The potatoes are roots more commonly long than thick; their form is various, and their fine skin is like that of the Topinambous (Irish potatoes.) In their substance and taste they very much resemble sweet chesnuts. They are cultivated in the following manner; the earth is raised in little hills or high furrows about a foot and a half broad, that by draining the moisture, the roots may have a better relish. The small potatoes being cut in little pieces with an eye in each, four or five of those pieces are planted on the head of the hills. In a short time they push out shoots, and these shoots being cut off about the middle of August within seven or eight inches of the ground, are planted double, cross-ways, in the crown of other hills. The roots of these last are the most esteemed, not only on account of their fine relish, but because they are easier kept during the winter. In order to preserve them during that season, they dry them in the sun as soon as they are dug up, and then lay them up in a close and dry place, covering them first with ashes, over which they lay dry mould. They boil them, or bake them, or roast them on hot coals like chesnuts; but they have the finest relish when baked or roasted. They are eat dry, or cut into small slices in milk without sugar, for they are sweet of themselves. Good sweetmeats are also made of them, and some Frenchmen have drawn brandy from them.
The Cushaws are a kind of pompion. There are two sorts of them, the one round, and the other in the shape of a hunting horn. These last are the best, being of a more firm substance, which makes them keep much better than the others; their sweetness is not so insipid, and they have fewer seeds. They make sweetmeats of these last, and use both kinds in soup; they make fritters of them, fry them, bake them, and roast them on the coals, and in all ways of cooking they are good and palatable.
All kinds of melons grow admirably well in Louisiana. Those of Spain, of France, of England, which last are called white melons, are there infinitely finer than in the countries from whence they have their name; but the best of all are the water melons. As they are hardly known in France, except in Provence, where a few of the small kind grow, I fancy a description of them will not be disagreeable to the reader.
The stalk of this melon spreads like ours upon the ground, and extends to the length of ten feet. It is so tender, that when it is any way bruised by treading upon it, the fruit dies; and if it is rubbed in the least, it grows warm. The leaves are very much indented, as broad as the hand when they are spread out, and are somewhat of a sea-green colour. The fruit is either round like a pompion, or long. There are some good melons of this last kind, but the first sort are most esteemed, and deservedly so. The weight of the largest rarely exceeds thirty pounds, but that of the smallest is always above ten pounds. Their rind is of a pale green colour, interspersed with large white spots. The substance that adheres to the rind is white, crude, and of a disagreeable tartness, and is therefore never eaten. The space within that is filled with a light and sparkling substance, that may be called for its properties a rose-coloured snow. It melts in the mouth as if it were actually snow, and leaves a relish like that of the water prepared for sick people from gooseberry jelly. This fruit cannot fail therefore of being very refreshing, and is so wholesome, that persons in all kinds of distempers may satisfy their appetite with it, without any apprehension of being the worse for it. The water-melons of Africa are not near so relishing as those of Louisiana.
The seeds of water-melons are placed like those of the French melons. Their shape is oval and flat, being as thick at the ends as towards the middle; their length is about six lines, and their breadth four. Some are black and others red; but the black are the best, and it is those you ought to choose for sowing, if you would wish to have good fruit; which you cannot fail of, if they are not planted in strong ground, where they would degenerate and become red.
All kinds of greens and roots which have been brought from Europe into that colony succeed better there than in France, provided they be planted in a soil suited to them; for it is certainly absurd to think that onions and other bulbous plants should thrive there in a soft and watery soil, when every where else they require a light and dry earth.
[CHAPTER II.]
Of the Fruit Trees of Louisiana.