Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/The melon - Part 1
THE MELON.
I. ITS HISTORY AND GROWTH.
Largest of all fruits, yet growing on the lowliest of fruit-bearing plants, the huge and heavy melon, attached to a stem which actually trails upon the ground, must abase itself to the very earth during the period of growth, though destined perhaps, when gathered, to be exalted to the table of princes. In this country indeed, it may be looked on as a more aristocratic kind of luxury than even the pineapple, and is likely to remain so; for though certainly inferior to that most delicious fruit, this very inferiority tends to keep it exclusive: for while none perhaps would taste the Ananas once without desiring to partake of it again, comparatively few are partial to the peculiar flavour of melons, and being therefore only required by a select few, the fruit is not common because it is not popular, while it is only by becoming common that it could have a chance of attaining popularity.
The melon is a native of the milder regions of Asia, but was introduced into Europe before the time of Pliny, as that writer, when treating of gourds and cucumbers, after mentioning that “When the cucumber acquires a very considerable volume it is known to us as the ‘pepo’” (supposed to be the pumpkin), adds—“Only of late a cucumber of an entirely new shape has been produced in Campania, having just the form of a quince. The name given to this variety is ‘melopepo.’” This fruit, it is concluded, must have been the melon, which still bears the botanical name of Melo cucurbita. The melon had been known, too, to the Greeks, who were accustomed to soak the seeds in milk and honey previous to sowing them, and even put them into the earth surrounded with rose-leaves, believing that when thus cradled in sweetness the fruit to which they gave birth could not but be mild and fragrant. The Great Baber has the credit of having introduced it to his subjects in Hindostan, where it now abounds, it having been indigenous only to the milder parts of Asia. How early it was brought to this country is not known with certainty; for though Gough, in his “Topography,” says that it was grown here in the time of Edward III. (having only gone out if cultivation, along with the cucumber, during the troubled time of the Wars of the Roses which followed), it is generally supposed that the object to which he refers was really the pumpkin, which was called the “melon” by old writers, the fruit to which that name is now restricted having formerly been distinguished by the title of musk-melon. It is most probable that it was really only brought to England from Italy in the time of Henry VIII.; for in 1526, Gerard, though he had not himself grown it, yet mentions having seen it at “the Queen’s hothouse at St. James’s,” and also at Lord Sussex’s house at Bermondsey, where, he says, “from year to year there is great plenty, especially if the weather be anything temperate.” Parkinson, in 1629, says that before his time “melons have been only eaten by great personages, because the fruit was not only delicate but rare, and therefore divers were brought from France and since were nursed up by kings’ and noblemen’s gardeners;” but they were then becoming more common. Subsequently, the melon became an article of great though never of very general consumption, the costliness incidental to artificial production putting it beyond the means of the majority of people; but it was not unusual for market-gardeners to tend 300 or 400 “lights” of melons, producing from week to week large quantities, which were easily disposed of at high prices to the wealthy. Now, however, as Glenny in a recent work deplores, “it is rare to see any quantity grown; and the foreign melons, though unfit to eat, seem to usurp at the market the places of their betters, at a price that would scarcely pay an English grower for cutting them and bringing them to market, even if they cost nothing to grow:” for the facilities afforded by steam communication have caused a large supply to be imported from abroad, chiefly from Spain and Portugal, where they can be grown in the open air, and also from Holland, where large quantities are raised by artificial means for the London market. The general public being thus provided for, home-grown melons, though much preferred to imported ones when available, are seldom enjoyed except by the rich employers of highly-paid skilful gardeners; for the authority just quoted adds further, that the melon “is not worth forcing by those who have but small means, as it has many chances against it.”
A native of warmer climates and provided by Nature with a rind of such thickness that only extreme heat can penetrate to ripen the pulp within, when grown in this country it needs, in addition to the artificial heat applied by the cultivator, as much as our summer sunshine can supply of a more genial kind of glow, and therefore is seldom obtained before May or after October, though modern improvements in greenhouses, and the introduction of thinner-skinned varieties, have somewhat extended the period during which they can be procured, and in time will probably still further lengthen their season. Occasionally grown from cuttings as a surer method of securing an unchanged perpetuation of the parent plant, the usual mode of propagation is by seeds, which are tested, like witches of old, by being thrown into water, when floating on the surface ensures the condemnation of a melon-seed as certainly as it once did that of an old woman. Age too has much to do with the choice of them, for, unlike most other seeds, perfect freshness is so far from being a desideratum, that it is not until they are two years old that they are considered fit for sowing, since seed in which the exuberant vitality has not been checked and enfeebled by age, would give birth to plants too luxuriant in growth for the small space which is all that can be allotted to them where artificial culture is required. Due limits, however, must be observed; for though seeds forty years old have been known to vegetate and grow into fruitful plants, their germination becomes doubtful if they are kept for more than three or four years. Though sometimes grown in the South of England, under hand-glasses, like cucumbers, they cannot generally be reared in this country in the open air, since 65° is the least temperature at which the seeds will germinate, and from 75° to 80° is needed before the fruit can be ripened. A sheltered hotbed, therefore, becomes here essential to their existence.
An annual plant, destined only to exist for the space of a few months, yet to attain large dimensions in all its parts, the growth of the melon is very rapid, the newly-quickened seed soon sending forth tender succulent shoots, which, as they speedily lengthen, develope numerous large, alternately-disposed, lobed leaves, accompanied by spiral tendrils; and in the course of the third month after sowing, the pale yellow flowers begin to unfold their soft, limp, five-cleft corollas, the males encircling three stamens, on which appear the curiously arranged anthers, in the form of serpentine lines waved up and down near their summit, while the females are easily distinguished by the green ovary swelling out below the blossom, the centre of which is occupied by a short style with three thick stigmas. The male flowers generally appear first, but Dr. Carpenter affirms that this matter is entirely governed by the degree of warmth to which the plants are exposed, and that if the proportion of heat greatly exceeds that of light male flowers are produced, whereas if these conditions be reversed only female ones appear. In fine summer weather, when glasses can be left almost constantly open, the breeze may waft pollen from this blossom to that, or honey-seeking bees, brushing past the anthers of one, may bear off the golden dust, to deposit it again, just where it is needed, as they plunge among the stamens of another; and thus the flowers become fertilised, and the fruit will “set” naturally. Our melon-growers, however, rarely trust to Nature the fulfilment of so important a work, but mostly adopt the process imparted, as so wondrous a secret, by Crabbe’s “Peter Pratt:”
“View that light frame where Cucumil lies spread,
And trace the husbands in their golden bed,
Three powdered anthers; then no more delay,
But to the stigma’s tip their dust convey;
Then by thyself from prying glance secure,
Twirl the full tip, and make your purpose sure;
A long-abiding race the deed shall pay,
Nor one unblest abortion pine away.”
A sunny day is usually chosen, if possible, for this operation, and between ten and twelve o’clock in the morning is the time prescribed as fittest for its performance.
When it becomes apparent, by the rapid swelling of the ovaries, that as many fruits are secured upon a plant as is consistent with its bearing powers,[1] the future blossoms which it may put forth are destroyed as soon as they appear, in order that all its energies may be concentrated on the perfecting of the embryos, while tepid water is liberally supplied both to roots and leaves, in order to supply the drain upon the plant caused by the maturation of so large and juicy a fruit. If grown upon the ground, a piece of slate or tile is put under the tender nursling, to keep it from contact with the damp earth; and as it increases in size, the stalk is supported so as to elevate it into the air and sunshine, which otherwise might be shut out by the surrounding leaves, though when trained up a trellis it needs no aid in securing a sufficiently exposed position. In the course of five or six weeks after the setting of the blossom, the ponderous produce may be expected to have finished its rapid course, and reached maturity, evidenced by its having attained its full size; in some sorts, by the gaining also of a yellowish tinge, but most certainly by the exhalation of a powerful but pleasant odour; though many kinds give likewise the unmistakeable sign of the stalk cracking in a little circle close to the fruit. Winter melons, however, do not display this crack, and their ripening can therefore only be known by their size and scent; indeed, it is acknowledged that in general it is rather difficult to discriminate the last stage of maturity, and that only experience can enable any one to determine with certainty the exact moment when a melon has reached, yet not passed, its perfection.
Such experience is sometimes much valued, an anecdote in proof of which is related of a certain monastery into whose fraternity no one was admitted who could not, by some special qualification, minister to the enjoyment of the rest of the community. A visitor staying there for a few days was so struck with the stolid demeanour and seeming utter stupidity of one of the monks, that he could not refrain from hinting to the prior his surprise at finding that such a one was allowed a place to which, according to the rumoured bye-laws of the society, he seemed so little entitled, when his doubts were at once dissipated by the satisfactory reply—“Oh, he is not without his talent; he is a capital judge of melons!”
When perfectly fine, a melon should have no vacuity, a fact ascertainable by the sound given forth on gently knocking the exterior, and when cut the juice should not run forth in a stream, but only gently exude to gem the flesh with dew-like drops of moisture. Small melons, too, are generally better than large ones, as the treatment which fosters increase of size tends also to impair flavour; and the bulky giants of the race, produced by excessive manuring, are therefore rejected by good judges, who desire rather to gratify the palate than to please the eye. The fruit should always be cut from the plant in the morning, and the majority of the finer sorts should be eaten the day they are gathered, though if cut a day or two before they are ripe they may be kept for a week in a cool dark room, and some sorts will even keep for weeks under these conditions; for light has a great influence in facilitating the chemical changes on which maturation depends, and its deprivation, therefore, tends much to retard decay. They should also not be laid down, but suspended in nets, so as to avoid pressure on the surface. The careful and expensive method of culture required in England for the production of melons is not necessary in the warmer parts of Europe; for though near Paris they are raised equally artificially in hotbeds of dung, tan, or other fermentable material, and under glass or frames of oiled paper, yet in the South of France the ground where they are grown is merely ploughed, the seed thrown in, and “Heaven does the rest.” Thus much of care seems to be necessary even in their native East, for Niebuhr mentions that though several sorts of pumpkins and melons grow naturally in the woods, serving to feed camels, “the proper melons” are planted in the fields, where a great variety of them is to be found, and in such abundance that the Arabians of all ranks use them for some part of the year as their principal article of food.
- ↑ Four at one time are usually considered a sufficient progeny.