There are two species--musk and water melons--which are subdivided into
many varieties of each. These are among the most delicious of all the
products of the garden. A little use makes all persons very fond of
them. The climate of the Middle and Southern states is well adapted to
raising melons; much better than the same latitudes in Europe. The
following brief directions will insure success in their cultivation. A
light, rich soil is always desirable. There should always be a little
sand in the composition of soil for melons. If not there naturally,
supply it; it will always pay. The warm sands of Long Island and New
Jersey are the best possible for melons, especially for water-melons. It
may be well to trench deep for the hills, and mix in a little
well-rotted manure, and cover it with fine mould. A quantity of manure,
left in bulk under the hills, will dry them up at the worst possible
time. When you plant only a few in a garden, mulch your musk-melons with
chips or sawdust from the wood-yard, or leaves and decayed wood from
the forest, and you will get a great growth. They will grow luxuriantly
in a pile of chips, with a little soil, in a door-yard, where hardly any
other plant would flourish. The water-melon does best in almost pure
sand, if it be enriched with liquid or some other of the finer manures.
Plant musk-melons six feet apart, and water-melons nine feet each way.
When the plants become established, never leave more than two or three
in a hill. The product will be greatly increased in number and size, by
picking off the end bud of the first runners when they show their
blossom-buds; this causes them to throw out many strong lateral vines,
which will produce abundantly. The attacks of striped bugs, so well
known as the enemies of vines, and also of the black fleas, or hoppers
(very minute, but quite destructive to tender vines when first up), may
be prevented (says Downing) by sprinkling near the plants a little
guano. As but a small portion of cultivators will have it, or can obtain
it, we recommend to put many seeds in a hill, to provide for the
depredations of the bugs, and sprinkle offensive articles around them.
These will not always be effectual. We have recommended elsewhere to
fence each hill, as the most effectual method. A box, with gauze or a
pane of glass over the top, is a certain remedy in every case; it also
greatly promotes the growth of the young vines. This is equally
effectual against the cutworm and all other insects; and, as the boxes
will last a dozen years or so, we should use them if we had ten acres of
melons. But by early and late planting, and watchfulness, and
replanting, you will succeed without protection. An excessive quantity
of stable-manure does not increase the growth, especially of
water-melons. Plaster, bonedust, and ashes, are good applications;
hog-manure is the best of all. The seeds should be soaked two days, and
planted an inch deep on broad hills, raised in the centre four inches
above the level of the bed, that water may not stand around them;
planted low, they sometimes perish in a few hours in a hot sun, after a
rain. Hoe them often, but never when they are wet, and never hoe near
them after they have commenced running; the roots spread, about as much
as the vines, and hoeing deep near them cuts off the roots, and
materially injures them. Many a promising plat of melons has been ruined
by stirring the soil when they were wet, and hoeing around them after
they had begun to run. In walking among melons, great harm is done by
stepping on the ends of vines. No one should be allowed among melons but
the one who hoes or picks them. Many are lost by drought, after great
care. We have often used an effectual remedy; it consists in turning up
the vines, if they have begun to run before the drought, and putting
around each hill from a peck to half a bushel of wet, well rotted
manure; that from a spent hotbed is excellent for this purpose; and hoe
from a distance between the hills, and cover the manure an inch or two
deep with fine mould, lay down the vines, and saturate the hill with
water, and they will hardly get dry again during the season. A little
judicious watering will give you a great crop in the most severe
drought.
_Varieties of the Musk-melon._--These are numerous, and the nomenclature
uncertain. The London Horticultural Society's catalogue enumerates
seventy. Most of them are of no use to any one. Two or three of the best
are sufficient. There are three general classes of musk-melons--the
_green-fleshed_, as the citron and nutmeg; _yellow-fleshed_, as the
cantelope, or long yellow; and _Persian melon_. The last is the finest
of all, but is too tender for general cultivation with us, requiring
much care and very warm seasons. The yellow-fleshed are very large, but
much inferior in quality to either of the others. The green-fleshed are
_the_ musk-melons for this whole country. The nutmeg has long been
celebrated; but, it being much smaller than the citron, and in no way
superior in quality, we think the latter the best for all American
gardens.
The following are enumerated in "White's Gardening for the South," as
adapted to the latitude of the Southern states: _Christiana_,
_Beechwood_, _Hoosainee_, _Sweet Ispahan_, _Pineapple_, _Cassabar_,
_Netted Citron_, and _Rock_. These are doubtless all fine, and would do
well at the North, with suitable care and protection. Downing's
catalogue is nearly the same, with a very few additions.
_Varieties of Water-melons_--are also numerous, and names uncertain. The
best varieties, however, are well known. The most choice are the
following: _Imperial_, _Carolina_, _Black Spanish_, _Mountain-Sprout_,
_Mountain-Sweet_, _Apple-seeded_, and _Ice-cream_. The following
excellent water-melons all originated in South Carolina: _Souter_;
_Clarendon_, or _dark-speckled_; _Bradford_, very dark-green, with
stripes mottled and streaked with green; _Ravenscroft_, and _Odell's
large white_. There is a fine little melon, called the orange-melon,
because the flesh and skin separate like an orange. These varieties will
all do well with care. To preserve any one of them, it must be grown at
some distance from other varieties. All water-melons should be far
removed from citrons, which resemble them, raised only for preserving.
They always ruin the next generation of water-melons. Different
varieties of musk-melons planted together produce hybrids, partaking of
the qualities of both, and are often very fine. We raised a cross
between the yellow-fleshed cantelope and the nutmeg, which was
excellent.
Seeds of most vines are better for being two or three years old, as they
produce less vines, but more fruit. Melons are a luxury that should grow
in every garden, and the state should enact severe laws against stealing
them, making the punishment no less than fine and imprisonment.