408 



A TALK ABOUT MELONS. 



now grows the "Ispahan " cantaloupe of the late Ba)'- 

 ard Taylor. Travelers praise the melons of Persia, 

 write about them, and throw the seeds awa}- ! Mission- 

 aries and American physicians have occupied the garden 

 spots of the land of Ahasuerus for half a century ; have 

 sent thousands of letters home, and have often visited 

 their own land in person ; but where are the apricots, 

 quinces, melons and pomegranates of their introduction? 

 Where are the fruits of Persia introduced by our diplo- 

 mates through our Agricultural bureau ? Personal 

 efforts made during the last four years ha\e thus far 

 failed to bring a single seed. In a horticultural sense, 

 the land appears to be walled in. 



My own cantaloupe tests have been made with seeds 

 from France, the north and south of Italy, Tripoli, 

 Turkey, Turkestan, souchern Russia, Russian Georgia, 

 Cappadocia, Armenia, the valley of the Euphrates, 

 Palestine and Japan. Many melons that are excellent in 

 France and northern Italy will not grow in our climate 

 on account of '.he heat. Those from the lands south of 

 Naples do fairly well, but their quality for the table is 

 inferior. The toad-marked [rospd) melons of northeas- 

 tern Italy, under repeated tests, have always failed, and 

 so have our netted varieties, in the cooler parts of that 

 peninsula. Worms and bugs appear to delight in the 

 flavor of the delicate foreign vines, and if the plants 

 should in part escape their ravages, their leaves droop 

 under the sun, and the fruit is not worth cutting. There 

 is something very peculiar in the effects of soil and cli' 

 mate in the production of growth and flavor that we 

 cannot understand. That seeds from cool countries 

 should fail here, and that those from some hot countries 

 should not, we can understand ; but why varieties from 

 other hot countries, having a good soil and cold winters, 

 should utterly fail in quality of fruit when it to a cer- 

 tain degree grows well, we cannot e.xplain. Of all 

 foreign seeds, I have never seen any that grew so exact- 

 ly in all respects like our own, as those from the World's 

 center, the ancient and storied land of Ararat, now call- 

 ed Armenia. 



Cantaloupe seeds are a special and curious study. 

 Foreign seeds rarely look like those raised here, and 

 may be classified as follows, viz ; i. Minute yellow 

 seeds, as those from Nangasaki, Japan ; 2. Broad 

 oval seeds, short or long, white, yellow, or brownish- 

 yellow ; 3. Long, straight brownish seeds of very large 

 size : 4. White, yellow or .brownish, straight, narrow 

 and pointed seeds, like our own in form, but larger ; 

 and 5, straw-yellow, bent or waved seeds from salmon 

 or red-fleshed melons. These is nothing that as a gen- 

 eral rulejAmericanizes so rapidly as a foreign cantaloupe, 

 if it can only be made to produce a perfected fruit ; 

 one year working an entire transformation in all of the 

 netted varieties. In the smooth yellow melons with 

 salmon-red flesh, there is an exception, and the seeds of 

 the long banana cantaloupe still have a bright yellow 

 and waved surface after some years of acclimatization. 

 Salmon-fleshed American melons usually bear a brighter 

 yellow seed than is produced by the green-fleshed var- 



ieties. Broad oval foreign seeds rarely "produce fruit in 

 America, and I have yet to see the first one yield a val- 

 uable melon. 



It is difficult to tell whether the bee is at best the 

 enemy or the friend of the seed-grower, as he is largely 

 both, for without his work in carrying pollen, the fruits 

 of dicecious plants would not be fertilized, and without 

 it also his mischief in mixing new varieties with inferior 

 sorts would not be accomplished. He offsets his bad 

 work by producing new varieties which are sometimes 

 of great value. This work may be better and more 

 wisely done by the horticultural philosopher, who acts 

 designedly by combining size and hardiness on the one 

 side, with delicacy and productiveness on the other. 

 This is one of the most interesting works of the horti- 

 culturist in the production of new varieties of fruits 

 and flowers, and may be one of great pecuniary gam, 

 as almost fabulous prices are sometimes received for 

 new seeds, a new grape vine or a rose bush. 



Cantaloupes may be divided into two classes ; one 

 that ripens to the best advantage in the house, and the 

 other on the vine and exposed to the sun. Netted and 

 grooved melons, as a rule, attain their finest flavor in the 

 house, and should be pulled as soon as the green color 

 at the bottom of the grooves has fairly begun to lighten. 

 If a netted melon is pulled a little too soon it will keep 

 a long time but never ripen, and some varieties when 

 apparently well matured will only go to decay if separat- 

 ed from the vine. Such are not favorite sorts with the 

 trucker, but may be improved by crossing with such as 

 ripen more readily. 



Cold nights, cold damp ground and a mild temperature, 

 with very little or too much rain, are all antagonistic to 

 the growth and maturing of our cantaloupes. Cold 

 ground in the day with a moderately warm sun will 

 cause a large melon to grow flat at the bottom and very 

 convex at the top ; the flesh of the upper part will also 

 be much thicker and better flavored than that of the 

 bottom. This rule of flavor is a general one, and the 

 generous way to divide a melon is to cut it through the 

 middle of the gasund spot, either cross-wise or through 

 the stem and flower ends. In seasons like that of last 

 year, melons become only about half netted for want of 

 sun, and are poor in flavor when considered ripe ; vast 

 quantities brought to market never ripen. The melons 

 from my Armenian seeds were exceptional in being 

 densely netted. 



A melon produces two kinds of flowers, the long 

 stemmed, unproductive or staminate, and the short- 

 stemmed, productive or pistillate, at the base of which 

 is the rudimentary fruit or ovary, and in which the 

 seeds are to be developed by the mysterious influence of 

 an orange yellow powder contained in the anthers and 

 known as pollon. Under the microscope this powder is 

 found to consist of grains of peculiar form, some of 

 which are very curious, varying with the species of 

 flower producing them. A cross is the product of the 

 pistillate flower of one variety acted on by the pollen of 

 another variet}-, and this intermediate may result from 



