6 SQUASHES, HOW TO GEOW THEM, ETC. 



adding the proper proportion of silica to the vegetable 

 humus. Some years ago, when the Marrow squash was a 

 novelty, bringing about $4.00 a hundred pounds, one of 

 my townsmen raised some acres on a piece of drained 

 meadow. Only a portion of the meadow had received a 

 good dressing of sand ; here the squashes were of about 

 the ordinary size, while on the remainder they grew " as 

 big as barrels." He traded a part of the crop with a 

 peddler for a lot of swine. When the peddler called for the 

 squashes, agreeable to instructions, the father being absent 

 from town, his son showed him the smaller sized lot, say- 

 ing that he had received directions to deliver them, as 

 they were the best of the crop. But the peddler declared 

 that, as he had supplied good pigs, he was entitled to good 

 squashes, and would be put off with no trash. He there- 

 fore loaded his wagons with the " big as a barrel " lot, and 

 left for home. Before many days a friend called, and, 

 with a laugh, asked if he had heard of the result of the 

 squash investment. " There was'nt enough substance in 

 them to hold together until he got home'; they were car- 

 ried to market in a few days, and two tons out of five 

 were rotten." If the soil be wet and cold, the growth of 

 the vine is much retarded, and not only is the crop much 

 lessened in size and weight, but at times this singular re- 

 sult is seen — the squash loses its normal form. I have 

 seen a crop of Hubbards grown under such circumstances, 

 all of which were nearly flat at each end, instead of hav- 

 ing the elongations that belong to the normal form. 



When two soils of equal natural strength, but one of 

 them being more gravelly in its structure, are heavily and 

 equally manured, I have noticed, in several instances, that 

 the more gravelly piece will give more squashes and less 

 vine than the others. 



Unlike some varieties of melons and cucumbers, squashes 

 will do finely on freshly broken sod, which has the ad- 

 vantage (a great one in many localities) of being less in- 



