July 30, 1885, ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
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Oxford. 
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Liverpool (two days). Southampton (two days). 
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Ninth Sunday after Trinity. 
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Northampton. 
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Royal Horticultural Society (Plants and Flowers). 
FLAVOURLESS MELONS. 
HAVE been among Melons of late, and have 
had to cut and taste a few dozens with the object 
of finding out the best, or worst, at some exhibi¬ 
tions. As it is not customary to stage the worst 
fruit at shows, the character of that to which 
prizes are awarded may be regarded as fairly 
representative of the produce of the districts in 
which exhibitions are held. Grapes have been 
very good indeed; Peaches fine, Nectarines 
good, Strawberries fair, but Melons bad—decidedly and 
unmistakeably bad. 
As men who can grow Grapes, Peaches, and the other 
fruits indicated well cannot be bad cultivators, it appears 
passing strange to find so many flavourless Melons staged 
for adjudication. The most approved varieties are grown, 
and the fruits good in appearance, but not one in ten has 
been found of even fairly good quality. Prizes have been 
given to fruits that certainly did not deserve them, and they 
were simply awarded because they were the best out of bad 
lots. It seems, therefore, pretty clear that the season has 
not been good for Melons, at least in some localities, and 
it may be worth while endeavouring to ascertain the cause 
of their general inferiority. 
In the “ olden time,” before garden structures were heated 
by hot water, Melons were almost exclusively grown in 
frames on beds of fermenting materials. To cut Cucum¬ 
bers in March and Melons in May was considered good work 
in those days, and if gardeners of the present, with no other 
aids than those mentioned, succeed in doing the same, they 
will not find it very bad work now, provided the Melons are 
of first-rate quality. 
It was customary in those days to lessen somewhat the 
water supply to the Melons when the fruit was approaching 
the ripening stage; and there was reason for this, for the 
roots of the plants often took possession of the manure, and 
the growths were supplied with all the support they needed, 
and as much moisture as the foliage could assimilate; in 
other words, water could be reduced without the leaves of 
the plants flagging in the slightest degree, and they were 
kept stout and fresh throughout the ripening process. Had 
the foliage “ given way,” the drying would have been over¬ 
done, and the fruit most certainly inferior in quality. 
Under the old method of culture, and the great pains 
that were taken in maintaining the requisite heat by 
linings, and the atmosphere suitable for the plants by venti¬ 
lation, it was not common to find either red spider or any 
other insects on the foliage. The moisture and ammonia 
were natural deterrents of those enemies which have a 
disastrous effect on the flavour of fruit. At the time of fruit 
ripening the foliage should be in the best possible condition 
for performing its functions, and must not be obstructed in 
its important work by insects, as, if enfeebled, the supply 
of sap is checked, and the quantity is altogether insufficient 
for adequately supporting the fruit, and at the same time the 
sap which is supplied remains crude, as it must of necessity 
No. 266. —Vol. XI., Third Series. 
do in the absence of leaf power for its purification and the 
secretion of that which alone can result in well-fed fruit of 
superior quality. It is useless to expect high flavour in fruit that 
is “ nourished ” by crude or imperfectly elaborated sap ; and 
it is not possible for a sufficient supply to be provided nor 
what there is to be prepared in th9 laboratory of Nature 
when that laboratory, the foliage, is inoperative, either by 
the devastation of insects or an insufficient supply of water 
to meet the great evaporation that is in constant operation 
under a powerful sun. Whether the juices of the plants are 
extracted by insects from the leaves or escape into the 
atmosphere, the effect is the same—insipid or unpleasantly 
flavoured fruit. 
It is surprising how old customs that are handed down 
traditionally from generation to generation cling to indi¬ 
viduals who have inherited them without considering their 
applicability to the changed circumstances of modern prac¬ 
tice. It does not follow that because it was desirable to 
“ dry off” Melons—which, in the old days, had 4 feet of rich 
moist manure to root in—it is desirable to withhold water 
similarly at a critical time when the root3 are warmed by 
the dry heat from hot-water pipes. On the contrary, a prac¬ 
tice that may be right in one case may be utterly wrong in 
the other; and it is wrong, absolutely wrong, to withhold 
water from Melons when the fruit is approaching the ripening 
stage to the extent of causing first the flagging and even¬ 
tually the total collapse of the foliage. Yet this is what is 
done in hundreds of gardens, and then surprise is expressed 
at the ill condition of the fruit. It would be surprising if it 
were otherwise. Without good, stout, clean, well-developed 
and, consequently, well-supported foliage, there can be no 
well-nourished and highly flavoured fruit, whether of Melons, 
Grapes, or anything else that grows; but the evils arising 
from enfeebled leaves by lack of moisture for their sustenance 
is in no fruit more manifest than in Melons. The fruits 
are, in fact, bad or good as the foliage is bad or good. The 
one is the correlative of the other, the natural effect of a 
visible cause. Still, cultivators—not all, but by far too many 
of them—go on “ drying off,” just because their fathers did 
so before them, but who worked under essentially different 
conditions, and even then took care never to allow the leaves 
of the plants to shrivel until the crops were ripe. 
I have noticed, as others must have observed, that Melons 
staged at exhibitions are not, as a rule, good in very hot and 
dry seasons. A few fruits may be found of great excellence, 
but the majority are defective in flavour. I have further 
noticed that in such summers as this that the average 
quality of the fruit is higher in the north and western than 
in the south and eastern districts of the kingdom; but in 
dull and wet summers the reverse is the case. This shows 
that sun is essential and—do not forget it—moisture too. 
With adequate support ensuring first-class foliage and main¬ 
taining it by adequate support and judicious ventilation, the 
hotter the summers are the better Melons should be. 
In the South-western States of America they are grown 
in fields where the subsoil is moist and the water level not 
many feet below the surface. The seed is sown in the open, 
where the plants grow and fruit, and the hotter the summers 
are the richer is the fruit, the sun there being much more 
powerful than it ever is in Britain ; but it just draws up the 
moisture in great quantities from the reservoirs of Nature, 
and the plants and crops are benefited accordingly. 
A few years ago Mr. Taylor, then of Longleat, sent a fruit 
of the Cashmere Melon to one of the meetings of the Fruit 
Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society at South Ken¬ 
sington, and it was unanimously considered one of the best 
that had ever been tasted there. I know that it was good 
because I was one of the “ tasters.” The summer was hot, 
and the plants at Longleat were, I believe, watered like 
Cucumbers. There was no drying of the soil to “develops 
flavour ” and destroy foliage. That year the Melons at the 
Crystal Palace Show were, as a rule, wanting in flavour. I 
No. 1922.— Vol. LXXIII., Old Series. 
