melons from a single shipment. The great loss is not under the head of specked or decayed (principally owing to rough handling), but missing. The melon is not an evanescent object which disappears without trace like exploded gun-cotton.

A fair yield to the acre is one thousand melons, large enough for shipment, or ranging from fifteen pounds upwards. In consequence of a disease which has been killing the vines of late years, about the time the fruit is forming, the crop more frequently falls below than exceeds that number. I have examined the roots and vines in

vain for insects, to account for this disease, and have not yet been able to ascertain the cause.

It is probably not attributable to an insect in the root, like the larvæ of the striped-bug in the cucumber, for the disease sometimes first manifests itself in a single side-runner.

My melons sold the past season in the New York and Boston markets at from twenty-five to fifty dollars per hundred.

VARIETIES.

A variety to be fit for shipment should be large, with a rind thick enough to carry well, should not "burn" or become discolored in the field by the hot sun, and should "cut" red throughout, without a lighter colored hard

"core." At present "Kolb's Gem," and the "Rattlesnake," which is also known by several local names, fill these requirements better than any other.

SOIL AND PREPARATION.

The soil best adapted to the watermelon is a light, dry, warm sand, lately cleared, or which has not been cultivated for at least three years.

This peculiar adaptability of new ground is probably attributable to the opening of the soil by the decaying roots of vegetation. Whatever compacts the soil is injurious to the crop. A rainy season, owing partly to the consolidating of the land, is most unfavorable to success. On new ground, the first formed young fruit are more apt to become developed, and in larger numbers, and particularly are they all liable to shrivel and drop off or old recently cultivated land after a heavy rain or frequent lighter ones. This applies particularly to the sandy land of the coast. Notwithstanding the very succulent character of the fruit, wet weather is more damaging than drouth.

The field having been plowed and harrowed, it is laid off, according to the usual custom, ten or twelve feet each way, to mark the hills. For this purpose, a double mould-board plow is the best implement. It makes straight smooth furrows and wider openings at their crossings for the hills. Instead of these distances I prefer to make my hills six by twelve feet apart, and leave but a single plant in each, rather than two plants. With the same average area for each vine I conceive that the single plants will produce a greater number of large melons to the acre. The openings made by the plow are enlarged to about three feet in diameter, and deepened below the depth of the surface soil, and one or two shovelfuls of decayed stable, cow or hog manure, the latter to be preferred, are dug up and intimately mixed with the sub

soil, by means of hoe, spade, or digging-fork. The hoe, although not so effective, is the more expeditious tool in the hands of negro laborers. Green stable manure or any other kind that is fermenting, or heating, is not suitable for melons on light land. If in place of the above, a compost of muck or woods-earth with cottonseed meal or fish guano is used, the quantity should be two shovelfuls, containing about one pound of the meal or guano. When manure is plentiful enough, it may be applied in the drill or even broadcast, notwithstanding the distances of the plants, for most of the roots of the melon plant are long surface roots. Manured only in the hill, the plant derives less benefit from the fertilizer.

SOWING THE SEED.

A flat hill, elevated two or three inches above the general surface, is made over the manure with the removed surface soil, and in the middle of each the first sowing of from six to ten seeds is made, one or two inches deep, according to the nature and degree of moisture of the soil. As in the case of cucumbers, I make two more sowings at intervals of a week, putting in three or four seeds at each, at which rate it will require from two and one-half to three pounds of seed per acre. A temperature of about sixtyfive degrees is required to sprout melon seed; and there is rarely anything gained in this crop by making the sowings too early, as cold weather, even without frost at night, will give the plants a check from which they will never recover sufficiently to produce a good crop. While melon seeds may be planted in the middle of Florida, in January and February, March 15th is quite early enough for the first planting in the latitude of Savannah, and, of course, later further North.

CULTIVATION.

If the first sowing has failed, or the plants have been killed or injured by cold, it is best to await the growth

of the second or even of the third planting; otherwise, as soon as the first has made two rough leaves, and the others are up, the top of the hill should be stirred by a hand-weeder, or other hand implement, or by the fingers; and the loose soil drawn to the stems up to the seedleaves, at the same time thinning the plants to a couple, of each sowing, or even to less, if they crowd each other. Of course, the strongest, healthiest looking plants are to be left. It is sometimes the case that plants from the second sowing are more advanced than those from the first, when all of the latter should be removed. To stir the soil and destroy young weeds, the cultivator or horse-hoe is run in both directions over the whole surface, and as near the hills as possible without disturbing them. They should be thinned to a stand early enough to prevent crowding, and the hills hoed about the time the plants commence to "" run," and the soil drawn well up to the seed-leaves, great care being taken not to cover the leaves or crown. Before the vines reach the edge of the hills, two furrows should be thrown to each side of the row. It requires careful plowing to throw the soil to the middle without disturbing the hills, which are only six feet apart. This is done by depressing the right handle of the plow, or pushing it inward to the rows as the plow reaches each hill, and erecting it again in passing. Melon vines should never be handled, if it can possibly be avoided, and, therefore, as the vines cover the bed, and before they extend beyond it, the plow is used repeatedly, until the plants are left on wide beds separated by a wide furrow. Before the second plowing, hoes should be carefully used around the hills and between the vines without touching them rudely; removing all weeds before overlooked. Watermelons come into market from Florida about the latter part of May; and from the vicinity of Savannah and the adjacent Sea Islands, about July 1st.

GATHERING THE FRUIT.

An experienced picker can recognize from its general light and bright, but not glistening appearance, when a melon has reached a proper state to be cut from the vine for shipment, before it is fully, or "red" ripe, and he may do so without any other loss of time than is required to detach it from the vine and to place it on end for the carriers. Roads should be convenient, for it is impossi ble to induce the laborers to avoid treading on the vines, even when they do not cover the ground. The less experienced pickers must look for other signs of ripening, and the "belly," or lower surface, where it has been in contact with the earth, presents the most reliable in the appearance of the pores of the skin. When these become perceptible to the touch, by a roughness of the skin, or can be seen, or the rind has become too hard to be readily indented by the finger nail, the melon may be picked for shipment.

The shriveling or dying of the "curl," or little tendril nearest to the melon, or in the axil of the stem, is a usual, but not a certain rign of ripeness.

A ripe melon sounds hollow upon percussion with the knuckle; but thumping is only practicable in the early morning, for a large unripe melon has the same resonance during the hot midday sun. If the "belly" is yellow and blistered the melon is surely full ripe. Pressure upon the fruit to hear the sound of the rupture of the flesh within, if ripe, is objectionable. It injures the ripe as well as the green, and should never be resorted to.

INSECTS.

It is possible, nay, even probable, that the late, generally observed perishing of melon vines may be entirely attributable to insects, and in part, to an unknown one. Wire-worms, or larvæ of Diabrotica, may be the cause of the death of some.