230 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



ence. This all seems somewhat at variance with European practice, 

 where the varieties with netted coats are "muskmelons" and those 

 with scabbly or knobby skins are "rock melons" or cantaloupes. Ac- 

 cording to this classification, the varieties we chiefly grow in Cali- 

 fornia are not cantaloupes at all, but it will be difficult to have them 

 called by any other name. Of the many types of cantaloupes which 

 have been defined by students of melon classification a single one, 

 known as the Rocky Ford, from the place of its large commercial de- 

 velopment in Colorado, dominates all others, commanding nearly all 

 the acreage and constituting almost exclusively the commercial pro- 

 duction except that which is especially grown for local markets 

 aside, of course, from the winter melons, which are a distinct class, 

 as will be noted later. 



The muskmelon has a very wide range in California. It has 

 greater taste for dry heat than its relative, the cucumber, but in 

 this respect it is no rival of the watermelon, for it will perish utterly 

 under drought which the watermelon will survive. Where the musk- 

 melon has both heat and moisture, it grows riotously, for a weight 

 of seventy-two pounds has been reported from Fresno. But the 

 muskmelon will not brook frost, nor will it thrive with low tempera- 

 tures even if they are considerably above freezing. As has just been 

 stated, however, California has such a long frost-free period and as 

 degrees of favoring heat arrive in different months in different parts 

 of the state, there is wide divergence in dates of planting and of 

 ripening of the crop. The earliest cantaloupe district is the Coachella 

 and Imperial Valleys in the extreme southeast corner of the state, 

 where five thousand acres were grown in 1912. Planting is done in 

 February, and the crop shipment begins in May and reaches the 

 eastern markets in advance of the product of Colorado and other 

 interior states. In the San Joaquin valley planting may be in April 

 and the product follows the Rocky Ford shipments for the later 

 summer trade of the Atlantic cities. Just what trade can be profit- 

 ably done at different dates in the east is not fully determined, but 

 the advantage of the very early cantaloupe from California seems 

 unquestioned. It is clear, however, that by choosing different parts 

 of the state and different varieties of cantaloupes, including the 

 "winter melon" class, California can furnish the fruit from May to 

 December in any quantities the available prices make profitable. 



Garden Culture. The soil requirements of the muskmelon are 

 quite like those already described for the cucumber. Most of the 



