19G 
THE .FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ September, 
might reign for a time, sufficient to punish the cruel and uncharitable of 
this life, and to be followed by a glorious millennium, during which respite, all 
nature should smile as the noon-day, there being no more plants cultivated in pots 
or in tubs, since pots, tubs, and specimens of our modern gardeners would only 
be seen as fossil objects of curiosity on the shelves of the museums of those days! 
—William Miller, Combe Abbey Gardens. 
SOIL FOR MELONS. 
Jdq WELL remember, when first I saw the old Netted Cantaloupe Melon grown, 
we used to plant it in a stiff loam, with no admixture of dung or anything 
f else. When the crop was over, the loam was taken back to the heap, and did 
service, year after year, with such success as your readers may imagine. 
More recently, I have seen them grown in a lighter material, but still my opinion 
is, that a good holding loam, well beaten down, is the soil that melons require. 
In planting out a house of Melons here some six weeks back, I had one barrow¬ 
load of charred soil mixed with three of the ordinary soil, and this has quite con¬ 
vinced me that we are on the right track. Five plants out of twenty were duly 
planted in the mixture above described. The plants began to push away at once, 
growing strong and healthy, and reached the trellis at least ten days in advance of 
the others. Just now we have on these plants melons from 2 lb. to 2^ lb. in weight, 
the variety being the Victory of Bath , while all the others are only of the size of 
an egg. This shows that the charred material is what they like. Some may say 
that the difference is in the variety, but there is another Victory in the same 
house planted in the usual soil, which is little or no forwarder than the others. 
I may add that I have grown twenty varieties of Portuguese Melons sent me by 
an eminent Grape-grower in Portugal; they are all straggling and weak growers, 
compared with our English varieties. I will let you know how they behave in 
due time. [Please do.]— B. Gilbert, Burghley Gardens , Stamford. 
ANNUALS FOR SPRING-BEDDING. 
« IIE great objection which many persons have to Spring-bedding is that the 
summer plants are kept so long out of their quarters. Where there is 
f much bedding this is, however, an advantage rather than otherwise ; but 
it does not apply so much to Annuals as to other plants, because there are 
few of them that stand long after the sun begins to get power in spring. 
Again, many persons who try to get a spring display of Annuals fail, from 
trusting to the idea that they are so easy to manage—there is nothing to do but to 
sow and transplant them ; and then, of course, the winter comes in for the blame 
of killing them off. This is to be expected, so long as they are merely sown and 
left to be drawn up in the shape of weakly plants, unfit for anything, let alone 
standing through the long, damp autumn. Frost is not so trying as this damp. 
Many who practise this, will have some already up and forming good plants, such 
as Silene , Myosotis , Honesty , &c. I do not mean Myosotis dissitiflora , which is 
