Melon plant
Date
27 March 1663
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p79a
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 77mm
width (page): 60mm
width (page): 60mm
Subject
Content object
Description
A drawing of the melon plant to illustrate how to prune it. This was enclosed in a letter to Henry Oldenburg dated 27 March 1663 from Jean de la Quintinie, who also sent seeds of the plant. The letter was read to the meeting of the Royal Society on 1 April 1663 and printed in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society vol. 4, no. 45 (March 1669).
Jean de la Quintinie (1626-1688) was a trained lawyer and a well-known horticulturalist whose work was translated by John Evelyn as The Compleat Gard'ner (London, 1693) (see The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, vol. 2, p. 36n).
Copied at LBC/1/094.
Jean de la Quintinie (1626-1688) was a trained lawyer and a well-known horticulturalist whose work was translated by John Evelyn as The Compleat Gard'ner (London, 1693) (see The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, vol. 2, p. 36n).
Copied at LBC/1/094.
Object history
At the meeting of the Royal Society on 1 April 1663, ‘There was read a letter from a French gentleman Monsieur De la Quintinye, to Mr. Oldenburg, dated at Paris March 2, 1662/3, N. S. concerning the cutting and whole method of ordering melons, after they are come up. The writer of this letter, at the close of it, offering likewise his service to the society, it was ordered, that thanks should be returned to him for his civilities. The society being made acquainted also with this gentleman’s extraordinary skill in the cutting and the whole method of the culture of fruit-trees, and with his having written something upon that subject; it was farther ordered, that he should be desired, in the name of the society, to communicate to them his observations, which they would have annexed to Mr. Evelyn’s discourse of timber trees ready to be published, owning Monsieur De la Quintinye to be the author of those observations’ (Birch 1:215).
The figure is printed in Jean de la Quintinie, 'Concerning his way of ordering melons', Phil. Trans. vol. 4, no. 45 (March 1669), pp. 901-02, refs to figure throughout.
The figure is printed in Jean de la Quintinie, 'Concerning his way of ordering melons', Phil. Trans. vol. 4, no. 45 (March 1669), pp. 901-02, refs to figure throughout.
Related fellows
Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
Associated place