The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-09-03
wATERMELoNs FROM AFRICA,
Which May Possibly Account For the
Colored Brother Being so Fond of
Them.
From the Philadelphia Press.

From the Philadelphia Press.
BY all accounts the watermelon orig
mated in Africa, and to the present day it
is confidently affirmed by travellers that
the largest and finest melons in the
world are still grown in the heart of the
dark continent. Both to African and
Caucasian however, the taste for water
melon is natural rather than acquired
Men must get used to oysters; the taste
for tobacco is acquired by long, and some
times disagreeable practice; the love of
the Goldfish of Newfoundland, of the
Massachusetts bay, and the vipers of
the Apennines must be cultivated,
but all human beings take naturally to
watermelon, and, it must be added
almost as naturally to the stealing as to
the eating. A prominent authority on
the subject, dealing with it in an epicu-
rean fashion, says the best way to enjoy a
watermelon is, first, to steal it secondly,
to put IL in the spring until dinner time;
I thirdly, to take it out, break it open by
pounding it on rock and eat only the
heart, one watermelon being deemed a
moderate portion for one man If tAis
were the case and such a usage so far as
eating were to prevail in the sections TO
which the watermelons are shipped, the
business would certainly increase to far
greater proportions than at present.
The stupendous nature of the business
may be guessed at, but not estimated,
by the reflection that every large city in
the north takes and eats waternelons
quite as literally as the metropolis of the
Mississippi valley. Some statistician with
a keen nose for exact figures has esti-
mated that at the very least calculations
there are annually raised in the United
States alone $50, 000O00,0 600 watermelons,
and when to this immense aggregate are
1s,A
in Mexico, Central and South America, in
the West India islands, in South Europe,
in Palestine, in Turkey in Persia, India
and China, to say nothing of the product
of Africa, some idea of the importance of
the watermelon as factor in the worlds
food supply may be gained. Watermelon
may not be particularly nourishing, in
fact, scientists tell US that it is not, but
as Amateur Scientist Sam Weller once
remarked in reference to ''weal pie'' it
is very filling for the price, and, after all,
no inconsiderable portion of the human
race regards filling as of somewhat more
consequence than nourishment AS a
factor in commerce the watermelon, how
ever, is by no means despicable. Millions
of dollars change hands in this country
every year for and in consideration of
watermelons. Thousands of people make
a part or the whole of their living from
the national prediction Of this delicious
fruit The growers have sometimes
made fortunes, but the growers are not
allowed to monOpolize the benefits arising
from its production. The laborers who
do the actual work on the watermelon
plantations live by means of the melon;
so also do the swarms Of men who per-
form the labor of harvesting the melons
when ripe. After being forwarded to
market, three or four sets of people make
the whole or part of their living out Of
the melon.