THE MELON. 283 



Gourds. 



were procured for him at all seasons. Stoves ap- 

 pear to have been used in this process ; so that 

 forcing'-houses were not unknown to the Romans. 

 The melon has certainly been generally cultivated 

 in England since about the middle of the sixteenth 

 century ; how much earlier is not known. It is 

 highly probable that those ecclesiastics who paid 

 such attention to the other fruits grown in Italy 

 and France, would not neglect one so delicious as 

 the melon ; and it is distinctly said by a vrriter on 

 British Topography, Gough, that the cultivation of 

 the melon in England preceded the wars of York 

 and Lancaster, but that it was destroyed in the 

 times of civil trouble that succeeded. It is probable, 

 however, that the melon was confounded with the 

 pumpkin by the earlier writers whom Gough con- 

 sulted. While in France, and in England, melons are 

 grown as an article of luxury, in some parts of the 

 East they are used as a chief necessary of life. Nie- 

 buhr, the celebrated traveller, says, " Of pumpkins 

 and melons, several sorts grow naturally in the 

 woods, and serve for feeding camels ; but the proper 

 melons are planted in the fields, where a great variety 



