THE MELON. 213 



given to this variety is 'melopepo.' " This fruit, it is 

 concluded, must have been the melon, which still bears 

 the botanical name of Melo cucurbita. The melon had 

 been known, too, to the Greeks, who were accustomed to 

 soak the seeds in milk and honey previous to sowing them, 

 and even put them into the earth surrounded with rose- 

 leaves, believing that when thus cradled in sweetness the 

 fruit to which they gave birth could not but be mild and 

 fragrant. The great Baber has the credit of having 

 introduced it to his subjects in Hindostan, where it now 

 abounds, it having been indigenous only to the milder 

 parts of Asia. How early it was brought to this country 

 is not known with certainty ; for though Grough, in his 

 Topography, says that it was grown here in the time of 

 Edward III. (having only gone out of cultivation, along 

 with the cucumber, during the troubled time of the Wars 

 of the Eoses which followed), it is generally supposed 

 that the object to which he refers was really the pumpkin, 

 which was called the " melon" by old writers, the fruit to 

 which that name is now restricted having formerly been 

 distinguished by the title of Musk Melon. It is most pro- 

 bable that it was really only brought to England from 

 Italy in the time of Henry VIII.; for, in 1526, Gerard, 

 though he had not himself grown it, yet mentions having 

 seen it at "the Queen's hothouse at St. James's," and 

 also at Lord Sussex's house at Bermondsey, where, he 

 says, " from year to year there is great plenty, especially 

 if the weather be anything temperate." Parkinson, in 

 1629, says that before his time "melons have been only 

 eaten by great personages, because the fruit was not only 

 delicate but rare, and therefore divers were brought from 

 France, and since were nursed up by kings' and noble- 

 men's gardeners;" but they were then becoming more 

 common. Subsequently, the melon became an article 

 of great though never of very general consumption, the 

 costliness incidental to artificial production putting it 

 beyond the means of the majority of people ; but it was 

 not unusual for market gardeners to tend 300 or 400 

 "lights" of melons, producing from week to week large 

 quantities, which were easily disposed of at high prices to 



