A GREAT RUNNER. *- 273 



My anxiety was greatly relieved, therefore, when 

 at last something that was evidently intended for 

 fruit made its appearance. It was almost of the size 

 and shape of a small lead-pencil, and closely resem 

 bled a long green worm. This remarkable fruit 

 only odder, if any thing, than the parent that bore it 

 after the same hesitancy and dilatoriness, com 

 menced to grow in the same mad way. It was soon 

 as thick as your finger, then as your wrist, then as 

 your arm, and considerably longer than the latter ; 

 and, ere it gave up, became as large round and lon 

 ger than a small man s leg. Hercules, even, would 

 have been bothered to manage such a club. 



It bore seeds, but I destroyed them. My squashes 

 were ahead of all in Flushing. My pumpkins ran 

 for hundreds of feet, climbed the bean-poles, and 

 bore a large fruit on top, one specimen being huge 

 enough to have furnished Peter Piper s wife with a 

 comfortable apartment. My ordinary round gourds 

 attained the size of a child s head ; and if I produced 

 such a result as I have described from my first year s 

 attempt with the Hercules Club, I was not prepared 

 to take the consequences of a second or third effort. 



It was better to allow such a plant to disappear ; 

 the discovery of new species of flowers and vegeta 

 bles is creditable so long as they are either handsome 

 M2 



