Jonathan Fisher's Melons

In his journals, Jonathan Fisher often mentions the seasonal pleasure of eating melons he grew on his farm.

A few years ago, we heard that the late Lawris Closson, a farmer in North Blue Hill, was still growing melons from seed that descended from Fisher's, given to Lawris' father by Fisher's son Willard.  Although Closson had died a couple of years before, with fingers crossed we asked his family if they had any seed.  One day, months later, his grandson, Lawris Perkins, showed up with seed, which he believed had been harvested four years before.  When the next summer came, we crossed our fingers, and planted some of the precious seed.  Ellen Best, hearing of this project, offered to also try, in a heated seed starter that she had.  Melons love hot weather, and grow luxuriantly in heat.   As it happens, last summer was the coldest and wettest in our area in recent memory.  Nevertheless, Ellen Best persevered, and planted the five seedlings that had germinated from her ration of 20 seeds.  Cold and miserable they sat, in the summer that wasn't warm, in the garden that had come to resemble a pond.  In the late summer, one day, she saw:  One of the seedlings had overcome adversity, and borne a tiny fruit.  This infant melon was nurtured and coddled, nursed through cold nights, covered before frost.  Finally the day came:  The melon was harvested. 

 

Tiny it was, never going to win a blue ribbon at the fair, but it was a melon, it was one of Fisher's prized melons, it has provided us with fresh seed, the Fisher House crew look forward better weather next summer, and to growing a patch of Parson Fisher's melons again on the farm where he grew them 200 years ago.