they may therefore 

 be placed in pairs, in five-inch pots. As soon as the heat is 

 right, and the plants are established, the sooner they are out the 

 better. Melons do not succeed well where they have been 

 stinted in their pots ; we have known them afterwards produce 

 nothing but male blossoms. The subsequent management, until 

 they require to be finally earthed up, will be, like the cucumbers, 

 to sprinkle the frame occasionally, and sometimes to water the 

 plants, using always tepid water. When the roots of the plants 

 begin to reach the outside of the mounds, the soiling must be com- 

 pleted, and the surface should be made to slope from the mound 

 on all sides, thus leaving a convex surface ; this keeps the crown of 

 the plant and its stem dry — a necessary course, in order to avoid 

 canker, to which the melon is peculiarly liable, especially in 

 damp and cloudy summers. It is a good plan to cover the sur- 

 face of the bed with small pieces of slate or fine gravel composed 

 principally of small stones. The fruit will both set better and 

 possess higher flavour. 



