“Melons are most interesting to experiment with.  We suppose that melons originally came from Asia, and parts of Africa.  Watermelons grow wild in Africa.  The Negroes and wild animals feed upon them.  Perhaps that is the reason why the coloured people so love them.  Anyway, melons belong to these countries.  Melons are a summer fruit.  Over in England we find the muskmelons often grown under glass in hothouses.  The vines are trained upward rather than allowed to lie prone.  As the melons grow large in the hot, dry atmosphere, just the sort which is right for their growth, they become too heavy for the vine to hold up.  So they are held by little bags of netting, just like a tennis net in size of mesh.  The bags are supported on nails or pegs.  It is a very pretty sight I can assure you.  Over here usually we raise our melons outdoors.  They are planted in hills.  Eight seeds are placed two inches apart and an inch deep.  The hills should have a four foot sweep on all sides; the watermelon hills ought to have an allowance of eight to ten feet.  Make the soil for these hills very rich.  As the little plants get sizeable—­say about four inches in height—­reduce the number of plants to two in a hill.  Always in such work choose the very sturdiest plants to keep.  Cut the others down close to or a little below the surface of the ground.  Pulling up plants is a shocking way to get rid of them.  I say shocking because the pull is likely to disturb the roots of the two remaining plants.  When the melon plant has reached a length of a foot, pinch off the end of it.  This pinch means this to the plant:  just stop growing long, take time now to grow branches.  Sand or lime sprinkled about the hills tends to keep bugs away.

“Onions are about as popular a vegetable as we have.  Some people are quite scornful of onions because of their truly disagreeable odour.  But I do not know what we should do without the onion for flavourings.  Peter is to plant onions where he last had celery.  That is very wise, because onions do especially well coming after a crop for which the land was heavily fertilized.  Onions like moisture of soil, too.  If the soil is not rich enough, nitrate of soda may be added.  The most discouraging thing about chemical fertilizers is the fact that advertisements say to have a certain quantity for an acre of land.  Few boys and girls are planting entire acres, to just one thing.  Now, suppose you write down this:  Add 1/4 pound of nitrate of soda to 100 square feet of land then use the proper fractional amount.  To buy 1/40 of a pound for example sounds absurd.  Buy your quarter pound and put the approximate amount on.  Sprinkle chemical fertilizer over the surface of the soil and rake it in just under the surface.

“There are two methods for the planting of onions.  One way is to use seed; the other, sets.  Sets mean little onion bulbs.  These are placed in drills about six inches apart and so that the little bulb may be just beneath the surface of the soil.  Do not set too low.  These bulbs are ready before seed onions.  Seeds are rather slow in development.  If you make sowings pretty thick the tender tops may be used, and so the thinning process is done to advantage.