226 HOR1ICULTUBAL MANUAL. 



In a melon test at Brookings, South Dakota, in 1898, 

 thirty-five American and fifty-six Oriental varieties were 

 tested. Of this test Professor Hansen reports: "The five 

 best varieties in order of earliness were United States 

 Department of Agriculture Nos. 23, 32, 16, 19, 79. 

 United States Department No. 23 ripened perfectly and 

 was a red -fleshed melon of excellent quality." 



All these early varieties were Oriental. As an example 

 of late-maturing varieties the writer planted in 1883 a 

 quarter of an acre of a late Russian variety beside a public 

 road on the grounds of the Agricultural College at Ames, 

 Iowa. They made a fine, even growth, and ripened in 

 September a heavy crop of melons with such a hard shell 

 that students supposed them to be squashes, and not a 

 single one was tested until they were gathered. When 

 tested in September the quality was not surpassed by any 

 variety of the vicinity, yet they kept in the cellar as well 

 as Hubbard squashes. At the winter meeting of the Iowa 

 State Horticultural Society the third Tuesday in January, 

 they were tested, and the decision was reached that "no 

 superior in quality was known, but watermelons in 

 January were out of season." 



We now have melons of high quality adapted to all 

 parts of the country where the summers are hot enough 

 to ripen the earliest-maturing varieties of corn. But the 

 commercial centres of melon culture and distribution are 

 usually in sections where summer droughts are not usual, 

 where irrigation water is available, or on land where the 

 melon roots can reach permanent water, as on Muscatine 

 Island in Iowa. 



The main essentials to profitable melon-growing are a 

 warm, sandy loam soil, good culture, moist but not wet 

 soil at the roots, and not least, purity of the seed. Melon- 



