1877. ] 
MELON CULTURE. 
223 
the bed should be top-dressed weekly with horse-droppings, and also be 
occasionally watered with guano and soot-water. Attention to the above points 
will secure to the grower the reward of almost any quantity of Gardenia flowers. 
—Wm. Denning, Coomhe Lane^ Kingston. 
DENDROBIUM DENSIFLORUM VAR. STEWARTII. 
^NE of the most remarkable flowered examples of Dendrohium densijioruin 
that has ever come under my notice is, for the third time this season, in 
flower at Ardgowan, the seat of Sir Michael Shaw Stewart, near Greenock. 
It is now bearing fifteen of its gorgeous pendulous racemes of bloom. This 
is, too, after it was in inflorescence in March and in June, bearing at each of these 
seasons respectively thirty-seven and twenty-five spikes. In all, therefore, the 
plant has produced the extraordinary number of seventy-seven spikes in the course 
of a single season, and extraordinarily fine racemes they have been and now are, 
bearing evidence of high cultivation. 
The variety bears a marked resemblance to D. Griffithianum in length of spike 
and in size and substance of bloom, but no one of that form is so productive of bloom, 
and none so close in the raceme. It is, therefore, in my opinion, worthy of varietal 
distinction, and to no one could it be better dedicated than to Sir Michael himself, 
who takes so great an interest in his garden. That the plant bearing such a number 
of flowers is in a first-rate state of cultivation need scarcely be doubted ; indeed all 
the plants under Mr. Lunt’s charge are excellently cultivated, this one in par¬ 
ticular showing a strength of pseudobulb, and a breadth and substance of leafage, 
which are quite charming to the tutored eye. It is grown in peat and sphagnum, 
upon the medium-shift principle.— James Anderson, Meadowhanh. 
MELON CULTURE. 
jAVING devoted some years to the cultivation of the Melon, I will with 
your permission give a short outline of the system which I have found 
most successful. An old practitioner once remarked to me that all Melons 
were good if properly grown, but my experience justifies me in saying that 
some varieties are much better than others, even under the best management, an 
assertion in which the judges of Little Heath, at Bath, will bear me out. They 
will also agree with me in saying, that the cultivation of Melons is attended with 
more uncertainty than that of any other exotic fruit. 
The conditions essential to success are light span-roofed pits, well ventilated, 
and efficiently heated ; good soil and care; full attention to details, with full 
command over heat and moisture ; and a judicious selection of kinds for the 
structure in which they are to be grown. 
For early and late forcing, the pits should face the south, with sufficient 
piping to maintain a temperature of 85° by day, and a bottom-heat of 90° in 
January. The ventilators in the front wall should bo low enough to allow a 
circulation of dry warm air over the surface of the plunging material, thence 
