June, '14] MENDELISM IN MELONS. 5 



In the more northern sections of this country success is raiely 

 attainable without the aid of frames or greenhouses and artificial 

 heat. Several years ago before melons were raised in quantity 

 in Colorado and others of the more southern states, the fruit was 

 considered a luxury. 



The melon is classed as a trailing plant, and if trained to cover 

 a trellis is partially self-supporting, attaching itself by its numer- 

 ous tendrils. The flowers are monoecious, i. e., the male and 

 female flowers are borne separately on the same plant, the flowers 

 being produced in the axles of the leaf stalks. The male flowers 

 are far the more numerous of the two sexes. The variety Rocky- 

 ford is an exception, it being hermaphroditic, the stamens and 

 pistil being produced in the same flower; it also has purely stam- 

 inate flowers which are produced in great profusion. 



CLASSIFICATION. 



In the Cj^clopedia of American Horticulture, Bailey gives the 

 following classification of melons. 



"There are two general types of commercial muskmelons in 

 North America, — the furrowed and hard-rind tj^pes, known as 

 nutmeg or netted melons. . . . The various strains of netted 

 melons are the ones mostly grown in the North for the home gar- 

 den and for early market. The cantaloupes are mostly longer 

 season varieties." 



In Bulletin No. 2 of the New Hampshire College Experiment 

 Station, F. William Rane states that muskmelons readily group 

 themselves into eight distinct classes, or what he has chosen to 

 call types. These types are arranged primarily according to size, 

 and secondarily according to the shape of the fruit. After first 

 distinguishing the types the sub-classification of each type was 

 made as follows: Whether ribbed, shallow or deep, or not ribbed; 

 secondly, whether netted or not netted; and third, whether the 

 color of flesh was green or salmon. 



Beginning with the smaller melons the types designated by 

 Rane were as follows: (1) Jenny Lind, (2) Rockyford, (3) Hack- 

 ensack, (4) Montreal, (5) Cosmopolitan, (6) Acme-Osage, (7) 

 Long Yellow, (8) Bay View. 



Sutton' s Superlative muskmelon, the female parent of the hybrid, 

 would come under the No. 5 group or Cosmopolitan as classified 



