MELONS, a popular name for several un related plants, but more particularly for two members of the family Cucurbitacece, the musk melon (Cticuntir melo) and the watermelon (Citrullus vulgaris). The more important other fruits similarly known are the Chinese preserv ing melon (Benincasa cerifera) of the same family; the melon papaw (Carica papaya) of the family Caricacere, and the melon-shrub or melon-pear (Solanum muricatitm) • of the family Solaxacece.
The muskmelon is an annual trailing herb which has been introduced by man into all tropical, subtropical and many temperate climates from southern Asia where it is native. It is characterized by long, running, hairy and somewhat prickly vines, roundish heart-shaped leaves, yellow moncecious flowers and usually edible fruits of very various forms and sizes. The following are the principal varieties: Va riety cantalcnspensis, the cantaloupes, or rock melons, which have hard, warty or scaly rinds more or less furrowed, and flesh of various colors from white to red, green or yellow. In the United States the name 'cantaloupes is loosely applied to horticultural varieties of other groups. Variety reticulatus includes the nutmeg or netted melons which have softer rinds, sometimes smooth, but usually more or less netted. To this group belong the larger part of the so-called cantaloupes in American markets. Variety saccharinus comprises the pineapple-melons which have very sweet flesh, but are not clearly distinct from the preceding group. Variety inodorus, the winter music melons, which have less hairy, lighter-colored vines and foliage and whole long-keeping fruits are deficient or entirely lack the characteristic muskmelon odor. This group is less cultivated in the United States than in the Mediterranean region, but because the fruits can be kept until Christmas or later when properly grown, gathered before frost and slowly ripened in a cool, rather dry room, they should become more widely popular where the seasons are long enough to permit their reaching such a stage of maturity. Variety flexuosus, the snake
melons or cucumbers, have very long, narrow, greenish, contorted fruits, prized more as oddi ties than for economic uses, though often used for making preserves. They are distinct from the snake-gourds which belong to the genus Lagenaria. A variety chito, called orange melon, melon-apple, garden-lemon and many other popular names, bears orange- or lemon like almost scentless fruits with white or pale yellow flesh, which is grown to some extent for preserving. Variety dudaim, the pomegran ate-melon, Queen Anne's pocket-melon, dudaim melon, etc., has small brown and yellow fruits valued solely for their exquisite perfume.
Melons are propagated wholly by means of seeds, which may be sown directly in the field or started under glass upon inverted sods, in flower-pots, berry-boxes, etc., and transplanted to the field as soon as danger of frost has passed. The former method is practised most extensively in the South and in other warm climates where the seasons are long; the latter in the North because the shortness of the season demands that the plants obtain an early start. The soil best suited to melons is a light sandy loam well drained, well exposed to the sun and well supplied with plant-food. It should be deeply plowed, thoroughly harrowed and kept clean of weeds, especially before the plants are set and until the vines cover the ground. After harrowing, the ground is marked in checks about five feet square and 10 or 12 seeds, or five or six plants, are set in each from which all but the two or three strongest vines are removed after the insects have had their share. Often, especially upon rather poor or tenacious soils, two or three shovelfuls of well rotted manure is mixed with the earth of the hills to give the plants a little impetus. The fruits are gathered when they will readily separate from the stems, preferably in the early morning.