Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/45

 MEL

M E L

for gathering, by their fmellj and by the fplkting of their tail. The common kinds fhew the approaching ripenefs by a yel- tpwnefs coming on in fome part : This begins in one place, and fpreads, by degrees, over a great part of the fruit. It is to be obferved that twenty-four hours after the time of the firft appearance of a yellownefs in fome part, is the exa£t fea- fon for the gathering of thefe Melons. A Melon that ripens too fait is never n-ood ; fuch a ripenefs is unnatural, and proceeds onlv from the poornefs or ficknefs of the root, which makes it turn thus fuddcnly. Phil. Tranf. _ N°. 46. When a Melon is perfectly fine, it is full, without any va- cuity : This is known by knocking upon it, and when cut, the nefh muft be dry, no water running out, only a little dew, which is to be of a fine red colour. Large Melons are not to be coveted, but firm and well flavour' d ones. Our Gardeners, who raife Melons for fale, fow the feeds of the large rather than the good kinds, and they encreafe the fize of thefe by much watering the roots, but this fpoils the tafte. Some of the French raife at this time particularly fine Me- lons, by a method kept as a fecret, but which we find, on a Uriel enquiry, is no other than the ingenious Mr. Quintiny's, of that nation, publifhed near eighty years ago in our Philofo- phicai Tranfactions.

The Melons, particularly proper to be treated in this manner, are thofe which have a thin and fomewhat embroidered fkin, not divided by ribs, and have a red pulp, dry and melting on the tongue, not mealy, and of a high flavour. Thefe are what fucceed in the following method, and are greatly im- proved in fize and flavour by it.

When the feeds of this Melon are placed in the ground, the firft thing that appears is a pair of ieminal leaves, or ears, as the Gardeners call them. Between thefe two leaves there ihoots, fome days after, a leaf, called the firft leaf, or knot ; and out of the fame place, after fome days more, there fhoots another leaf, called the fecond knot. Out of the midft of this {talk of the fecond knot, there fhoots a third knot : This third knot muft be cut ofFat its infertion, without hurting the branch of the fecond knot from whence it grows. Out of this place there will grow, after this cutting, a branch, which will be what the gardeners call the firft arm, and this arm will, in the fame manner as the firft plant, {hoot out, £rft one, then a fecond, then a third knot ; this third knot muft be cut again as before, and thus the third knots are all along to be cut off, and arms or branches will grow up in the places of them, all the way in the fame manner as the firft j and it is at thofe arms that the Melons will be produced ; and they will be always good, if the foot or root be well nou- rifhed in good earth, and cherifhed by a good hot bed and the fun. The foot of the Melon muft never be fuffered to pafs into the dung, nor the earth muft not be watered but mode- rately, when it is feen to grow too dry ; but in this cafe, it muft be moderately moiftened in time, leaft the fhoot fuffer by it. Twice or three times a week is often enough to water in the drieft weather, and this muft always be done about funfet ; and when the heat of the fun is too violent, the Me- lons muft be covered with ftraw mats from eleven in the morning to about two in the afternoon. When it rains much, the Melons muft alfo be covered, left it hurt them by too much moifture. Phil. Tranf. N°. 45.

If the root produce too many branches, the weakeft are to be cutoff", and only three or four left ; and thofe which are left are to be fuch as have their knots clofeft to one another. When the plants are removed from the feed-bed to the places where they are to ft and, if they are very ftrong, they mould be planted fmgle, but if otherwife, two are to be fet in each hole.

When they are planted fingle, the two branches which al- ways grow on each fide, from the bafe of the feed-leaves, are to be left on ■ but when two plants are fet together, thefe branches arc to be cut off, otherwife all the branches will be too numerous, and they will entangle and fpoil one another. When the Melons are knit, two of them only are to be left upon each foot, chufing thofe which are beft placed, and next to the firft and principal ftalk that is to the heart of the foot. Nuns but fair fruits are. to be left, and fuch as have a thick and fhort tail ; and the- foot of the Melon muft be fhort, well truiled, and not far diftant from the ground. Melons of a long ftem, and having the ftalk of the leaf too long and ilender, are never vigorous.

All the iuperfluous blanches muft be cut off from time to time, as they fhoot out.

There fometimes fhoots out a branch more than is here men- tioned, between the two feed-leaves or ears. If this is ftrong and vigorous, it is to be kept on, but if weakly, it is beft to uke it off, for it will never bear good fruit. Mi- ton Seeds. We read of Melon feeds thirty-three years old, vegetating and producing a fine number of plants. Phil. I ranf. N J. 475. Seit. 6. and in N°. 464. we read of Melon feeds 43 years old, producing fruit. P?triJje4Mtio#s i a name given by the people who have writ- ten books of travels, CSV. to certain ftones found on mount Carmel. The monks who inhabit that mountain at this time, and who pretend to be the followers of Elias the pro- phet, tell a legendary ftorv about thefe ftones, which has

given occafion to the name. They fay, that when Ellas lived on that mount, a certain Gardener' pafling by his cave with Melons, the prophet afked one of them ; but the fellow replying, that they were not Melons, but ftones that he car- ried, the prophet miraculoufly fulfilled the faying, and con- verted them into ftones. Travellers who are fond of thefe ftories, were ufually glad to pick up one of thefe facred ftones as they went on j and the monks have been careful enough to gather all they could find for the better opportunity of obliging their vifiters ; fo that though they were once very common, they are now only to be had by the favour of thefe people. Brcynius is the only author who has given a good account of them ; he fays that they are fpheric or fpheroidal ftones, of various fizes, from that of a hen's egg to that of the largeffc Melon, or even more than that. They arc generally found bedded in a very hard (and ftone,- of a greyifh of aft colour; but they come out whole on breaking the ftone, and are of a. fmooth furfacej a greyifh colour, or fometimes a brownifhv ferrugineous hue. When they are broken, there is always a cavity found in them, fometimes regular and even, fometimes very irregular, and generally proportioned to the bignefs of the ftone. This cavity is lined on all fides with minute cry- ftals, which are very bright and pellucid, and have their points ftanding toward the center of the cavity. The fub- ftance of the ftone itfelf approaches to the nature of marble, of a yellowiih colour, and capable of a good polilh; when wrought looking very like the Florentine marble. This is a cruft of about half an inch or an inch in thicknefs, according to the bignefs of the ftone, and fometimes this is covered with a paler-coloured cruft, of the thicknefs of a ftraw, which in fome degree refembles the bark or rind of the fruit. Thefe ftones are truly a fort of concave natural nodules, of the nature of our hollow flints. They have had no fruit for their matrix, nor have ever any of the ribs and furrows which the Melon has, nor any mark of the ftalk ; and within they have neither the natural divifions of the Melon, nor any thing refembhng the feeds. It 5s not only the want of many parts abfolutely efTential to the fruit fuppofed to be petrified, which fhews that opinion to be erroneous ; but the courfe of nature, in petrifactions in general, argues alfo greatly againffc it.

The things we meet with, in this ftate, are all of them fuch as are naturally hard, dry, and permanent, and none of the tender and fucculent bodies, fuch as the Melon, and the like flefhy fruits, which muft necefTarily rot in the water that conveys the ftony matter, before it could at all enter their pores. And. the ftones are certainly analogous to thofe concave nodules of a ferrugineous colour, in the cavities of which amethyfts are produced ; and to that genus of ftones which Woodward. calls concave cryftalline balls, common in many parts of the world.

The fallacy of an extravagant opinion, in regard to foflils of any particular form, is not peculiar to thefe ftones, as wftnefs the fmall fhells petrified and found in iEgypt, which from. their flat and roundifti fhape, are faid to be the lentiles which the children of Ifrael eat when making the pyramids ; the cornua aimmnis, which is the remains of a fea fhell, and yet is fuppofed to be a petrified ferpent ; the nummi minerales^ which are the operculums of fhell-fifh, but are generally fup- pofed by the vulgar, about the places where they are found, to be medals and coins, petrified with lying in the earth, and many the like follies. Breyn. de Melon. Petr. Mont. Carm. Melon Thijlle. See the article Melocactus. MELONGENA, Mad Apple, in botany, the names of a ge- nus of plants, the characters of which are thefe : The flower confifts of one leaf, and is of a rotated form, and divided into feveral fegments at the edges. The piftd arifes from the' cup, and is fixed in the manner of a nail to the middle part of the flower. This afterwards changes to a flefhy fruit, in which there are contained a number of kidney- fhaped feeds. The fpecies of Mehngcna, enumerated by Mr. Tournefort, are thefe : 1. The long violet -fruited Melongena. 2. The Melongena with long white fruit. 3. The Melongena with long yellow fruit. 4. The Melongena with long bright red frujt. 5. The Melongena with cylindric violet-coloured fruit. 6. The round fruited Melongena. 7. The crooked-fruited Mehngsna. 8- The thorny Melongena, with round faffron- colour'd fruit. 9. The Melongena with round fruit, armed with violet-colour'd thorns. 10. The Melongena with round fruit, armed with, greenifh whitethorns, u. The Melon- gena with prickles,, and with a round black fruit. 12. The prickly Mehngcna, with a long black fruit. Tourn.. lnft. p. 151.

This plant is propagated in the gardens of the curious with us; and in Spain, iTaly, and Barbary, common in the kitchen o-ardsns, the fruit of them being frequently eaten there boiled with fat flefh, putting thereto fome fcraped cheefe, and pre- serving it through the winter with vinegar, honey, or fait pickle. This they cfteem of great efficacy to provoke venery. In fummer alfo, when the fruit is juft ripe, they eat it frefh,'. drefied, with fpices and other ingredients. The manner of propagating them with us, is to fow the feeds in March, upon a moderate hot bed, and when the plants are come up, they are to be thinned by planting them in another

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