In the Garden Melons are normally regarded in England as
luxury food, and the price in the late summer of 1940 rarely fell, in London shops, below six or seven shillings for. small fruit. Yet melons are, in my exPeri' ence, as simply grown as cucumbers. Gardening books accompaoy their instructions with the usual elaborate talk about strong hot-beds. intensive fertilisation, and so on. I find that melons of the cantalouPe variety grow and yield excellent medium-sized fruit if germinated 51 strong bottom heat and subsequently grown on in frames. Seeds should be set two in a three-inch pot and will germinate in a shun time, and can then be grown on in a temperature which should nut fall below 6o degrees at night. Planted out in May on hummocks of warm, fine soil in frames where manure will retain a little but they will grow rapidly. Fertilisation must be done by hand, but in my experience fruit will set naturally if the plants are realliarIT sprayed in the late afternoon with tepid water. Most of this, instruction is a Modification of the strict rules of text-books, always seem to regard' melon-culture as a special prerogative 01 millionaires. Yet this simple method grew for me in 1940 an average of fifteen excellent rosy, fragrant cantaloupes per frame.
H. E. Ryas-
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