HOW TO RAISE SQUASHES. 133 



I drop in seed enough to give the bugs an opportunity 

 to take a part and leave sufficient remaining for the crop, 

 which should be about three plants in a hill. By pursuing 

 this course, if your ground has been well prepared, if your 

 manure is of the right kind, and the season is favorable, you 

 will get a good crop of squashes. 



Mr. Paul. At what time would you plant for winter 

 squashes ? 



Mr. Had WEN. About the tenth of June, in our climate, 

 for winter squashes, so that when they come up there will be 

 no check. 



Question. Are you troubled with the maggot? 



Mr. Hadwen. I have uever been troubled with the mag- 

 got, but I have been troubled with the black squash-bug, and 

 also with the striped bug. The best way I have ever tried to 

 destroy the black bug is to lay shingles on the hills at night. 

 These black bugs will get underneath the shingles, and in the 

 morning, if j^ou take up the shingles, you will find the bugs 

 on the under side, and you can take another shingle and give 

 them a rub together, and that destroys them at once. The 

 striped bug is very numerous after the squash has made its 

 second or fourth leaf. The most effective way I have found 

 to destroy them is to take air-slacked lime, put it into a 

 dredgiuir-box, and go along and dredge a little on each hill, 

 when the dew is on in the morning, and the bugs will go to 

 other places. 



Mr. Paul. Do you put the seed directly on the manure ? 



Mr. Hadwen. I do. The manure is well rotted and 

 decomposed, so that it will be in just the right state for the 

 roots to take hold of it. 



Mr. Warner, of Sunderland. In growing squashes, I find 

 that the first requisite, and the most important thing to do, 

 is to procure good seed. I do not believe there is one farmer 

 in forty in Massachusetts who has had a decent garden the 

 past season ; and there is no farmer, or no person who knows, 

 unless by experience, how much value he can gather from a 

 small spot of land. I gathered, this year, from a piece less 

 than four rods long and two rods wide, over forty dollars' 

 worth of vegetables, including squashes, corn, tomatoes, 

 cucumbers, cabbages and turnips. Mr. Hadwen says, put 



