THE MELON. 219 



since, even should the outside of a number of fruits re- 

 semble that of the parent from which they sprang, it is 

 very common for the interiors to present great differences, 

 one perhaps having white flesh, another green, and a third 

 red. Noisette regrets that a passion for novelty should 

 have induced growers to encourage a multiplicity of va- 

 rieties, since, were the culture limited to about twelve 

 varieties, this number would include every important 

 diversity, while consumers could then much more easily 

 identify whichever kind they might have learned to 

 prefer. 



Melons are now generally divided by English cultivators 

 into four sections: the thick-skinned, soon-perishing sorts, 

 grouped together under the general name of Cantaloupes ; 

 the longer-keeping Winter Melons ; Persians ; and Water 

 Melons. The type of the first-enumerated class was pro- 

 bably the original old-fashioned Musk Melon, character- 

 ized by the thick network of grey lines over its surface, 

 and by possessing very little scent, varying in size from 

 1 Ib. to 40 Ibs. weight, but being so uncertain in quality 

 that out of half a dozen fruits but one perhaps would be 

 found good. This earliest-known sort was almost banished 

 from good gardens on the introduction of superior kinds. 

 One of the first to supersede it, and still one of the most 

 esteemed throughout Europe, though reckoned in America 

 but second-rate, was the melon which claims in a more 

 restricted sense, as the original owner of that name, the 

 title of the Cantaloupe, having been so called from a town 

 of that name, situate about 15 miles from Home, and 

 where this fruit has been cultivated ever since the Mith- 

 ridatic war, having been brought, it is said, by Lucullus 

 in the last century B.C. from Armenia to Italy, and thence 

 taken by Charles VIII. into Erance. Usually nearly 

 round and of middling size, though not constant even in 

 these particulars ; its exterior, always remarkably rough 

 and irregular, varies much in colour, being sometimes 

 orange mottled with green, sometimes green and black, or 

 some other variegation, the darkest colours being gene- 

 rally preferred ; while the flesh also assumes different 

 tints, nearly white, orange, or pinkish. The diversity of 



