THE SQUASH AND ITS CULTURE. 445 



THE SQUASH AND ITS CULTURE. 



JOHN D. SMITH, AUSTIN. 



(So. Minn. Hort. Society.) 



I will say at starting that the first requisite is a good seed 

 bed. A sandy loam is preferable if it can be had ; if not take 

 such as you have, but a clay or mucky soil with a clayey sub- 

 soil does not make an ideal seed bed for squash growing ac- 

 cording to my way of thinking, demonstrated by actual ex- 

 perience; a sandy loam with a gravelly subsoil is in my judg- 

 ment one of the best. I wait until the ground is warm before 

 I prepare my seed bed and do it something like this : I plow 

 the ground from six to eight inches deep after having heavily 

 manured with well rotted manure. Newly broken hazel brush 

 or young timber land if broken deep is fine for squash. If you 

 wish to raise an extra crop as to size, it is well to manure each 

 hill, but if planting on a large scale it means considerable extra 

 work. I prefer to have my squash patch by itself^ — not planted 

 in with corn or potatoes. 



I prepare my hills in this style : I take my hoe and work 

 the ground into a little mound about as large over as a half 

 bushel measure or basket and raised a few inches from the level 

 of the ground, not too high, as I have seen some and had them 

 myself and found they dried out too much after a while. These 

 hills may be four by six, six by six, six by eight or eight by 

 eight feet, according to kind of squash, number of vines left in 

 a hill, or if you wish to raise very large or fair sized ones and 

 so forth. I plant generally four to six feet and leave at last 

 thinning two vines to the hill, which thinning takes place about 

 the time vines commence to run. Don't plant too early. Have 

 ground if possible warm and moist, so they will come up quickly. 



My method of planting is somewhat like this : I scatter five 

 or six seeds in center of these prepared raised mounds and 

 gentlv press into the fine, soft bed with my finger one to one 

 and a half inches deep, as near as I can. I aim to have two to 

 four broods of chickens hatch about two weeks after I plant 

 and set coops on edge of the patch, and by the time the little 

 mischevious striped vine bugs begin to get in their work on the 

 vines the young chicks are large enough to run all over the 

 patch and get in their work of eating Mr. Bugs, and they gen- 

 erally do it to perfection. If for any reason things don't jibe 

 just right, and bugs are doing up my vines, I get up in the 

 morning about 4 to 4:30 and sprinkle them with slug shot, 

 which is a pinkish powder, not injurious to anything as far as 

 I know except almost all kinds of bugs, worms and so forth. 



