NETTED MELONS 



417 



long and very slender for the size of the fruit. Flesh red, rather 

 thick, juicy, very sweet, and musky. If the fruit is gathered before 

 the proper time, it remains 

 firm and almost hard. 

 This variety succeeds well 

 in the open air, but re- 

 quires a southern climate 

 to grow it to perfection. 



Green-fleshed Malta 

 Winter Melon.— A 

 vigorous - growing plant, 

 with long trailing stems 

 and numerous long 

 branches. Leaves erect, 

 dark and rather dull green, 

 rounded and bluntly 

 toothed ; leaf-stalks very 

 stiff. The leaves are 

 usually not large, and re- 

 main rolled up, in the 

 shape of a funnel. Fruit 

 oblong, rounded, blunt at 

 both ends, and particu- 

 larly so at the end farthest 

 from the stalk ; skin white, 

 tinged with green, entirely smooth, or with a few tracings on the 

 pair next the stalk. The fruit is from 7 to 9 in. long, and 5 or 

 6 in. in diameter, and weighs from three and a quarter to four 



and a half pounds. A 

 plant may carry two or 

 three fruit. In the south 

 of France this variety is 

 very much grown for a 

 late autumn crop. The 

 fruit gathered at that time 

 are :ept in a fruit-room 

 for w inter use. They are 

 also preserved in sugar 

 or converted into jam. 



Olive Winter Melon. 

 — M'!ch grown in the 

 south of Europe and in 



Green-fleshed Malta Winter Melon (i natural size). ^^Igeria ; itS merits are 



much the same as those of 

 the other Winter Melons. It is one of those exported to northern 

 cities late in the autumn. The fruit is oblong, tapering at both 



27 



Red-fleshed Malta Winter Melon. 



