HORTICULTURE. 331 



resembles somewhat an acorn in its cup, seems to be the Cucurbita piliformis of Duchesne. 

 It sometimes grows to a large size, measuring fourteen or fifteen inches in transverse 

 diameter, and looks like an immense Turkish turban in shape. Specimens raised in my 

 garden in 1851, were little more than ten inches in diameter, and weighed ten pounds or 

 more, having very thick and firm flesh, but a small cavity within. They proved excellent 

 for table use, equal in quality to the best autumnal marrows. They keep quite as well as 

 the latter. 



The earliest account of the Cashew pumpkin that has fallen under our notice is contained 

 in the English translation of Du Pratz's History of Louisiana, (vol. ii. p. 8,) where it is 

 called Cushaw. In the original French work, the name given to it is Giromon. Du Pratz 

 described two varieties: one round, and the other curved, or of the shape of a hunter's 

 horn. The latter was considered the best. The cushaw or cashew pumpkin is not cul- 

 tivated or much known in New England. I raised some specimens of the crook-necked 

 variety (which has only three double rows of seeds) a few years ago, from seeds received 

 from New Jersey. They did not ripen well, and many of them rotted before half ripe. 

 They are evidently too tender for a New England climate. From the account given of them 

 by Du Pratz, they seem well suited to Louisiana, where they are much esteemed. 



The genuine mammoth pumpkin, or true Potiron, [Cucurbita maxima,) may be considered 

 as the typical species of this group, having rather soft, roundish heart-shaped, and entire 

 leaves, a short, cylindrical fruit-stem, a permanent fleshy stile, and five carpels or double 

 rows of seeds. The form of the fruit is an oblate spheroid, depressed at the blossom and 

 stem ends, and marked with ten or more wide meridianal furrows. It sometimes grows to 

 an immense size, two feet or more in diameter, and sixty pounds or more in weight, being 

 light in proportion to its size, on account of the large hollow within. It is known to vary 

 much in color and size, and somewhat in form. In some of its variations, it may have 

 lost its original characteristic form so far as to be no longer recognised. If this be true, 

 Cole's Connecticut pie-squash, the round Valparaiso squashes, and several others may be 

 merely varieties of the mammoth pumpkin. To some of the varieties of this fruit, the 

 name Giromon or Giromont, otherwise written Giraumon and Giraumont, signifying a rolling 

 mountain, seems originally to have been applied, in allusion to the form and size. French 

 writers subsequently transferred this name to certain varieties of the Cucurbita pepo. 



The plants of the foregoing Valparaiso, or Potiron group, are more tender and less 

 hardy than those of the common pumpkin, or Pepo group ; they are also much more subject 

 to the attacks of worms or borers (JEgeria cucurbitce) at the roots. Their fruits, compared 

 with common pumpkins and winter squashes, have a thinner and more tender rind, and 

 finer-grained, sweeter, and less strongly-flavored flesh, on which accounts they are preferred 

 by most persons for table use. 



The second group contains the common New England field pumpkin, bell-shaped and 

 crook-necked winter squashes, the early Canada winter squash, the custard squash, and 

 various others, all of which (whether rightly or not cannot now be determined) have been 

 generally referred by botanists to the Cucurbita pepo of Linnaeus. This group is readily 

 to be distinguished from the first one by the following characters: The leaves are rough, 

 and more or less deeply and acutely five-lobed. The fruit has only three carpels or double 

 rows of seeds, and the stile drops off with the blossom. The fruit-stem is long, and clavated 

 or enlarged next the fruit, where it spreads out into five claw-like projections, and is 

 five-angled and deeply five-furrowed. The fruit is eaten only when fully ripe, and it may 

 be kept with care throughout the winter. The rind, though sometimes quite hard, never 

 becomes a woody shell, and the flesh remains juicy and succulent till it rots, never drying 

 up into a spongy or fibrous substance, in which respects these fruits differ from what are 

 called summer squashes. The seeds are not so broad, thick, or plump, and white as those 

 of the potiron group, but are smaller, thinner, and of a grayish color. 



The common field pumpkin of New England, which formerly was extensively raised for 

 stock, and is still used for the same purpose, and of which our pumpkin-pies and pumpkin- 

 sauce were made till the winter crook-neck and autumnal marrow came to be substituted 

 therefor, has a form somewhat resembling that of the mammoth pumpkin, but its longitudinal 



