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" Meloxs. — With this part of our duties, your Committee must be 

 excused if they should ' speak right out,' for after carefully examining 

 the heaps of melons, we marched off with the best we could select, an- 

 ticipating much enjoyment both to ourselves and a few ' invited guests,' 

 while we discussed the merits of the various specimens toward the form- 

 ing of this our report. Well, after obtaining plates, knives, &c., and 

 after all our friends had gathered around, anxiously expecting a rich 

 treat, we slashed away with a tine looking, large so called ' Black Span- 

 ish Watermelon.' On opening its flesh to the gaze of our judges, judge 

 of our discomfiture, for we saw that the grower had selected it from his 

 bed of pumpkins. Thinking, however, that having tasted of so many 

 fruits, our appetite might be somewhat cloyed, we tried to get some of 

 the anxious expectants surrounding us to decide impartially ; but one 

 taste was sufficient — none were favorable to a cross of pumpkin or squash, 

 in what purported outwardly to be a delicious melon. We tried another, 

 and another, all to no purpose ; and our * invited guests' having all re- 

 tired, we wrote down a joint premium for specimens embracing tine size, 

 but which had evidently been grown too near beds of squash or pump- 

 kins. Not less than fifty feet should ever mark the space between the 

 melon and those of any similar class of vines. 



" Good taste in the arrangement of fruits for exhibition, contributing 

 largely to the interest which such displays are intended to create, your 

 Committee were gratified in finding a premium offered for the best 

 arranged collection. Looking over the collections, we could but feel 

 aware that many had overstepped the very object they sought to gain, 

 in arranging their fruits ; i. e., by so arranging in masses of disorder 

 and in closed cases, beyond the vision of but few visitors, and the reach 

 of your Committee when making their examinations. 



" Having now made our report, permit us to say a few words to the 

 growers and exhibitors of fruits in the flourishing and rapidly growing 

 State of Wisconsin, relative to gathering for, transporting, and the exhi- 

 bition of their fruits at any sticceeding exhibition of a similar character. 

 In the good appearance of samples offered, you may sometimes win the 

 prize over fruits of the same quality as your own. In gathering these, 

 pick carefully by hand from the tree ; avoid rubbing the fruit, for many 

 varieties have a bloom by which they are at once readily distinguished, 

 but without such natural bloom, or down as it is sometimes called, they 

 are at times difficult to be distinguished, unless by one readily conversant 



