192 



FEU ITS. 



[chap. 



and size of the leaf. The size of these may be put down at from 

 ten to thirty pounds weight. The flesh is not at all like that of 

 other melons. From the skin inwards, an inch wide, it is white, 

 like the flesh of a green cucumber, but harder ; after that, towards 

 the centre of the fruit, come ribs resembling long honey-combs, 

 and, 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 ; 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 

 some more difficulty than the common sorts or musk melons ; but 

 they want greater heat and more room. I have grown them very 

 fine in England ; 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 ; that is to say, take 

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

 place the plug. Other melons generally become ripe in about five 

 or six 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 six weeks, before you cut the fruit. 



277. NECTARINE.— To be propagated, planted, trained and 

 pruned precisely in the same manner as directed for the peach. 

 Nectarines rarely succeed in England so well as peaches. They 

 do not ripen so well : they get into a shrivelled state before they 

 are ripe, the cause of which I never have been able to ascertain. 

 The sorts are numerous. Those cultivated in the King's gardens 

 are the following : Early Newington, Late Newington, Brugnon, 

 Violette hative, Du Tellier's, Elruge, Fairchild's, Late Genoa, 

 Murray, White. There are two other nectarines, the Sweet 

 Violet, and the Temple, I recommend the White French, a very 



