MELON. 235 



inflammatory complaints. One kind of the water-melon 

 is pickled like gherkins, and much used by the French 

 cooks in their fricassees ; and they are sometimes baked 

 in sweet wine. Gerard mentions, that the surgeons who 

 belonged to the fleet, brought home many kinds of melons 

 and pompions from the shores of the Mediterranean sea ; 

 but they could not have been ripened well in this country, 

 before glasses were used for that purpose ; and Parkinson 

 seems to have been the earliest English author who gives 

 directions for making hot-beds for melons, and covering 

 them with bell glasses, which was in 1629. 



We have already observed that, the perfumed fruits 

 should be gathered from twenty-four to forty-eight hours 

 before they have acquired the last degree of their ma- 

 turity, but which must be regulated according to their 

 nature and the heat of the season. The quality and 

 flavour of the melon depend more upon the time of 

 gathering and treatment when gathered than any other 

 fruit; we shall, therefore, translate what Mons. Cadet de 

 Vaux remarks in " Le Menage des Fruits :" " When 

 melons are not ripe, or unequally so, the portion of 

 flesh next to the stalk is of an intolerable bitterness ; a 

 bitterness destined to be converted into a sugared princi- 

 ple. But break it off from the branch and let it acquire 

 a secondary maturity, partly on the hot bed and partly in 

 the hot-house, or, if the weather is very hot, in a cool place, 

 when it will become excellent ; whilst if ripened on the 

 vine it would not be half so valuable. When the fruit has 

 acquired all its perfume, it is savoury, melting and juicy, 

 because its acid and its water are not yet perfectly com- 

 bined ; the digestion will be easier, and nothing is to be 

 feared from a slight excess that we may indulge in with 

 fruits thus perfectioned by time, by a mild fermentation, 

 which is only the intestine movement which the frequent 



