CALIFORNIA WINTER MELONS 213 



the Cassaba or pineapple melon which was introduced in two vari- 

 eties: one by the late General Bidwell, of Chico, in 1869, and 

 another by the late Dr. J. D. B. Stillman in 1878. Of these the 

 latter has secured the greater popularity. Later introductions and 

 selections and probably hybridizations also, have brought half a 

 dozen quite distinct varieties into notice and a considerable product 

 has been secured both for local sale and distant shipment during the 

 late autumn and early winter. Which varieties will survive cannot 

 be told and in this line California seedsmen's catalogues must be 

 consulted each year. Mr. H. T. Musser, of Los Angeles, is the 

 best informed Californian on this group of melons. On irrigated 

 lands in frostless places these melons can be sown in mid-summer 

 and find ample autumn heat and freedom from frost to reach per- 

 fection. The ripe fruit remains in good condition for months with- 

 out cold storage. They can be stored in the shade of a shed. Even 

 if the exterior becomes ill-looking the flesh remains sound usually. 



Though these winter melons can be grown wherever other 

 melons succeed, the chief commercial product comes from the 

 Dinuba district on the east side of the San Joaquin valley and from 

 Los Angeles and Orange counties. They are usually planted later 

 than summer cantaloups, say in May and June, and are given a 

 little wider spacing. 



The Golden Beauty and Winter Pineapple are late varieties 

 which may be kept in storage until February. These do not ma- 

 ture as early as the hybrids with the summer cantaloups of which 

 there are a number. The Honey Dew is getting famous for fine 

 grain and good flavor. Good eating condition in cassabas is shown 

 by slight yielding under thumb pressure. 



THE WATERMELON. 



The watermelon is more strictly a warm region plant than the 

 muskmelon. It reaches great size and sweetness in interior regions 

 of highest heat, coming nearer to the coast in southern California 

 than in the upper part of the state. The heat is, however, high 

 enough in some of the coast valleys and foothills, which are in 

 some part separated from the coast by high ranges, to produce a 

 very good watermelon. 



The gratefulness of the interior climate of California to the 

 watermelon is seen in the way the plants volunteer wherever on 

 cultivated land a melon may have gone to decay. In cultivated 

 orchard they may almost be called weeds, though sometimes the 

 volunteer crop is turned to account. A case is cited where water- 

 melons were planted between the trees in a young orchard. After the 

 melons were harvested, and before the volunteer crop appeared the 

 following year, the ground was plowed twice, harrowed twice, and 

 cultivated four times in the regular course of orchard work. Not- 

 withstanding all this disturbance of the soil, the seeds, which re- 

 mained in the ground during the warm rains of winter and spring, 



