KITCHEN-GARDKN PLANTS. CHAP. 



weigh fifteen or sixteen. I raised some of these once 

 very well at Botley from seed that was brought from 

 Malta. They are a totally different thing from the other 

 tribe ; and, being so much better, I have often won- 

 dered that, where people have great space under 

 glass, and great heat at command, they do not raise them 

 in England. There is only one fine musk melon that I 

 ever saw in America ; which is called the citron melon, 

 having the flesh nearly white and being of the shape of 

 a lemon. The mode of cultivating the water-melon is the 

 same as that of cultivating the other ; but it requires 

 more room. If you wish to save the seed of melons, 

 you must take it out when you eat the fruit, and do with 

 it precisely as is directed in the case of the cucumber 

 seed ; but, to have the seed true to its kind, it must not 

 be saved on a spot near to that in which grow, and have 

 blowed, cucumbers,, squashes, pumpkins, or any thing of 

 that sort ; nor on a spot where any other sort of melon 

 has been in bloom at the same time. The greatest pos- 

 sible care must be taken in this respect, or you will have 

 fruit quite different from that which you expect. 



162. MINT. There are two sorts : one is of a darker 

 green than the other : the former is called pepper-mint, 

 and is generally used for distilling to make mint water : 

 the latter, which is called spear-mint, is used for the table, 

 in many ways. The French snip a little into their salads ; 

 we boil a bunch amongst green peas, to which it gives a 

 pleasant flavour j chopped up small, and put, along with 

 sugar, into vinegar, we use it as a sauce for roasted lamb ; 

 and a very pleasant sauce it is. Mint may be propagated 

 from seed ; but, a few bits of its roots will spread into a 



