Rattlesnake Watermelon:
It's initial varietal description by horticulturist P.J. Berckmanns in the May 1866 issue of the Southern Agriculturist well describes the characteristics this famous southern watermelon manifests in the 21st century: "Large to very large, long, with alternate green and white stripes of equal width, and dark green spots; flesh red, sweet, crisp and much water, very good; rind thick; seeds white, with black edge, and very small black specks at the base" (p. 124). The Rattlesnake is an oblong picnic melon, weighing from 35 to 60 pounds depending on the circumstances of cultivation and quality of seed. Its rind and skin possess more structure and resilience than the other surviving mid-19th century heirloom varieties (Bradford, Mountain Sweet, and Black Spanish) from North America. It’s time of maturation was 90 days from sprout to maturation. Planted when the soil temperature reached 70 degrees farenheit with an optimum picking date of July 1.
Developed in Richmond County, Georgia, sometime between 1855 and 1863, out of the Lawson Watermelon, probably pollinated by the Mountain Sweet. The first to offer seed for sale were Plumb & Leitner, seedsmen and pharmacists of Augusta, GA. Its reputation as a market melon made by the inaugural shipment northward of truck farmed melons in 1867 from Augusta. At the end of the century a newspaper commentator, N.L.W. in the Augusta Chronicle (1-3-1898) recalled the importance of that first crop sent to New York in the wake of the Civil War: That first "shipment north in ’67 so whetted the appetites of our northern brothers that a great industry in melons has been built up."
Easier to grow and less taxing on the soil than cotton, poorer farmers saw the Rattlesnake Melon as a godsend--a cash crop that could bring ready profit mid-summer if one could cart the crop to a train depot. The Rattlesnake would stand for 30 years as the dominant field melon of Georgia, until the less tasty but more durable Kolb's gem supplanted it in the 1890s. The appearance of fusarium wilt in southern melon fields in the 1890s brought the eclipse of the Rattlesnake, a variety vulnerable to the disease. Breeders became obsessed with creating disease resistant melons, and did not fully succeed until the 1930s. But the Rattlesnake was not viewed as the path forward, despite its superb taste. It was preserved by a host of family farmers who cherished its taste, employed its thick rind for pickle, and took pride in the size that it could manage in the fields. Numbers of seed-lines of the Rattlesnake have come down to the 21st century and it has become, with the Bradford, the Moon & Stars, the Black Spanish and the Kleckley Sweet Watermelon, an heirloom generally recognized by the seed saving community as historically significant.