CHAPTER XXXII. 

 SQUASHES. 



Mammoth Squashes or Pumpkins. Cucurbita maxima. 



French, potirons; German, melonen-kurbiss ; Danish, 

 centner-groeskar ; Italian, zucca; Spanish, calabaza to- 

 tanera. 



Marrows and Scollops. Cucurbita pepo. 



The species moschata also contributes same horticultural 

 varieties. 



The California-grown squashes are all noted for pro- 

 digious size and the acre-product is also immense. Squashes 

 have been used from the early days as exponents of size 

 in California vegetables, at all distant and local exhibi- 

 tions, and the statistics thereof would fill a volume. 

 Weights of single specimens have been attained in excess 

 of 300 pounds, and field crops above 30 tons to the acre. 

 To avoid exaggeration and at the same time present the 

 truth about the California squash in a picturesque man- 

 ner, a single record is presented from the writer's collec- 

 tion of cucurbitous literature. Philander Kellogg, of Go- 

 leta, Santa Barbara county, who is personally known to 

 the writer as a man of truth and probity, furnishes this 

 statement : 



I planted my squashes in May, and harvested them in 

 October. Finding that they were unusually large, I 

 weighed 10 of the largest and found that their aggregate 

 weight was one ton and 50 odd pounds, the largest one 

 weighing 225 pounds. This squash was exhibited at the 

 county fair and received the first prize. On the 15th of 

 November, which was my boy's sixteenth birthday, I cut 

 open one of the other squashes, that weighed 210 pounds, 

 and took out the seeds ; my boy then got into it and I put 



