Rural School Leaflet 



1201 



SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STUDY OF A FEW ECONOMIC PLANTS 

 TO BE RECOGNIZED IN 1913-1914 



Alice G. McCloskey 



Pumpkin. — There are many interesting observations of pumpkins, 

 which may be encouraged during the autumn. The pumpkin vine, 

 blossom, and fruit make 

 good subjects for lessons in 

 drawing and in color. A 

 visit to a cornfield in which 

 pumpkins grow should 

 result in many lines of 

 out-of-door observations. 

 A few suggestions and 

 questions that may be use- 

 ful in the classroom are as 

 follows : 



i . Read to the class the 

 following quotation from 

 an article written by Dean 

 Bailey for boys and girls: 



" In October the cornfields were 

 golden with pumpkins. The corn 

 was in shocks. The tassels were 

 ripe and dry, and hung down- 

 ward as if in mourning for the 

 dying year. The maple leaves, 

 yellow and red, were falling to 

 the ground like flocks of brilliant 

 birds. Lonely hickory trees held 

 onto their dun-yellow leaves as 

 if loth to let them go. But the 

 pumpkins seemed to be in their 

 prime. Fat and sleek they lay 

 between the corn shocks, and 

 shone out among the drying 

 weeds. We did not remember 

 to have seen them before. 



" It is now November. Heavy 

 frosts have come. One night the 

 brook was frozen nearly to its 

 middle. Much of the com is 

 still in the shock, but the pump- 

 kins have been taken under cover. 

 They lie in heaps on the barn 



floor. The hay and straw falls over them. Still the old cow can smell them. I like 

 to sit on them and run my fingers down their smooth, broad grooves. 



" In some parts of the State I miss the pumpkins in the cornfields. These are the 

 regions in which there are many silos; corn is grown in large fields; corn harvesters are 

 used; the absence of the pumpkin tells me of a change in the kind of farming since I was 

 a child." 



Flower and fruit of pumpkin 



