SQUASHES, HOW TO GKOW THEM, ETC 43 



to be guarded against being lest they relax the animals 

 too much. In value for milk purposes, they appear to 

 combine the good qualities of the Mangold Wurtzel, and 

 the Carrot, both increasing the flow of milk and improv- 

 ing its quality. This is more particularly true of the 

 Hubbard and Turban varieties. For fattening purposes, 

 the Hubbard is excellent, as might be anticipated from 

 the large proportion of sugar which is developed in it at 

 the approach of winter. I have known a cow to be fatted 

 for the butcher on the Hubbard squash, used in connection 

 with good English hay. 



In feeding to pigs, it can be fed raw, or be boiled' up 

 with meal, or meal and scraps. My usual practice has 

 been, to boil the squash in a Mott's boiler, about a barrel 

 and a half at a time, adding a peck of beef or pork scraps, 

 broken into small pieces, and stirring in meal, sufficient to 

 thicken it. When cooked, it should be cooled as soon as 

 possible, as the squash is very apt to sour, and make the 

 mass thin and somewhat unpalatable to the animals. I 

 have known a sow, with young, to be kept wholly on raw 

 Hubbard squashes, and on her coming in to be in better 

 condition than was desirable. 



Squashes might be raised for cattle among corn as pump- 

 kins are, (they are better food for animals than pump- 

 kins,) though I have doubts of the profitableness of this 

 double crop, where each makes its growth and matures 

 at about the same time. 



No doubt an improvement on this is, to omit every 

 third row of corn, and give the vacant space to the squash 

 hills. Among seed onions, I grow squashes with little or 

 no apparent detriment to the crop, but in this case the 

 crops are planted and mature with more than a month's 

 difference between them at each end of the season. Be- 

 sides horned cattle and hogs, many horses, goats, poultry, 

 and rabbits will eat squashes with avidity. 



As to their comparative value as food for stock, each 



