The most delicious of all garden vegetables eaten from the hand, and of simple cultivation; but like many another plant that is easy to grow it often fails completely. The season and soil must be warm and the growth continuous.

The natural soil for melons is a light, sandy loam, well enriched with rotted manure, although good crops may be grown on land naturally heavy if the hills are specially prepared. When only heavy soil is available, the earth where the seeds are to be planted should be thoroughly pulverized and mixed with fine, well-rotted manure. A sprinkling of leafmold or chip-dirt will help to lighten it. On this hill from ten to fifteen seeds may be sown, thinning to four or five vines when danger of insects is over.

The season may be advanced and the damage from insects lessened by starting the plants in hotbeds. This may be done by using fresh sod, cut into 6-inch pieces, placing them grass-side down in the hotbed, sowing eight to ten seeds on each piece, and covering with 2 inches of light soil. When all danger of frost is over, and the ground has become warm, these sods may be carefully lifted and set in the prepared hills. The plants usually grow without check, and fruit from two to four weeks ahead of those from seed planted directly in the hill. Old quart berry-boxes are excellent to plant seeds in, as, when they are set in the ground, they very quickly decay, causing no restriction to the roots.

Netted Gem, Hackensack, Emerald Gem, Montreal, Osage, and the Nutmeg melon are popular varieties. One ounce of seed will plant about fifty hills.