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THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL; 



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necessary to keep off the sparrows, which are extremely fond 

 of the young tender seed-leaves of these plants, and will soon 

 destroy the whole crop, if not prevented. But as the plants 

 do not remain above a week in danger, it will be no great 

 trouble to look after them during that time ; for when the 

 plants have appeared, and expanded their seed-leaves, the 

 sparrows will no longer molest them. You must not fail to 

 water them gently, according to the season ; and when the 

 third or rough leaf of the plants begin to appear, pull out 

 all the weakest plants, leaving only three or four of the most 

 promising and best-situated in each hole, stirring the earth 

 round about them with a small hoe, to destroy the weeds, and 

 raise the earth about the shanks of the plants, introducing 

 a little earth between them, and pressing it down gently with 

 your hand, to separate the plants more distinctly from each 

 other to a greater distance : they must be carefully watered 

 in dry weather, and kept entirely free from weeds. When 

 the Cauliflowers are drawn off the ground from between the 

 Cucumbers, you must hoe and clean the ground, drawing the 

 earth up round each hole in the form of a bason, the better 

 to retain the water that is given them. The plants must also 

 be laid out in the exact order in which they are to run, and 

 to extend so that they may not interfere with each other. A 

 little earth must then be laid between them , and presseddown 

 gently with the hand, giving them at the same time a little 

 water to settle the earth about them, repeating it as often as 

 is necessary, and faking care to remove the weeds. The 

 plants thus managed will begin to produce fruit towards the 

 end of July, when you may either gather them young for 

 pickling, or suffer them to grow for large fruit. The quan- 

 tity of holes necessary for a family is abou*. fifty or sixty, for 

 if you have fewer, they will not produce enough at one ga- 

 thering to make it worth the trouble and expense of pick- 

 ling, without keeping them too long in the house : for from 

 fifty holes, more than two hundred cannot be gathered at 

 each time, but this may be done twice a week throughout 

 the season, so that about two thousand may be gathered if 

 they be taken small, which will not be too many even for a 

 private family ; but should so many not be wanted, they may 

 be left to grow to a proper size for eating. 



10. Cucumis Anguinus ; Serpent Cucumber, or Melon 

 Leaves lobate : fruit cylindric, very long, smooth, and even 

 writhed. Flowers smaller than others of the genus, with a 

 long tube, they scarcely exceed the size of Jessamine flowers ; 

 the fruit or cucumber is three feet and a half long, never 

 straight, but strangely twisted, so as to resemble a snake; it 

 is externally of a grayish- green, and grows very red in time; 

 the odour is rank, and the taste bitter. Native of the East 

 Indies. This, says La Marche, is only a variety of Tricho- 

 santhes Anguina. 



11. Cucumis Flexuosus; Flexuose Cucumber, or Melon. 

 Leaves angular-sublobate; fruits cylindric, furrowed, curved. 

 Fruit the size of a large pear, of an oblong cylindric form, 

 smooth, even, eatable, and delicious. It ripens in June ; is 

 called banket-melon by the Dutch, and is cultivated about 

 Nagasaki, and in other parts of Japan. 



12. Cucumis Conomon. Leaves angular-sublobate, 

 toothed; fruits fusiform, ten-furrowed, smooth. Stem decum- 

 bent, striated, hispid, with scattered hairs, as are the petioles ; 

 leaves cordate, nerved, pale underneath ; flowers axillary, pe- 

 duncled, aggregate, yellow ; peduncles very short, hispid ; 

 fruit the size of a man's head or larger, oblong. It is culti- 

 vated every where in Japan ; the fruit preserved is sold 

 under the name of connemon, and is a common food among 

 the Japanese ; it is also frequently eaten by the Dutch at 

 Batavia, and is sometimes brought to Holland. 



13. Cucumis Maderaspatanus. Leaves cordate, entire, 

 toothletted ; fruits globular, smooth. Loureiro informs us, 

 that it is very nearly allied to Melothria; according to him 

 the stem is round, slender, branched, climbing ; leaves round- 

 ish, petioled, alternate, small; flowers white, axillary, on 

 many-flowered peduncles; fruit yellow, half an inch in 

 diameter. Native of Ceylon, and other parts of the East 

 Indies, of Cochin-china, and also of the Cape. 



Cucurbita ; a genus of the class Monoecia, order Synge- 

 nesia. GENERIC CHARACTER. Male Flowers. Calii ; peri- 

 anth one-leafed, bell-shaped, the margin terminated by five 

 subulate teeth. Corolla : five-parted, growing to the calix, 

 bell-shaped ; divisions veiny-rugose ; nectary a gland in the 

 centre of the flower, concave, triangular. Stamina : fila- 

 menta three, converging, connected above, distinct below, 

 growing to the calix ; anthera? creeping upwards and 

 downwards, linear. Female Flowers. Calix .- perianth as 

 in the male, superior, deciduous. Corolla : as in the male; 

 nectariferous glandule concave, spreading. Stamina : mar- 

 gin surrounding, ending in three very short cusps. Pis- 

 til: germen large, inferior; style conic, three-cleft at the 

 tip; stigma single, with a thick convex margin creeping up- 

 wards and downwards, three-cleft. Pericarp : pome gene- 

 rally three-celled ; cells membranaceous, soft, distinct. Seedt: 

 very many, compressed, swollen on the margin, obtuse placed 

 in double order. ESSENTIAL CHARACTER. Cala : five- 

 toothed. Corolla : five-cleft. Male. Filamenta : three. Fe- 

 male. Pistil ; five-cleft. Seeds of the pome with a swelling 

 margin. The plants of this genus are very nearly allied to 

 those of Cucumis, and are distinguished from it chiefly by the 

 swelling rim of the seed : like them, they are annual, with 

 trailing herbaceous stems, furnished with tendrils for climb- 

 ing. The species are, 



1. Cucurbita Lagenaria ; Bottle Gourd, or Long Gourd. 

 Leaves somewhat angular, tomentose, biglandular at the 

 base underneath ; fruit woody. Stems thick, long, climbing, 

 with tendrils, branched, extending nearly twenty feet in length, 

 covered with n fine soft hairy down ; flowers large, white, on 

 long peduncles, solitary, lateral ; fruit shaped like a bottle, 

 with a large roundish belly and a neck very smooth, when ripe 

 of a pale yellow colour, some nearly six feet long, and eigh- 

 teen inches round; the rind hardens on being dried, and will 

 contain water : the Arabians call it charrah. The poor peo- 

 ple eat it boiled with vinegar, or fill the shell with rice and 

 meat, thus making a kind of pudding of it. In Jamaica the 

 shells are generally used for water-cups, and frequently serve 

 for bottles among the negroes, and poorer sort of white peo- 

 ple in that country. A decoction of the leaves is strongly 

 recommended in purging clysters ; and the pulp of the fruit is 

 often employed in resolutive poultices ; it is bittor and purga- 

 tive, and may be used instead of coloquintida. The large 

 gourd, (the Cucurbita Lignosaof Miller) a variety of thisspe- 

 cirs, is cultivated on account of the woody shell of the fruit, 

 which will frequently contain between twenty and thirty 

 quarts : where aloes is manufactured in any quantity, it is com- 

 monly preserved in these shells ; but in Jamaica they are only 

 employed to hold water and small grain. The shells are of 

 different forms, some shaped like a pear, others like a bottle, 

 others again like an orange. They grow in all parts of Egypt 

 and in Arabia, wherever the mountains are covered with rich 

 soil ; and is also a native of both Indies. This, as well as the 

 second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth species, may be propa- 

 gated by sowing their seeds on a hot-bed in April, and trans- 

 planted when the plants come up, to another moderate liot- 

 bed, where they should be brought up hardily, and have a 

 great deal of air to strengthen them ; and when they have 



