60 SQUASHES, HOW TO GKOW THEM, ETC. 



appears Sound and healthy. I am at a loss to explain the 

 cause of this, unless it be that the vine has been poisoned 

 by something that it has taken into its circulation. I have 

 picked half-grown plums from a tree that tasted as salt as 

 brine. The tree had received a heavy manuring with salt, 

 and ultimately died, proving that there is such a thing in 

 the vegetable world as a tree poisoning itself by feeding 

 to excess on one variety of food ; and what is true of a 

 tree may be true of a vine. 



WOODCHUCKS AND MUSKRATS. 



On low land, near water courses, Muskrats will some- 

 times make sad havoc with the growing fruit ; while on 

 uplands, the Woodchuck is sometimes exceedingly destruc- 

 tive. If the portion troubled by muskrats is of small area, 

 the squashes can be protected by taking boxes of sufficient 

 size, cutting a narrow slit in their sides, and setting the 

 squashes in them, having the vines enter and go out of 

 the narrow slits. When muskrats begin on a squash, as 

 far as I have observed, they make a finish of it before in- 

 juring others. 



Woodchucks are exceedingly destructive ; they rarely 

 entirely devour a squash, but gnaw more or less all in the 

 vicinity of their burrows If these burrows are not con- 

 veniently near the squash patch, they will leave the old 

 and make new ones close by, or even in the midst of the 

 squash field. The wounds made by their broad teeth soon 

 heal, if the squashes have not reached their growth, and 

 the gnawing has not been through the squash, but the 

 crop is much injured for market purposes, and the squashes 

 are apt to rot at the gnawed places after they are stored. 

 I have had a ton injured in this way one season by a sin- 

 gle woodchuck. A thousand-and-one ways are given to 

 catch and destroy the woodchucks ; traps set a little way 

 down in their holes, and carefully hidden with earth, and 



