Cantaloupe Cantaloupe Cantaloupe (muskmelon, mushmelon, rockmelon, sweet melon) or spanspek (South Africa) is a variety of the "Cucumis melo" species in the Cucurbitaceae family. Cantaloupes range in weight from . Originally, "cantaloupe" referred only to the non-netted, orange-fleshed melons of Europe, but may mean any orange-fleshed melon of "C. melo". China is the world's largest producer of cantaloupes, providing half of the global total in 2016. The name cantaloupe is derived via French "cantaloup" from Italian "Cantalupo," which was formerly a papal county seat near Rome, after the fruit's introduction there from Armenia. It was first mentioned in English literature in
Cantaloupe strike of 1928 to no avail. On May 7, Mexican cantaloupe pickers at the Sears Brothers Ranch spontaneously walk-off the jobsite. On May 8, cantaloupe pickers at other Imperial Valley ranches refused to work. According to scholars, there does not seem to have been any pre-planning of the strike by the union, but was a spawned by spontaneous actions of dissatisfied workers that decided to take a stand. Employers feared the loss of profit because of the limited time span of harvesting season, so they enlisted the help of local law enforcement. “The County Board of Supervisors ordered Sheriff Gillett to arrest agitators”,