My own cantaloupe tests have been made with seeds from France, the north and south of Italy, Tripoli, Turkey, Turkestan, southern Russia, Russian Georgia, Cappadocia, Armenia, the valley of the Euphrates, Palestine and Japan. Many melons that are excellent in France and northern Italy will not grow in our climate on account of the heat. Those from the lands south of Naples do fairly well, but their quality for the table is inferior. The toad-marked (rospe) melons of northeastern Italy, under repeated tests have always failed, and so have our netted varieties, in the cooler parts of that peninsula. Worms and bugs appear to delight in the flavor of the delicate foreign vines, and if the plants should in part escape their ravages, their leaves droop under the sun, and the fruit is not worth cutting. There is something very peculiar in the effects of soil and cli-mate in the production of growth and flavor that we cannot understand. That seeds from cool countries should fail here, and that those from some hot countries should not, we can understand : but why varieties from other hot countries, having a good soil and cold winters, should utterly fail in quality of fruit when it to a certain degree grows well, we cannot explain.

Of all foreign seeds, I have never seen any that grew so exact-ly in all respects like our own, as those from the World's center, the ancient and storied land of Ararat, now called Armenia.

Cantaloupe seeds are a special and curious study. Foreign seeds rarely look like those raised here, and may be classified as follows, viz: 1. Minute yellow seeds, as those from Nangasaki, Japan; 2. Broad oval seeds, short or long, white, yellow, or brownish-yellow ; 3. Long, straight brownish seeds of very large size: 4. White, yellow or brownish, straight, narrow and pointed seeds, like our own in form, but larger; and 5, straw-yellow, bent or waved seeds from salmon or red-fleshed melons. These is nothing that as a general rule Americanizes so rapidly as a foreign cantaloupe, if it can only be made to produce a perfected fruit; one year working an entire transformation in all of the netted varieties. In the smooth yellow melons with salmon-red flesh, there is an exception, and the seeds of the long banana cantaloupe still have a bright yellow and waved surface after some years of acclimatization. Salmon-fleshed American melons usually bear a brighter yellow seed than is produced by the green-fleshed varieties.

Broad oval foreign seeds rarely produce fruit in America, and I have yet to see the first one yield a valuable melon.

It is difficult to tell whether the bee is at best the enemy or the friend of the seed-grower, as he is largely both, for without his work in carrying pollen, the fruits of dioecious plants would not be fertilized, and without it also his mischief in mixing new varieties with inferior sorts would not be accomplished. He offsets his bad work by producing new varieties which are sometimes of great value. This work may be better and more wisely done by the horticultural philosopher, who acts designedly by combining size and hardiness on the one side, with delicacy and productiveness on the other. This is one of the most interesting works of the horticulturist in the production of new varieties of fruits and flowers, and may be one of great pecuniary gam, as almost fabulous prices are sometimes received for new seeds, a new grape vine or a rose bush.

Cantaloupes may be divided into two classes; one that ripens to the best advantage in the house, and the other on the vine and exposed to the sun. Netted and grooved melons, as a rule, attain their finest flavor in the house, and should be pulled as soon as the green color at the bottom of the grooves has fairly begun to lighten. If a netted melon is pulled a little too soon it will keep a long time but never ripen, and some varieties when apparently well matured will only go to decay if separated from the vine. Such are not favorite sorts with the trucker, but may be improved by crossing with such as ripen more readily.

Cold nights, cold damp ground and a mild temperature, with very little or too much rain, are all antagonistic to the growth and maturing of our cantaloupes. Cold ground in the day with a moderately warm sun will cause a large melon to grow flat at the bottom and very convex at the top; the flesh of the upper part will also be much thicker and better flavored than that of the bottom. This rule of flavor is a general one, and the generous way to divide a melon is to cut it through the middle of the ground spot, either cross-wise or through the stem and flower ends. In seasons like that of last year, melons become only about half netted for want of sun, and are poor in flavor when considered ripe; vast quantities brought to market never ripen. The melons from my Armenian seeds were exceptional in being densely netted.

A melon produces two kinds of flowers, the long stemmed, unproductive or staminate, and the short-stemmed, productive or pistillate, at the base of which is the rudimentary fruit or ovary, and in which the seeds are to be developed by the mysterious influence of an orange yellow powder contained in the anthers and known as pollon. Under the microscope this powder is found to consist of grains of peculiar form, some of which are very curious, varying with the species of flower producing them. A cross is the product of the pistillate flower of one variety acted on by the pollen of another variety, and this intermediate may result from the visit of a bee bearing pollen grains on his legs, or the gardener may effect it artificially.

In Armenia there grows a cantaloupe, probably of large size, to judge by the seeds, which is so sensitive to the heat of the sun that the gardeners are in the habit of covering the young melons with earth until they reach a certain size. This variety will be tested the coming season in several localities. The seeds are very large and white, much larger than any we have, and resemble those of the curious yellow Cappadocia melon introduced by me several years ago and not now grown.

Some years ago a few winter cantaloupes were grown in this latitude, but the measure of success did not encourage the grower to continue the experiment; still I see no reason why other attempts should not be made.

American visitors to Naples are willing to pay sixty cents for a green melon in winter, and speak of them as wonderfully fine; in fact, it is the finest Neapolitan variety, and ought to be grown in some southern state if possible, as a new industry. If the Naples melon will not succeed, the Malta green one should be tried. These melons are put away in the fall before they- begin to ripen, and are kept in a cool place. When one is to be ripened, it is hung up in the open air in a warm place, in a net, or a little bundle of straw, as bottles are some-times encased for packing. The Naples seeds are very large, but of a form that ought to grow ; the dry-soil varieties may do better in our country. The test is surely well worth making.

In my boyhood, when large melons, known as nutmegs and musk-melons, were chiefly grown, a companion caught a rat in one by suddenly closing the hole which he made and through which he had entered to eat the seeds, leaving a piece of his caudal appendage sticking out as a tell-tale. Rats, mice and chickens curiously prefer the seeds of a cantaloupe to its flesh, while cats at provision stores will often eat the latter with avidity.

Philadelphia, Robert P. Harris, M. D.