MELON MUSHROOM. 



187 



in order that the next day may observe a contrary 

 direction, lest by several turnings in one way the 

 head should fall off; and with this care of turning 

 the fruit, the contrary caution is necessary with re- 

 gard to the leaves, which must not be permitted to 

 turn by the casual breeze, but must all have their faces 

 set full to the sun, and be kept in that position, for 

 which purpose a liberal use of pegs is recommended. 

 How much further such lore must be carried the 

 writer is not aware, as at this stage he was arrested 

 by a considerable commotion of disgust, not only 

 with the pains necessary to produce the fruits, but 

 with the fruits themselves, and scarcely failing to 

 include the eaters. But as disgust is no argument 

 to those whose head is happily unaffected by the 

 liver, the sounder reasoning for them may thus 

 proceed: 



The melon is not a crop of which the expence of 

 rearing is in proportion to the quantity reared; 

 the constancy of care is the main cost; and that 

 required for a single fruit is as much as that re- 

 quired for a hundred; and as it is by hundreds 

 that the market is supplied, when you buy one, you 

 pay only in the proportion of one to a hundred; and 

 therefore it is a hundred times cheaper to buy 

 than to rear a melon. To which add, that compar- 

 ing the multifarious recipes of cultivation with the 

 resourses of the manse, it is ten to one that, with 

 much toil, but failing in some point, even a single 

 melon should not be reared. 



Mushrooms May be cultivated by those who 



