160 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOKT. [Book XIX. 



covered with a white down, which increases in quantity as the 

 plant gains in size. 



The gourd admits of being applied to more numerous uses 

 than the cucumber even : the stem is used as an article of 

 food 73 when young, bnt at a later period it changes its nature, 

 and its qualities become totally different : of late, gourds have 

 come to be used in baths for jugs and pitchers, but for this 

 long time past they have been employed as casks 74 for keeping 

 w'ine. The rind is tender while the fruit is green, but still it 

 is always scraped off when the gourd is used for food. It ad- 

 mits of being eaten several ways, and forms a light and whole- 

 some aliment, and this although it is one of those fruits that 

 are difficult of digestion by the human stomach, and are apt to 

 swell out those who eat of them. The seeds which lie nearest 

 to the neck of the gourd produce fruit of remarkable 75 length, 

 and so do those which lie at the lower extremities, though not 

 at all comparable with the others. Those, on the other hand, 

 which lie in the middle, produce gourds of a round shape, and 

 those on the sides fruit that are thick and short. The seeds 

 are dried by being placed in the shade, and when wanted for 

 sowing, are steeped in water first. The longer and thinner^ the 

 gourd is, the more agreeable it is to the palate, and hence it is 

 that those which have been left to grow hanging are reckoned 

 the most wholesome : these, too, have fewer seeds than the 

 others, the hardness of which is apt to render the fruit less 

 agreeable for eating. 



Those which are intended for keeping seed, are usually not cut 

 before the winter sets in ; they are then dried in the smoke, 

 and are extensively employed for preserving 76 garden seeds, and 

 for making other articles for domestic use. There has been a 

 method discovered, also, of preserving the gourd for table, and 

 the cucumber as well, till nearly the time when the next year's 

 crop is ripe ; this is done by putting them in brine. We are 

 assured, too, that if put in a hole dug in a place well shaded 



73 The young shoots of the gourd, Fee says, would afford an insipid 

 food, with but little nutriment. 



71 The varieties thus employed, Fee says, must have been the Cucurbita 

 lagenaria of Linnaeus, and the Cucurbita latior of Dodonaeus. 



75 This is not the fact. The seed produces fruit similar to that from 

 which it was taken, and no more. 



76 The trumpet gourd, the Cucurbita longior of Dodongeus, is still em- 

 ployed, Fee says, by gardeners for this purpose. 



