168 THE MANSE GARDEN. 



old ; the cautious turning of the fruit, like a patient 

 in bed, with this greater care, that whereas the 

 patient may at any time be turned either way, the 

 last turning of the melon must be remembered, in 

 order that the next 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 regard 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 consider- 

 able 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 expense 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 required 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 comparing the multifa- 

 rious recipes of cultivation with the resources 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. 



