I don\u2019t know why, but 100 years ago, people were really fascinated with giant watermelon. I\u2019m talking about comically huge watermelons, created with some slick photography tricks and illustrations. Don\u2019t believe me? The postcards below are proof.<\/p>\n
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Like this postcard notes, this is apparently how they do things in North Orwell, PA. Not only do they grow massive fruit and vegetables in the small northern Pennsylvania town, they also raise freakishly strong little girls. That wedge they\u2019re lifting effortlessly probably weighs around 400 pounds. I\u2019m not sure what\u2019s in the water up there in North Orwell, but it\u2019s a little scary.<\/p>\n
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They say everything is bigger in Texas, and this \u201cwatermelon blockade\u201d is just one of many examples. Here, we see a man who was forced to stop his horse-and-buggy to clear some runaway watermelon that had found their way onto the road. I\u2019m not really sure how they got there. Maybe they fell off the back of a giant watermelon cart.<\/p>\n
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This 1909 postcard depicts a \u201cCalifornia watermelon.\u201d It looks more like a giant pickle to me, but whatever. Have you noticed that the watermelon of yesteryear got progressively larger as you travelled west? North Orwell\u2019s melons were a little bigger than a cow, Texas grew \u2018em twice as large, and California\u2019s watermelon were the size of a school bus \u2026 even though they didn\u2019t have school busses back then.<\/p>\n
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Here\u2019s another 1909 postcard featuring gargantuan fruit (it was apparently a good year for crops). These men harvest the watermelon the way you\u2019d assume a 3,000 pound watermelon would be harvested \u2013 they cut it into pieces and haul it off to the farmer\u2019s market. At least that\u2019s what I think is happening in this photo. It\u2019s also possible that these are normal-sized watermelon and the men in this photo are really small. If that\u2019s the case, I\u2019d like to know where they found the tiny horse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don\u2019t know why, but 100 years ago, people were really fascinated with giant watermelon. I\u2019m talking about comically huge watermelons, created with some slick photography tricks and illustrations. Don\u2019t believe me? The postcards below are proof. Like this postcard notes, this is apparently how they do things in North Orwell, PA. Not only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-general","7":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\n