He worked as an illustrator for the San Francisco Examiner as well as a number of New York newspapers, and also contributed to magazines, including the original Life.

When the renowned Winsor McCay left the employ of the New York Sunday American in 1924, the great newspaper journalist Arthur Brisbane hired Cummin to fill the vacancy, because of a similarity of style.

Examples of his subjects include Teeny Town,[10] Martha and George Washington, Dappelton Farm's Wagon House and Hay Barn, Strike Out for the Camp-Fire Trail!

[11] lists Cummin among many others including Winsor McCay as "Our Comic Artists," and (in a probable reference to this work for McCall's) credits him with "Children's Cartoons."

During the strip's short run at Metropolitan Newspaper Service, Cummin worked with writer Bill Conselman, a notable screenwriter who was writing under the pen name "Frank Smiley".

[17] His deep personal interest in nature is further evidenced by his very active "Life Fellow" membership in New York's Explorers Club, which he joined in 1937.

Its twelfth and final issue notes the addition to the group of Contributing Editors of "Melville P. Cummin, Artist and Naturalist, associated with the American Kennel Gazette.

[19][20] This educational syndicated daily newspaper feature spotlighted flora and fauna facts with the subjects rendered in a naturalistic art style.

In promoting the feature Cummin wrote, "We pride ourselves on our culture, on our mastery of the principles of modern science; and, like peacocks, we like to display the social graces.

Cummin's home studio, which he designed and built himself, was set in four acres of the beautiful wilderness of the Hudson Highlands, in Fort Montgomery, New York.

In 1977, he listed his present occupation on a questionnaire as "trying to convince myself that I'm retired," and his avocations as "model-making, dioramas, and designing wooden toys for children.