FRUITS. CHAP. 



except that the colour is pink, or between pink and 

 scarlet, looking precisely like so much frozen snow. This 

 is the part that is eaten -, and the fruit is called the water- 

 melon) because these ribs actually instantly turn to water in 

 your mouth. This is the favourite fruit of all ranks and 

 degrees, and of all ages, in hot countries j and, when 

 the weather is very hot, the refreshing effects of tasting 

 the fruit are really surprising. In England, this sort of 

 melon may be cultivated in the same manner, though 

 with somewhat more difficulty than the common sorts, 

 or musk melons j but they want greater heat and more 

 room. I have grown them very fine in England j and I 

 have now a pot of plants to repeat the attempt this year 

 (1828), The seed is large and black, and the coat, after 

 the melon gets to be of considerable size, is always of 

 the deepest green. One great difficulty is, to know when 

 the fruit is ripe ; for it emits no odour, like the musk 

 melon, and never changes its colour, not even after the 

 whole of the inside is rotten. In America,, there is only 

 here and there a man skilful enough to ascertain, by 

 rapping his knuckles upon the fruit, whether the fruit be 

 ripe. Unskilful people plug them j that is to say, take 

 out a piece, as you do out of a cheese, to taste it, and 

 then replace the plug. Other melons generally become 

 ripe in about 5 or 6 weeks after they begin to swell : in 

 the case of water melons, the best way would probably 

 be to write down the time of setting and beginning to 

 swell of each fruit ; and to allow seven Weeks, perhaps, 

 instead of 6 weeks, before you cut the fruit. 



--" . . : 



276. NECTARINE. To be propagated, planted, 

 trained and pruned, precisely in the same manner as dl- 



