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Written by Julie Jacques

How much would you pay for a melon?  

Despite the rising cost of our weekly groceries, it is difficult to imagine that in 1905, a type of melon grown in Montreal would sell for the equivalent of $35 per slice in Chicago, New York, and Boston hotels. Indeed, there was such a melon.¹ Sometimes nicknamed the Montreal muskmelon or the Montreal nutmeg, it was sold at the price of gold!  

When I hear this, I can think of only one thing: tasting that melon. Unfortunately for us, the fruit seems to have been lost to time. It would have been harvested in Montreal from the latter end of the 1800s and would have disappeared around the 1950s.² The fruit’s finnicky nature, the urbanization of Montreal’s Westmount neighbourhood, and the pull of easier-to-grow melons on farmers all seem to have led to the disappearance of the supposedly superior melon.  

According to farmer Ken Taylor, the Montreal melon required a delicate hand to prevent it from rotting or cracking. It needed attentive watering, ventilation, turning, and even gentle lifting from the ground with a flat rock or shingle.³ It also needed ample fertilization, which, according to Taylor, was easy to come by for the farms on the west of Mount Royal because they were surrounded by horse racing venues.⁴

The Décarie and Gorman family farms were known to be the primary source of the melon in the market. However, we think it may be possible that the last Hurtubise generation to have farmed the Hurtubise land could also have grown this fruit. In fact, Décarie and Hurtubise were neighbours! Isaïe Hurtubise farmed his land until the 1890s. During his time, the farm moved from growing cereal crops to focusing on vegetable and fruit crops for sale at markets. This could have included the famous melon, which is thought to have started its Montreal legacy around the 1870s, for some years before Isaïe’s death in 1893. ⁵

The fate suffered by the melon was not unique. Forty years earlier, the sixth generation of Hurtubise, Isaïe’s heirs, also faced the rise of the middle class and professional jobs, as well as the residential development of Westmount.  They were unable to continue the tradition of farming the Hurtubise land. Times had changed: what was left of the farmland was divided into 100 lots, sold to become the residential lots that we now know around Victoria Street, from Chemin de la Côte-St-Antoine to Mount Summit.⁶

The Décarie farm suffered the same fate when it began to be sold off in the 1920s.⁷ We can imagine that what land was left unsold needed to focus on crops which were less demanding than the Montreal melon, which would have contributed to its decline.  

Today, several farmers and academics work to find and germinate seeds from the Montreal melon because they believe crops are an important way to better understand a place’s cultural heritage.⁸ Likewise, we believe that to understand the history of the Hurtubise, it is important to situate oneself in the agricultural context of the time. Thus, at the Hurtubise House, we nurture raised vegetable gardens to call back to this tradition.⁹ We might even venture to say that our small urban garden is itself part of the cultural heritage of Montreal, Westmount, and the Hurtubise family.  

1. Daphné Cameron, “Le mystère du melon de Montréal enfin résolu?” La Presse, 8 June 2024.
   Tori Marlan, “This Melon Used to Sell for $24 a Slice. Should it Make a Comeback?” Buzzfeed News, 3 January 2016. ↩︎
2. Daphné Cameron, “Le mystère du melon de Montréal enfin résolu?” La Presse, 8 June 2024.
   Fabien Deglise, “Le melon de montréal ne fait plus le poids,” Le Devoir, 11 October 2006.
   Sophie Lachapelle, “Un melon mythique!” L’actualité.com, 22 April 2013.
   Clémence Ménard, “Vers un possible retour du melon de Montréal?” Ville en vert, 1 September 2021. ↩︎
3. Tori Marlan, “This Melon Used to Sell for $24 a Slice. Should it Make a Comeback?” Buzzfeed News, 3 January 2016. ↩︎
4. Tori Marlan, “This Melon Used to Sell for $24 a Slice. Should it Make a Comeback?” Buzzfeed News, 3 January 2016.
   “L’histoire du melon de montréal,“ Quelle histoire!, accédé le 17 juin 2024. ↩︎
5. Alan M. Stewart et Léon Robichaud. “Étude patrimoniale de la maison des Hurtubise : Rapport présenté au Ministère de la Culture et des Communications et à l’Institut d’histoire de l’Amérique française,” mai 2001.  ↩︎
6. Daphné Cameron, “Le mystère du melon de Montréal enfin résolu?” La Presse, 8 juin 2024. 
   Clémence Ménard, “Vers un possible retour du melon de Montréal?”  Ville en vert, 1 septembre 2021. ↩︎ ↩︎
7. Daphné Cameron, “Le mystère du melon de Montréal enfin résolu?”  La Presse, 8 juin 2024.  ↩︎
8. Daphné Cameron, “Le mystère du melon de Montréal enfin résolu?” La Presse, 8 juin 2024. 
   Clémence Ménard, “Vers un possible retour du melon de Montréal?”  Ville en vert, 1 septembre 2021.  ↩︎
9. « Le projet ‘agriculturel’ de la maison Hurtubise. »  hcq-chq.org
   https://hcq-chq.org/le-projet-agriculturel-de-la-maison-hurtubise/ ↩︎ ↩︎