220 OUB COMMON FETJITS. 



size among melons classed as Cantaloupes is very great, 

 but all are characterized by a more or less rough and 

 thick rind, which considerably reduces the eatable pro- 

 portion of the fruit ; a defect which seems to increase in 

 the larger-growing kinds, as in the old Black Bock Melon, 

 for instance, which often attains a weight of 14 Ibs., about 

 three parts of it, however, being composed of a rugged 

 wall of rind studded with carbuncles, and a mass of seeds 

 within, embedded in the fraction of eatable pulp, small 

 indeed in quantity and very poor in quality. 



The Citron, or Green-fleshed Melon, was brought into 

 Prance by a monk from Africa in 1777, and has thence 

 spread into many countries and given birth to numerous 

 varieties. Frederick the Great was so passionately fond 

 of a small melon of this sort, that he could not conquer 

 himself sufficiently to abstain from them, even when his 

 health was in danger ; for Zimmerman, who attended him 

 in his last illness, finding him suffering severely from in- 

 digestion, discovered that he ate three or four of these 

 fruits daily for breakfast, and on remonstrating with him, 

 the only reply he could get from the despot was an attempt 

 to make them their own apology, by promising to send 

 him some the next day, that he might taste for himself 

 how excellent they were. It is this Citron Melon, too, 

 which is the greatest favourite in America, being one of 

 the finest grown there, and yet peculiarly easy of culture, 

 the climate of the Middle and Southern States suiting it 

 better than even any part of Europe, so that it is raised 

 as a field crop by market gardeners, and sold in August, 

 in the markets of New York and Philadelphia, at the 

 price of half a dollar for a basket containing nearly a 

 bushel, proving even then one of the most profitable of 

 crops. The warm dry climate of Long Island and New 

 Jersey is specially suited to the culture of melons of any 

 kind, but many other sorts require greater care than the 

 green-fleshed favourite, without compensating for it by 

 any superiority, and it therefore has few rivals. Melons 

 flourish too in California, where, however, they command 

 far higher prices, selling throughout the season (from July 

 to November) at from 75 cents to one dollar each. " To 



