5:32- HORTUS J AM AI C EN S TS. Mtsr" 



MF.LO. MELON". 



Arigles of the leaves rounded ; fruits torulose. 

 Steins procumbent or tFaiiing to a great length, \cry much branched, fuftiishsd with 

 teirdrils ; leaves pahnate-sinuate, or entire, u'aving about the edge, and slightly 

 toothed, with rounded cornei's, rough with bristles. Floivers pale vcilow, lateral^ so- 

 Jitary; calyx covered with white hairs; corolla wrinkled, ribbed, and liaving bristles 

 along the ribs.on the outside. The female Howers, as they are called, have four large 

 anthers, and the germ is sub-globular, -and covered with white hairs; fruit roundish, 

 or oval, commonly furrowed longitudinally, sometimes netted, vvarted, or cai-buncied, 

 from four to tv/elve inches in length and diameter, jellowish-green ; pulp firm, 

 musky, reddish, seldom green ; seeds many, oblong, pale, in a watery pulp. This 

 jihir.t iias been long a'go introduced into Jamaica, where it has thriven loxuriantly, in 

 several of its varieties. 



TTie seeds for propagation should he procured from good melons, of the soundest 

 sort and highest flavour, produced, as some have advised, in a distant garden ; for, if 

 sown on the place where it was raised and ripened, it is very apt to degenerate. In 

 England the seeds are kept three years befffre sown, but not more than six. When 

 seed is required sooner it is recommended to be exposed to the sun, or carried in the 

 j.oi'ket three or four weeks. 



When the melon is perfectly fine,' it is full without any vacuity : this is known by 

 knockiivg upon it ; and, when cut, the flesh must be dry, no water running out, only a 

 little dew, which is to be of a fine red colour. Large melons are not to be coveted, but 

 firm and well-flavoured ones. 



The Freach raised particularly fine melons, by a method kept as a secret, but which 

 is no other than the ingenious Mr. Q.uinting's of that nation, published near a century 

 ago in the Philosophical Transactions. 



The melons particularly proper to be treated in this manner, are those which have a 

 thin and somevvb?t embro'idered skin, not divided by ribs, and have a red pulp, dry 

 and melting on the tongue, not meally, and of a high flavour. These are what iuc- 

 ceed in tlie following method ; and are greatly improved in size and flavour by it: 

 "When the seeds of this melon are placed in the ground, the first thing, that .ippears is 

 a pair of seminal leaves. Between these two leaKes there shoots, some days after, a 

 leaf called the first leaf or knot ; and out of the same place, after some days more, 

 there shoots ano,ther leaf, called the second knot. Out of the midst of this stalk of the 

 second knot, there shoots athird knot ; this third knot must be cut off at its insertion, 

 without hurtiuCT the branch of the second knot from v/hence it grows. Out of this 

 place there will growy after this cutting, a branch, which will be what the gardeners 

 <:all the first arm ; and ihisarm^vill, in the.same manner as the first plant, shoot out, 

 fust one, then a second, and then a third, knot; this third knot must be cut again as 

 before, and thus the tliird knots are all along to be cut off, and arms or branches will 

 grow up in the places of them all the way in the same manner as the first ; and it is at 

 those arms that the melons will be produced, and they will be always good, if the foot 

 or root be well nourished in good earth. The foot of the melon must never be suffered 

 to pass into tiie dung, and the earth must not be watered but moderately, when it is 

 seea to grow too dry ; but in this case it must be moderately moistened ia'time, lest 



the 



