Note 107 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 3)

Water-melons107 are cultivated in great plenty in the English and French American colonies; and there is hardly a peasant here, who has not a field planted with them. They are chiefly cultivated in the neighbourhood of towns; and they are very rare in the north part of Canada. The Indians plant great quantities of water-melons at present; but whether they have done it of old is not easily determined. For an old Onidoe Indian (of the six Iroquese nations) assured me, that the Indians did not know water-melons before the Europeans came into the country, and communicated them to the Indians. The French, on the other hand, have assured me, that the Illinois Indians have had abundance of this fruit, when the French first came to them; and that they declare, they had planted them since times immemorial. However, I do not remember having read that the Europeans, who first came to North-America, mention the water-melons, in speaking of the dishes of the Indians at that time. How great the summer heat is in those parts of America which I have passed through, can easily be conceived, when one considers, that in all those places, they never sow water-melons in hot-beds, but in the open fields in spring, without so much as covering them, and they ripen in time. Here are two species of them, viz. one with a red pulp, and one with a white one. The first is more common to the southward, with the Illinois, and in the English colonies; the last is more abundant in Canada. The seeds are sown in spring, after the cold is entirely gone off, in a good rich ground, at some distance from each other; because their stalks spread far, and require much room, if they shall be very fruitful. They were now ripe at Montreal; but in the English colonies they ripen in July and August. They commonly require less time to ripen in, than the common melons. Those in the English colonies are commonly sweeter, and more agreeable, than the Canada ones. Does the greater heat contribute any thing towards making them more palatable? Those in the province of New-York are, however, reckoned the best.