Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-12-07
The Melon Seed Iudus,ry.

I with much lntereSG yOuf TeCehL
article on the possibility of building up profit
able melon seed industry for Texas. l fully
agree with you in this matter, as we'll as in
many other suggestions of new industries that
might be developed in our state. THE GAZETTE
is certainly doing good work in that way. 1t
is telling Of many new things that the masses Of
our people had never thought Of as things for
profit, and everything is made SO plain in every
case that one cannot hesitate to believe that The
GAZETTE we'll knows what il is talking about and
is entirely correct.
We could raise the melon seed to perfection
there could exist doubt rela tive to that. Get
ting ready market for our product might not
varieties ought we TO grow in order that we
might strike the general market with most
favor? FARMER.
Calhoun county, Tex.
One could best come at the most popu-
lar varieties by studying the seed cata-
logues. There are q few standard va
rieties, however, that are always in gen.
eral demand, as the Mountain Sprout,
the Ice Cream, the Cuban Queen, the
Kolb Gem, the Georgia RattIesnake, and
SO on.
The two first varieties named are not
now so popular Cd the market as they
were some years ago, though all seeds
men keep them. For the largest grow
ing melon known the Cuban Queen
stands at the head of the list, and is
ably a seeding of the Cuban Queen
crossed by accident on some other va
riety. Much boo ming of late has made it
well known on the market, besides 1t is
fairly good melon though not so large
a grower as the Cuban Queen. The
Georgia Rattlesnake is an old variety
that grows to good size and has fine
shipping qualities.
All the very large-growlng melons
with good shipping qualities, that have
been placed upon the market of late, are
descendants of the Cuban Queen. The
introduction of that variety has worked
quite revolution in the size Of our mel
ons. We take deep interest in the Gu
ban Queen on account of having been
personally mixed up in its introduction.
Not long after the war we were in at
tendance at a horticultural meeting in
New Orleans. A prominent Florida ex-
governor was also in attendance, intend
ing TO go thence to Cuba. We accomps-
MED him to the steamer that was to take
him>over, and as we gave HIM the part
ing hand he said TO us in a jocose kind of
way: Gwen. Professor, what shall 1
send you from Cuba?' 'Send me q
watermelon by mail, governor, was
our reply, and we sepatated.
OF course we thought no more of those
meaningless remarks until some weeks
la.er when we received letter from the
gentleman, mailed ut Havana and con-
tanning about one tablespoonful of melon
seeds. The letter stated that, owing to
complications in the Spanish mail SER
vice., he had found it impracticable to
send US q melon. but that he had done
the next best thing in sending us a few
seeds from the largest melon he had ever
seen.
We planted the seeds on our expert
mental grounds in Alabama, and got
immense results, one melon weighing
1l2 pounds. Next season we put in
quite little patch from seeds of that
big melon, and found the variety COM
ing true and entirely holding its own.
A near neIghbor in that year raised
from seed of our big melon a specimen
Weighing 1l9 pounds.
We gave the new melon the name of
Cuban Queen. and scattered seeds out
among the patrons of the newspaper
with which we were then connected.
The seedsmen soon got hold OF it, and
are keeping it prominent in their cata-
logues up to this day. 1t proved to be
variety entirely well adapted to all Sec
tons of our country.