described Melons and Cucumbers are occasionally grown
together. But although this may be done, and there are many cultivators
expert in the business, the practice cannot be recommended, for ships
that sail near the wind will come to grief some day. The moisture and
partial shade that suit the Cucumber do not suit the Melon, and it is a
poor compromise to make one end of the house shady and moist, and the
other end sunny and dry, to establish different conditions with one
atmosphere. A glass partition pretty well disposes of the difficulty,
because it is then possible to insure two atmospheres suitable for two
different operations. (=See also pages 157, 175, and 184.=)

==The Pollination of Melons== is performed by plucking the mature male
blooms, and after the removal of the petals, transferring the pollen of
the male flower to the stigma of the female flower.

==MERCURY==

==Chenopodium Bonus-Henricus==

This perfectly hardy vegetable, known also by the name of Good King
Henry, is much grown in Lincolnshire. The leaves are used in the same
way as Spinach, and by earthing up the shoots they may be blanched as a
substitute for Asparagus. Sow the seeds during April in drills twelve
inches apart, and in due course thin the seedlings to one foot apart in
the rows.

==MUSHROOM==

==Agaricus campestris==

The Mushroom has many friends among all classes, few benevolent
neutrals, and fewer still who are absolutely hostile to it as an article
of food. Those who find, or imagine they find, that this delicacy does
not agree with them, might possibly arrive at another conclusion were a
different mode of preparation adopted, or were the consumption of it
accompanied with a full persuasion that the Mushroom is not merely
delicious in flavour, but thoroughly wholesome, rich in flesh-forming
constituents, and, for a vegetable, possessed of more than the average
proportion of fat-formers and minerals. These facts have been clearly
established by chemical analysis, and may dispose of timid misgivings,
always supposing the true edible Mushroom, =Agaricus campestris=, to be
in question.

Hitherto the artificial production of Mushrooms has never been equal to
the demand. Notwithstanding the enormous quantities sent to Covent
Garden by the growers around London, many tons are imported from France,
although it is generally admitted that they are neither so fine nor so
rich in flavour as those produced in this country. If, howev