MELON. Under this name several vegetables are known, viz. Citrullus cucurbita, Linn., water melon ; Si-kwa, Han-kwa, CHIN., Turbuza, HIND. The water-melon is to be had at the same time as, and grown in a similar manner to, the Cucumis melo. The seed should always be preserved from the finest and richest-flavoured fruit, and is better for being three or four years old. The green melon is the finest flavoured, although many of the others are very good. The cause of melons growing finer in the sandy beds of rivers is attributed to the temperature being more equal about the roots than it is in bnds in the garden, especially during the night. Cucumis dudaim, Queen Anne's pocket melon, is a native of Persia, and produces a fruit variegated with green and orange, and oblong, unequal green spots ; when full ripe, it becomes yellow and then whitish. It has a very fragrant, vinous, musky smell, and a 'whitish, flaccid, insipid pulp. Cucumis melo, Linn., musk melon, melon ; Kharbuj, Kbarbuza, HIND., Sarda, Paliz, HIND.
Native of Jamaica, Persia ? and Kabul ? but cultivated throughout India. The rock, 'green, and musk melons are all sown in the Dekhan at the same time,—generally in beds of rivers, where the soil is light and sandy.. They are very seldom sown in gardens. The seed is put down in Novem ber, three or four seeds together, with as rich manure as can be procured. The plants must not be close together,—a distance of from six to eight feet is generally allowed. They come in about March, and continue until the rains. In Bombay they are in season at the same time, and a i second crop is grown during the rains ; this is not the case in the Dekhan. In China, liquid night - soilis largely used in the cultivation of melons.
Melon seed oil, Pitcha- pusjhum yennai, TAM., is obtained from the Cucumis melo.—Hogg; loigt, O'Sh.; Roxb. ; Riddell; Jaffrey.