to be conferred. Amongst them is a large
proportion of green-fleshed fruit; their weight is
mostly moderate, from two to three pounds, or
less, and their seeds large. Properly managed,
they bear in long succession, are generally of
oblong shape, either smooth or netted; stored
on dry shelves or hung up in nets, they will
keep up to February. Persia may be regarded
as their head-quarters; but they have obtained
high approval under the titles of Maltese melon,
Muscade of the United States, Odessa melon,
Ispahan melon, Italian white-fleshed winter
melon, sent from Malta and Marseilles to Paris,
Dampsha, Candia, Valencia, and Moscatello.

Let us take the Moscatello as our pattern of
the Persians. More than twenty years ago, it
was introduced to France from Italy, and that is
all that can be discovered of its origin. Its first
results did not correspond to the praises with
which its introducer had heralded it, proving
unproductive when grown in a frame. The
fruit, eaten six or eight days after becoming ripe,
was well flavoured, but a little dry—a considerable
drawback to its merit. But it turns out
that, unlike other melons, they should be left on
the plant ten or twelve days after their change
from unripe to ripe, then cut, and then kept in
a cool closet or a cellar, from three to six days
before being brought to table. By this dilatory
proceeding, they acquire a juiciness and a
perfume which are superior to everything of the
kind. Their culture is like that of other melons
not in frames; under bell-glasses, they will give
from eighteen to twenty fruits per bell.

The Moscatello has small and rather angular
leaves, growing on long and twisted footstalks,
from slender and not very vigorous branches.
The flower is small; the fruit is long-oval,
though sometimes round, slightly netted and
ribbed, of a glaucous or ashy green, turning to a
yellowish tint when ripe. The odour of ripeness
should be almost gone at the time when the
fruit is cut. The rind is very thin and the flesh
red; there is no empty hollow in the inside;
the seeds, incrusted in the flesh, are small and
long. The average weight is scarcely two
pounds, which is a pity. Although you may
invariably save seed from oblong fruits, some of
the plants which spring from those seeds will be
sure to produce round fruits—a fact from which
gardeners deduce two conclusions: first, that
the variety was new when introduced; and,
secondly, that it is not yet fixed, which is
certain.

Melon-culture is commonly regarded as a
sort of mystery. A man must have a grisly
head before he can master its recondite arcana.
The prevailing notion is, that the melon is a
plant of excessive tenderness and delicacy. It is
so, as we commonly see it treated. Even
Loudon, in his standard work, the Encyclopædia
of Gardening, says: "The fruit, to be grown to
perfection, requires the aid of artificial heat and
glass, throughout every stage of its culture.
Its minimum temperature may be estimated at
65°, in which it will germinate and grow; but
it requires a heat of from 75° to 80° to ripen its
fruit, which, in ordinary cases, it does in four
months from the time of sowing the seed."
Hence we have Routine No. I: the plant must
be shut up in a box with a glass lid, and be
baked, steamed, and smothered, night and day,
till it is as much like what a melon-plant could,
might, and should be, as a boa-constrictor at a
fair in a chest and a blanket is like a
boa-constrictor at large in a tropical forest.

Again; it has been observed that the first
fruits appear, not on the main stem, but on the
side shoots of the plants. Consequently, the
main shoot is stopped by pinching, to make the
side shoots start earlier. The Bon Jardinier
(an authority not less respectable than Loudon)
and its copyists tell us, "When the plant has
its fourth leaf above the cotyledons (seed leaves),
it must be pinched above the second leaf.
When the lateral branches, resulting from the
first pinching have developed their second leaf,
they are pinched in turn; which determines the
development of new branches, which are stopped
above the second or third eye, to obtain a third
degree of ramification." The principle of all
this pinching is right, when applied to the
very earliest forced melons; but it is not
properly applicable to later crops. From it,
however, results Routine No. II. They must
be prevented from growing in any direction
whithersoever; they must be stopped, and
stunted, and pruned, till their constitutional
vigour is equivalent to that of a Chinese dwarf
oak growing in a pint pot. What with the
stifling and what with the pinching, many plants
die outright: "It is their tender constitution!"
say the walkers in wheel-ruts. The survivors,
by an effort of nature, bring one or two fruits to
incomplete maturity, and then give up the
ghost. "It is their brief term of life!"
exclaim the wheel-rutters, turning up the whites
of their eyes. "All flesh is grass; and melon-grass
is nothing at all!"

Nevertheless, the Bon Jardinier tells them,
"An enlightened practice has taught several
intelligent cultivators of melons at Paris that,
by a simpler mode of pruning, better results may
be obtained. For them, the whole reduces itself
to this: after having stopped the primitive stem
above the second leaf, and allowed the two
resulting branches to grow till they have at
least six leaves, they then stop them, once for
all, above the fifth, sixth, or even the seventh
eye, leaving all the branches, which this pruning
develops, to grow and run freely, as they will.
They show fruit quite as early as the branches
proceeding from repeated mutilations; the
plants are more vigorous, and the melons are
better fed"—for the leaves of a plant are both
its lungs and its stomach. "This method is
especially excellent for melons under bell-glasses
and for the larger sorts; but the able gardeners
referred to above apply it equally to their melons
in frames."

The truth is, that the melon, when not amputated
and vapour-bathed to death, is just as
hardy as the cucumber and the gourd; that is,
it is not hardy at all. The slightest frost will