SQUASHES, HOW TO GROW THEM, ETC. 21 



such vines sometimes root at once, but if checked in their 

 growth by transplanting, they rarely amount to anything 

 in the end. 



This is one of the great conditions of success in squash 

 culture, to have the vines start well and make a rapid 

 growth without a check. Experience has frequently 

 proved that late planted vines will oftentimes ripen their 

 crops as early, and usually bear heavier crops, than those 

 planted two or three weeks sooner. 



HILL CULTURE AND LEVEL CULTURE. 



After the plants appear, it is customary to draw earth 

 around them ; this is a good practice as far as it tends to 

 keep them from being broken off by the winds. It is 

 also an almost universal custom to draw up the earth into 

 a mound of two or three feet in diameter, gradually in- 

 creasing the height of it with each hoeing until it is six 

 inches or more above the level of the field. I consider 

 the labor entirely useless, to say the least, and have con- 

 fined my own practice for several years past to level cul- 

 ture, making no hills, and drawing just earth enough 

 home to each plant to keep it from being swayed, and 

 thus injured by the wind. 



HOEING AND CULTIVATING. 



About as soon as the plants show themselves above the 

 surface, the Cultivator should be set running. If the 

 hills have been made equi-distant each way, the surface 

 can be cultivated close home to them on every side, leav- 

 ing but little work for the hoe. In no department of 

 farming is the superiority of the Cultivator over the com- 

 mon han^-hoe brought out in stronger contrast, than in 

 working the large open areas between squash hills. I 



