INTRODUCTION. 



The recent great increase in interest in squash cultiva- 

 tion, which has been promoted by the introduction of new 

 varieties, has seemed to me to demand a more thorough 

 and exhaustive treatment of the subject than is to be 

 found in our present standard works on horticulture or 

 agriculture. I am sustained in this position by the great 

 number of questions propounded to me annually in the 

 course of an extensive correspondence. To answer these 

 questions, and to bring so delicious a vegetable as the 

 squash into a more general and more successful cultiva- 

 tion, is the object of this treatise. The Squash family ( Cu- 

 curbitacece) have their habitat in the tropics and warmer 

 portions of the temperate zones ; hence they require our 

 hottest seasons to develop them in perfection. With the 

 exception of the Vegetable Marrow, the squash family is 

 almost unknown to our English cousins, as likewise is true 

 of our corn and beans, for though the average temperature 

 of the year is higher with them than with us, yet the ex- 

 treme hot weather, which, these vegetables require, is 

 there wanting. 



The introduction of the squash is a matter of the past 

 half century ; until within that time, with the exception of 

 the Crookneck, the pumpkins, yellow and black, or " nig- 

 ger," were the only varieties cultivated. Though the ap- 

 petite for squash appears to be in a considerable degree a 

 matter of education, yet it is becoming more and more 

 popular in the vicinity of the large cities of the North, 

 where among vegetables^ it now ranks next to the potato, 

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