36 Gleanings in Old Garden Literature. 



eat melon with a spoon "So far as the 

 spoon will cut, it is ripe." We continue to 

 grow this fine fruit under glass ; but in the 

 south they flourish like cabbages, or like the 

 small Indian cucumber, in the open air. 



In his early and curious tract on Brewing, 

 published at Frankfort in 1585, Thaddeus 

 Hagecius speaks of the melon as a species 

 of cucumber : " Hie obiter notandum," he 

 writes, " quod etiam, quae frigida sunt, dulcia 

 sunt : sicut etia sunt Cucumerum genera, 

 quae Melones vulgo vocantur." But Hagecius 

 (or Haycke) may almost be taken to mean 

 rather the pumpkin, or some other species of 

 gourd. 



Oddly enough, the culture of the artichoke 

 and of asparagus is treated as if it had been 

 considered a matter of equal delicacy and 

 gravity; but we look on asparagus as not 

 less difficult to handle with the experience of 

 two or three centuries than it was in Evelyn's 

 day, while both sorts of the artichoke will 

 succeed with very little care in ground of 

 tolerable quality. 



The grand and inalienable institution of 



