farmers' gardens. 359 



of plants entirely uuplucked. There is little difficulty in so cultivating vege- 

 tables as to induce earliness, but it is alicays at the expense of the number ami 

 size of fruit, and, the health, vigor, and complete development of the plant. 



In the cultivation of the cucumber a gentleman for nearly or quite twenty 

 years saved the first developed fruit nearest the root for seed. At the expira- 

 tion of this time, few of the plants attained a length of three feet, and the 

 largest of the fruit seldom measured above three inches in length ! It is true, 

 they had become very early, but the plants were so dwarfish and the yield wad 

 so small that the crop did not j^ay for cultivation. 



Few of our garden or field products require more skill in culture and man- 

 agement than the squash and pi^mpkin. To plant apart from other varietio,-^, 

 and even to raise large crops of these vegetables, is not all that is essential to 

 successful propagation and cultivation. To raise large specimens is also com- 

 paratively easy ; but to cultivate a variety for many successive years and re- 

 tain it in its purity will be found a more difficult matter. Take, for example, 

 the Canada Crookneck. In its purity the skin is of an even cream yelloAv, the 

 flesh salmon red, tine grained, quite saccharine, of pleasant flavor, and tlio 

 average weight not above four pounds. Now how is the variety lost ? Sup- 

 pose some grower to have a stock of seeds strictly pure, and his crop to cor- 

 respond with the description just given. During winter and spring they arc 

 from time to time used in his family, but two or three happening to be larger, 

 and, as he supposes, consequently finer than the rest, they are at once care- 

 fully reserved as the most suitable for seed. The next season, and the next, 

 this course is uniformly pursued, until this, the most delicate of its peculiar 

 kind, becomes lost in the huge proportions of the green, yellow, or striped 

 Winter Crooknecks, weighing fifteen, tv/enty, and perhaps even thirty pounds ! 

 Now, if the cultivator would keep in view the normal size of this variety, re- 

 membering that much of its superiority over the larger sorts lies in its con- 

 densed sweetness, and plant seeds from well-ripened specimens of about threo 

 pounds weight, and continue the practice, he would retain his squash in it:i 

 purity and have a grade of excellence equal, if not superior, to any other 

 variety. Then the Boston JSIarroiv : when first introduced, it was symmetrically 

 ovoid in form, with an almost deep red skin, and the weight averaged about 

 six pounds. As now found in our markets, the weight varies from eight to 

 twelve pounds ; and the color, instead of the deep red of the original, ha-i 

 passed to a light, cream yellow, almost betraying in its pale exterior how mutu 

 its saccharine properties have been diluted by this increase of size. If the 

 practice of preserving seed from the largest specimens be long continued, it 

 will most assuredly end this excellent variety in some monstrous nondescript.--, 

 good for little else but to be admired at a cattle show, and give variety to the 

 bill of fare for our farm stock. One of the most successful growers of the 

 Marrow squash in the vicinity of Boston saves his seed from the smallest well- 

 ripened fruit he can select, often from those not weighing above three pounds ; 

 and he affirms that, under this practice, the vines are more hardy and more 

 abundant bearers, and the fruit is superior in all respects to that obtained by 

 following the ol(J custom of planting from the largest fruit. 



There seems to be a strange tasciuation in size, but it should be remembered 

 that exceilence is not always comprehended in magnitude; and though wo 

 admire a noble apple, pear, or peach, and though we cultivate our small fruits 

 to their utmost perfection, many of our garden vegetables — our potatoes, beets, 

 turnips, radishes — beyond certain dimensions are actually worthless for the 

 table, and this is measurably true of our squashes. Could we have the Can- 

 ada Crookneck, Boston Marrow, Hubbard, or any of the best table sorts of 

 the size of the Mammoths sometimes seen at exhibitions, it would hardly bo 

 desurable; for what disposition could a feimily of average size make of the 



