HABITS OF THE MELON PLANTS. 
113 
Mr. Loudon, unfortunately, did not see the fruit I sent, as lie was 
in the country. In the number 46, of the Gardeners’ Magazine, 
page 591, he highly notices the few observations I enclosed with the 
specimens. But as I had not communicated all the facts necessary 
to furnish a fair statement of the nature of the phenomena, I owe it 
to him, as soon as leisure shall permit, to place before him a full and 
candid recital of every particular. In the meantime, with great 
pleasure, I add that, the highly gifted president of the Horticultural 
Society, and the learned and accomplished botanist. Dr. Lindley, 
have, each, severally, given me to understand, that the facts ascer¬ 
tained by me, have gone so much farther than others which had 
heretofore presented themselves, that it would not be at all surpri¬ 
sing, were they to lead to some material alteration and improvements 
in cultivating the melon. 
I am aware, and many reading gardeners must he equally so, that 
the melon in Persia is grown in ground irrigated by little streams, 
into which doubtless, many fibrous bundles of roots pass; still no 
use had been made of this known fact; but now, that I have proved 
the melon so attracted, as to send masses of feeders through a water¬ 
tight joint into a body of water; that the roots absolutely revelled 
in the element; and, instead of decaying, becoming torpid, or tend¬ 
ing to impair the fertility of the growing plant, had enabled if to 
yield a fully matured fruit, I say, as these facts have been undenia¬ 
bly authenticated, I hope that no one will consider an acid, hard, 
and heavy soil as indispensable to the perfect growth, and fertility of 
the melon plant. 
Plaving carefully observed the healthy ramification of the roots of 
a full-grown plant, I resolved to acquire some collateral evidence; 
and therefore took cuttings of two or three joints from melon and cu¬ 
cumber plants; also, others of the leaves of each, the latter compri¬ 
sing the entire footstalk of each leaf, but not the vestige of a bud. 
I placed these cuttings and leaves in glass bottles nearly filled with 
water of different kinds ; some being hard, some perfectly soft, while 
some was slightly medicated with nitre and camphor. I plunged 
the phials in a gentle hotbed of leaves; and found, with scarcely an 
exception, that all the cuttings, in simple water, whether that were 
soft or hard, emitted roots in a very short period. 
The cuttings in the medicated fluid did not succeed so well by 
any means. During the warm weather from four or five to seven or 
eight days, sufficed to procure a sufficient number of roots to insure 
the immediate success ot the plants, when removed to a pot of soil. 
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