WATERMELONS 231 



WATERMELONS 



Watermelons constitute one of the most important truck 

 crops. They are grown almost exclusively on low-priced land at 

 a distance from market and are seldom found in market gardens 

 near cities. There are various reasons for this. The value 

 of the crop from an acre is not sufficient to warrant its production 

 on high-priced land, and watermelons will not stay on the vines 

 until they reach maturity in a densely-populated district. Further- 

 more, the soil and climate in many localities are not adapted to 

 the production of watermelons. Profitable watermelon culture 

 is confined almost exclusively to sandy soil and hot climates. The 

 farther north they are grown, the earlier the varieties that must 

 be selected and the more imperative the demand that the soil 

 be sandy. 



Soil. — Watermelons are usually grown on yellow sand ridges 

 or knolls, where the drainage is good, rather than on the rich, 

 darker, level, sandy bottom lands between the knolls or close to 

 river beds. Often the watermelon lands are in the vicinity of 

 rivers but are usualty at a considerable distance above the level 

 of the water. 



Often watermelons are the only truck crop grown in a given 

 locality. When grown for shipment they are usually planted in 

 large fields and grown in rotation with grain and other farm crops 

 rather than with garden or truck crops. • Experienced growers 

 like to plant w^atermelons following a crop of grass, clover or cow- 

 peas, or following the plowing under of fall-sown rye when it is from 

 one to two feet in height. Sometimes land is allowed to lie fallow 

 and grow up to weeds for a year or two before planting to melons. 

 Land newly cleared of scrub pine or oak is also considered de- 

 sirable for watermelons. In general it is considered undesir- 

 able to plant watermelons very frequently on the same piece 

 of land, though this is often done in distinctively watermelon 

 localities, where a large percentage of the tillable land is devoted 

 to this crop. 



Preparations for Planting. — Comparatively little labor is 

 required to prepare sandy land for the planting of watermelons. 

 Sometimes it is plowed in the fall and planted in the spring without 

 replowing. At other times, merely a strip two or three furrows 

 wide is plowed at planting time, where each row is to be placed, 

 and the intervening space plowed later, a furrow at a time, as the 



