CUCURBITACE. IV. Cucumis. 7 
4 Small germek. This is much smaller than the last-named 
sort; the skin is yellow and the flesh green. 
5 Goorgab. A middle-sized late fruit, with yellow rind and 
white flesh. A useless sort. 
6 Green Hoosaimee. A middle-sized late sort, of good quality ; 
rind thin, green; flesh white. 
7 Striped Hoosainee. A very good late sort, with greenish- 
yellow rind, and white flesh. 
8 Kasan sugar melon. A good sort. 
9 Keiseng. This is said to be one of the best Persian melons ; 
the skin is thin, pale yellow, and red, and the flesh white. 
10 Kurchaing. A very good sort, of considerable size; the 
skin is lemon-coloured, and the flesh white. 
11 Melon of Erivan. 
12 Melon of Gerger. 
skin and red flesh. 
13 Melon of Nukshevan, This is an excellent late kind ; the 
skin is yellow, and the pulp white. 
14 Melon of Nusserabad. 
15 Melon of Seen. Amiddle-sized fruit of indifferent quality. 
It is a late sort, with yellow rind and green flesh. 
16 Green Persian. A fruit of indifferent flavour. 
17 Oldaker’s Persian. A fruit of considerable size but no 
merit ; the rind is orange-coloured, and the flesh green. 
18 Sir Gore Ouseley’s Persian. A large fruit of good quality ; 
the skin is yellow and the flesh white. 
19 Sweet melon of Ispahan. This is said to be one of the very 
best melons. Itgrows to a large size; the skin is yellow and 
the flesh green, crisp, sugary, and rich in taste. 
20 Talibee melon. 
21 Teheran melon. 
22 Salonica. A round fruit, with a gold-coloured rind, and 
white flesh; improves in flavour and richness till it becomes 
quite soft ; consistence of its pulp nearly that of a water melon, 
and very sweet. 
On the degeneracy of the larger varieties of Persian melons.— 
Mr. Knight thinks that it would be strange if every large and 
excellent variety of melon did not degenerate, under our ordi- 
nary modes of culture. For every large and excellent variety 
of melon, must necessarily have been the production of high 
culture and abundant food; and a continuance of the same 
measures to it, in its highly improved state, must be necessary 
to prevent its receding in successive generations from that state. 
Abundant food, it is true, is generally, perhaps always, given by 
the British gardener to his melon plants: but sufficient light, 
under the most favourable circumstances, can only be obtained 
during a part of the year, and a sufficient breadth of foliage to 
enable the melon plant properly to nourish a fruit of large size 
and rich saccharine quality, so that it may obtain the highest 
state of growth and perfection which it is capable of acquiring, 
has rarely, and probably never, been given in any season of the 
year, by any British gardener. Mr. Knight has cultivated the 
Sweet Ispahan melon, and found it a very superior variety. He 
has cultivated this variety generally in brick pits, surrounded 
by hollow walls, through which warm atmospheric air at all 
times enters abundantly; putting each plant in a separate large 
pot, and suffering it to bear one melon only: but the fruit sets 
sufficiently well in a common hot-bed. The rind of the Jspa- 
han melon, being very soft and thin, the fruit is apt to sustain 
injury on the lower side; they should be raised above the 
ground a little by some means while young, so as the air may 
pass under them. When seeds of the Jspahan melon are orly 
wanted, it is quite time enough to sow in the beginning of 
April, so that the fruit may ripen in August. Very valuable 
varieties of melons may be obtained, for one generation at least, 
by cross breeding among the smaller and more hardy varieties 
8 
A middle-sized good fruit, with yellow 
of green and white-fleshed melons and the large Persian va- 
rieties. It is generally supposed that the offspring of cross- 
bred plants, as of animals, usually present great irregularity and 
variety of character ; but if a male of permanent character and 
habits, and, of course not cross-bred, be selected, that will com- 
pletely overrule the disposition to sport irregularly in the cross- 
bred variety ; alike in the animal and vegetable world, the per- 
manent habit always controlling and prevailing over the variable. 
The finest varieties of melon are usually supposed by gardeners 
to be fruits of as easy culture as the pine-apple, but experience 
has led us to draw a contrary conclusion. If the leaves of the 
melon plant be suddenly exposed to the influence of the sun in 
a bright day, which has succeeded a few cloudy days, for a short 
time only, they frequently become irreparably injured. If the 
air of the bed be kept a little too damp, the stems of the plants 
often canker, and the leaves and stalks sustain injury in the 
common hot-bed; and, if the air be too dry, the plants, and 
consequently the fruit, are injured by the depredations of the 
red spider.—Loud. gard. mag. vol. 7. pp. 186, 187, 188. 
In the cultivation of the melon, Knight observes, “ it is a 
matter of much importance to procure proper seed. Some 
gardeners are so scrupulous on this point, that they will not 
sow the seed unless they have seen and tasted the fruit from 
which they were taken. It is proper, at least, not to trust to 
seeds which have not been collected by judicious persons. Some 
make it a rule to preserve always the seeds of those individual 
specimens which are first ripe, and even to take them from 
the ripest side of the fruit. A criterion of the goodness and 
probable fertility is generally sought by throwing them into a 
vessel containing water; such as sink are considered as good, 
and likely to prove fertile, and those that float imperfect. It 
is remarked of seeds brought from the Continent, that they 
must have more bottom heat, and the young plants less water, 
than are necessary for seeds ripened in this country, or young 
plants sprung from these.” 
The culture of the melon is an object of emulation among 
gardeners, and the fruit of the best sorts have a peculiarly rich 
flavour, thought by some to bear some resemblance to that of 
the pine-apple. ‘ Ripe fruit,” Abercrombie observes, “ may 
be had by forcing at any season, but the main crops, raised for 
the general demand, are seldom cut, at the earliest, before May, 
and the last succession mostly ceases to yield fruit after October.” 
“ To ripen the best largest fine kinds,” M‘Phail observes, “ as 
great an atmospherical heat, and a bottom heat to its roots 
also, is required as is sufficient to ripen the pine-apple in this 
country; but as the melon is produced from an annual plant, 
the seeds of which must be sown every year, it requires a dif- 
ferent mode of culture. Different methods of culture, and various 
kinds of earth and of manures have been recommended and 
used successfully in rearing of melons. The great thing, after 
planting, is to give them plenty of atmospherical heat, and a 
sufficiency of external air, and water. Those methods which 
are most simple and the least expensive, and best calculated to 
assist in making a suitable climate for the melon to grow in 
and ripen its fruit well, should be preferred.” 
Soil.—Abercrombie says “ The melon will succeed in any 
unexhausted loam, rich in vegetable rudiments, with a mixture 
of sand, but not too light. The following is a good compost : 
two-thirds of top-spit earth from a sheep common, adding sharp 
sand, if the earth contains little or none, till half is sand; one- 
sixth of vegetable mould; and one-sixth of well-consumed 
horse-dung. Or, if the earth is not obtained from a pasture, 
rotted sheep-dung may be substituted for the last. The ingre- 
dients should have been incorporated and pulverized by long 
previous exposure and turning over. The compost should be 
dried under shelter before it is used, and warmed in the frame 
