CUCURBITACE^E. IV. CUCUMIS. 



4 Small germek. This is much smaller than the last-named 

 sort ; the skin is yellow and the flesh green. 



5 Goorgab. A middle-sized late fruit, with yellow rind and 

 white flesh. A useless sort. 



6 Green Hoosainee. A middle-sized late sort, of good quality ; 

 rind thin, green ; flesh white. 



7 Striped Hoosainee. A very good late sort, with greenish- 

 yellow rind, and white flesh. 



8 Kasan sugar melon. A good sort. 



9 Keiseng. This is said to be one of the best Persian melons ; 

 the skin is thin, pale yellow, and red, and the flesh white. 



10 Kurchaing. A very good sort, of considerable size ; the 

 skin is lemon-coloured, and the flesh white. 



1 1 Melon of Erivan. 



12 Melcn of Gerger. A middle-sized good fruit, with yellow 

 skin and red flesh. 



13 Melon of Nukshevan. This is an excellent late kind ; the 

 skin is yellow, and the pulp white. 



14 Melon of Nusserabad. 



15 Melon of Seen. A middle-sized fruit of indifferent quality. 

 It is a late sort, with yellow rind and green flesh. 



16 Green Persian. A fruit of indifferent flavour. 



1 7 Oldaker's Persian. A fruit of considerable size but no 

 merit ; the rind is orange-coloured, and the flesh green. 



18 Sir Gore Ouseley's Persian. A large fruit of good quality; 

 the skin is yellow and the flesh white. 



1 9 Sweet melon of Ispahan. This is said to be one of the very 

 best melons. It grows to a large size ; the skin is yellow and 

 the flesh green, crisp, sugary, and rich in taste. 



20 Talibee melon. 



21 Teheran melon. 



22 Salonica. A round fruit, with a gold-coloured rind, and 

 white flesh ; improves in flavour and richness till it becomes 

 quite soft ; consistence of its pulp nearly that of a water melon, 

 and very sweet. 



On the degeneracy of the larger varieties of Persian melons. 

 Mr. Knight thinks that it would be strange if every large and 

 excellent variety of melon did not degenerate, under our ordi- 

 nary modes of culture. For every large and excellent variety 

 of melon, must necessarily have been the production of high 

 culture and abundant food ; and a continuance of the same 

 measures to it, in its highly improved state, must be necessary 

 to prevent its receding in successive generations from that state. 

 Abundant food, it is true, is generally, perhaps always, given by 

 the British gardener to his melon plants : but sufficient light, 

 under the most favourable circumstances, can only be obtained 

 during a part of the year, and a sufficient breadth of foliage to 

 enable the melon plant properly to nourish a fruit of large size 

 and rich saccharine quality, so that it may obtain the highest 

 state of growth and perfection which it is capable of acquiring, 

 has rarely, and probably never, been given in any season of the 

 year, by any British gardener. Mr. Knight has cultivated the 

 Sweet Ispahan melon, and found it a very superior variety. He 

 has cultivated this variety generally in brick pits, surrounded 

 by hollow walls, through which warm atmospheric air at all 

 times enters abundantly ; putting each plant in a separate large 

 pot, and suffering it to bear one melon only : but the fruit sets 

 sufficiently well in a common hot-bed. The rind of the Ispa- 

 han melon, being very soft and thin, the fruit is apt to sustain 

 injury on the lower side ; they should be raised above the 

 ground a little by some means while young, so as the air may 

 pass under them. When seeds of the Ispahan melon are only 

 wanted, it is quite time enough to sow in the beginning of 

 April, so that the fruit may ripen in August. Very valuable 

 varieties of melons may be obtained, for one generation at least, 

 by cross breeding among the smaller and more hardy varieties 



8 



of green and white-fleshed melons and the large Persian va- 

 rieties. It is generally supposed that the offspring of cross- 

 bred plants, as of animals, usually present great irregularity and 

 variety of character ; but if a male of permanent character and 

 habits, and, of course not cross-bred, be selected, that will com- 

 pletely overrule the disposition to sport irregularly in the cross- 

 bred variety ; alike in the animal and vegetable world, the per- 

 manent habit always controlling and prevailing over the variable. 

 The finest varieties of melon are usually supposed by gardeners 

 to be fruits of as easy culture as the pine-apple, but experience 

 has led us to draw a contrary conclusion. If the leaves of the 

 melon plant be suddenly exposed to the influence of the sun in 

 a bright day, which has succeeded a few cloudy days, for a short 

 time only, they frequently become irreparably injured. If the 

 air of the bed be kept a little too damp, the stems of the plants 

 often canker, and the leaves and stalks sustain injury in the 

 common hot-bed ; and, if the air be too dry, the plants, and 

 consequently the fruit, are injured by the depredations of the 

 red spider. Loud. gard. mag. vol. 7. pp. 186, 187, 188. 



In the cultivation of the melon, Knight observes, " it is a 

 matter of much importance to procure proper seed. Some 

 gardeners are so scrupulous on this point, that they will not 

 sow the seed unless they have seen and tasted the fruit from 

 which they were taken. It is proper, at least, not to trust to 

 seeds which have not been collected by judicious persons. Some 

 make it a rule to preserve always the seeds of those individual 

 specimens which are first ripe, and even to take them from 

 the ripest side of the fruit. A criterion of the goodness and 

 probable fertility is generally sought by throwing them into a 

 vessel containing water ; such as sink are considered as good, 

 and likely to prove fertile, and those that float imperfect. It 

 is remarked of seeds brought from the Continent, that they 

 must have more bottom heat, and the young plants less water, 

 than are necessary for seeds ripened in this country, or young 

 plants sprung from these." 



The culture of the melon is an object of emulation among 

 gardeners, and the fruit of the best sorts have a peculiarly rich 

 flavour, thought by some to bear some resemblance to that of 

 the pine-apple. " Ripe fruit," Abercrombie observes, " may 

 be had by forcing at any season, but the main crops, raised for 

 the general demand, are seldom cut, at the earliest, before May, 

 and the last succession mostly ceases to yield fruit after October." 

 " To ripen the best largest fine kinds," M'Phail observes, " as 

 great an atmospherical heat, and a bottom heat to its roots 

 also, is required as is sufficient to ripen the pine-apple in this 

 country ; but as the melon is produced from an annual plant, 

 the seeds of which must be sown every year, it requires a dif- 

 ferent mode of culture. Different methods of culture, and various 

 kinds of earth and of manures have been recommended and 

 used successfully in rearing of melons. The great thing, after 

 planting, is to give them plenty of atmospherical heat, and a 

 sufficiency of external air, and water. Those methods which 

 are most simple and the least expensive, and best calculated to 

 assist in making a suitable climate for the melon to grow in 

 and ripen its fruit well, should be preferred." 



Soil. Abercrombie says " The melon will succeed in any 

 unexhausted loam, rich in vegetable rudiments, with a mixture 

 of sand, but not too light. The following is a good compost : 

 two-thirds of top-spit earth from a sheep common, adding sharp 

 sand, if the earth contains little or none, till half is sand ; one- 

 sixth of vegetable mould; and one-sixth of well-consumed 

 horse-dung. Or, if the earth is not obtained from a pasture, 

 rotted sheep-dung may be substituted for the last. The ingre- 

 dients should have been incorporated and pulverized by long 

 previous exposure and turning over. The compost should be 

 dried under shelter before it is used, and warmed in the frame 



