54 



-i ■ ■■•; ^ • :/Jv. •• f ,;: MELONS. . .ri:Jc>i:,i' ■ :, ...■-.•^,:^ 



Russia has long been celebrated for its melons. The best we 

 saw belong to types we have not. ^; ,,,:;'• . 



Musk Melon. — In the markets we used to find a melon about 

 fourteen inches long, netted, the flesh very deep, and a creamy 

 white in color, and of the highest quality, I call it a musk melon 

 merely because I do not know what else to call it. Those who 

 abstain from musk melons are not likely to object to these. Like ' 

 the Khiva melons, which gne of the Emperors of China always 

 enquired about on the arrival of the caravans, this is a keeping 

 melon, and may readily be kept till Christmas. It may be a little 

 late in ripening. However, on September 2nd we found fine 

 specimens in the Simbirsk market, said to be grown on the lower 

 Volga, probably at Tsaritsim, Sarepta or Astrachan. In the Kursk 

 and Voronesh markets we also find them sent from the south. 

 These melons are grown in Russia, where the summer is longer 

 than ours, yet not with such hotbed care as we can give them, and 

 they seem to be picked early. They cannot, therefore, be so very 

 late. Next autumn will test their value in this climate. 



Water Melon. — Nearly every barge that is being towed up 

 the Volga has somewhere a small deck load of water melons. In 

 all the markets we find them in great quantity. They are a great 

 staple article of food. They are all alike, round, about 10 inches 

 in diameter, a creamy white in color, with red flesh, and of fine 

 flavor. Those who have grown the Russian netted cucumber 

 alongside of the finer English frame varieties, may have noticed 

 the hardy, take-care-of-itself character of the Russian plant. Just 

 such a hardy nature I expect to find in this Russian water melon. 

 It grows without care in vast quantity, apparently as readily as 

 pumpkins do with us, that is at Saratof and Southwards. At 

 Kursk and Voronesh it is not quite so large. It is a melon of 

 fine quality likely to do well in the hands of not very careful 

 cultivators. 



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