39 



pruning. For water-melons you can cultivate deeper ; you will find the roots penetrate 

 deeper into the soil. I have seen Long Island melons and Black Spanish melons on soil 

 that would not grow a good crop of Indian corn, that would weigh more than thirty 

 pounds. We have a piece of land that is a sand hill — actually a drifting sand, you may 

 say — and I remember picking one melon on it, a couple of years ago, that was all I could 

 carry to the house conveniently. I am satisfied it is not. manure nor strong soil we want 

 to produce good water-melons, but heat and cultivation. 



Mr. Beadle. — Why so much cultivation ? 



Mr. Dbjipsey. — They are like all other crops that we cultivate on a warm soil. All 

 warm soil is inclined to be a dry soil, and the oftener we stir it the opener we will keep 

 it ; and by that means the atmospheric air is enabled to penetrate the ground, and to 

 maintain a certain amount of moisture without the amount of cold being admitted that 

 there would be if we applied water to it. I ask for no better water-melon on my 

 table than the Mountain Sweet ; but I find there is more money in the Black Spanish 

 than in any other variety I have tried. It will yield more weight than any other we 

 have, and will ship better than any other melon. The skin is rather thick. We cannot 

 barrel the Long Island safely for shipping. We find that a great many of them and of 

 the Mountain Sweet have broken, so we usually ship the Black Spanish. The Hunter 

 musk-melon is a large melon that is liable to grow crooked if you are not careful to turn 

 it over, and one side will be thin ; but it is a very fine-flavoured green-flesh melon. It 

 is one of the finest melons to supply a hotel with that I have ever seen. It will produce 

 a greater weight per acre than any other melon I have ever seen. We cultivate Skill- 

 man's fine netted melon also, a musk-melon. It is an early melon, very reliable ; and you 

 will generally find, if they are pi-operly cultivated, that there are no bad ones among them. 

 The Nutmegs we cultivate sometimes ; but they are variable in their flavour. 



Mr. A. M. Smith. — In regai-d to this sandy hill — don't you manure pretty liberally 

 in order to get good water-melons out of it 1 



Mr. Dempsey. — No. We usually sow broadcast from a barrel to two barrels of 

 common salt to the acre ; and then we plough the soil. It is better to plough the soil 

 three or four times before planting the seed — not be in too great a hurry in getting it in 

 in the spring; let' the soil get warm. Apart from the salt we apply a handful of the 

 superphosphate of lime. If we have not that we use the bone dust and ashes. We grow 

 a great deal better melons where we use the salt than where we do not. The salt helps 

 to retain the moisture. 



Mr. Beall. — -Isn't your land new where you grow the melons 1 



Mr. Dempsey. ^I was told by an old man who worked for me that right on that 

 spot he recollected cutting wheat that yielded forty bushels to the acre more than forty 

 years ago. It is soil that has never been in the hands of parties that had enterprize 

 enough to draw a load of manure on it. When I moved on it, all the manure was lying 

 at the barn. I presume it may have had a little manure dropped on it occasionally ; but 

 I do not think it had had a load of manure on it for forty years. It actually failed to 

 produce rye and buckwheat. 



Mr. GoTT. — Could you give us any information as to the profitableness of this crop, 

 and as to the amount to be produced 1 



Mr. Dempsey. — It is a very profitable crop if you have a market for it. We have 

 sometimes produced such quantities of water-nielons that the truth in regard to them 

 would appear unreasonable. We had a couple of acres of them four years ago, and the 

 yield that year was so great that we could drive a two-horse waggon into the patch and 

 load it with water-melons, without stirring the waggon, one or two men outside passing 

 them to a man in the waggon, and he laying them round. It was a two-ton load at that. 

 The waggon box was made wide so that it would hold fifty bushels of potatoes, and we 

 would round it vip with melons without stirring the waggon. 



Mr. Beadle. — -How do you market them — by the ton 1 



Mr. Dempsey. — No ; by the piece. Parties generally order a certain number of 

 melons of about such a weight. 



Mr. Orr. — How far do you have to take them before reaching cars or boat? 



Mr. Dempsey. — Twelve or fifteen miles. 



