. A description and history of vegetable substances, used in the arts, and in domestic economy . mis; towhich also belongs the Cucjtmis Colocynthis, a nativeof Turkey, which yields the cwlocynth of the genus Cucurbita belong the water-melon, thepumpkin, the succada, or vegetable marrow, thesquash, and the calabash; and to the genus Solanumthe varieties of love-apple and egg-plant. Of these,several are not used as food in England, though allof them bear fruit, and many of them in the openair; but in regions more favourable to their growth,or where other esculent substances are less
. A description and history of vegetable substances, used in the arts, and in domestic economy . mis; towhich also belongs the Cucjtmis Colocynthis, a nativeof Turkey, which yields the cwlocynth of the genus Cucurbita belong the water-melon, thepumpkin, the succada, or vegetable marrow, thesquash, and the calabash; and to the genus Solanumthe varieties of love-apple and egg-plant. Of these,several are not used as food in England, though allof them bear fruit, and many of them in the openair; but in regions more favourable to their growth,or where other esculent substances are less abundant,they are all more or less used as food. The Melon—Cucumis melo. The melon is the richest and most highly flavouredof all the fleshy fruits. It is often said to be a nativeof the central parts of Asia, and to have been firstbrought into Europe from Persia; but the date ofits first culture is so remote, that there is no certainknowledge on the subject. Pliny and Columelladescribe the fondness of the Emperor Tiberius formelons, and detail the contrivances by which they THE MELON. 283. Gourds. were procured for him at all seasons. Stoves ap-pear to have been used in this process; so thatforcing-houses were not unknown to the melon has certainly been generally cultivatedin England since about the middle of the sixteenthcentury; how much earlier is not known. It ishighly probable that those ecclesiastics who paidsuch attention to the other fruits grown in Italyand France, would not neglect one so delicious asthe melon; and it is distinctly said by a vrriter onBritish Topography, Gough, that the cultivation ofthe melon in England preceded the wars of Yorkand Lancaster, but that it was destroyed in thetimes of civil trouble that succeeded. It is probable,however, that the melon was confounded with thepumpkin by the earlier writers whom Gough con-sulted. While in France, and in England, melons aregrown as an article of luxury, in some parts of theEast they are used
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