SQUASHES, HOW TO GEOW THEJI, ETC. 25 



an accurate account kept of the income from each half, I 

 am inclined to believe that it would be found that what 

 was gained in pumpkin was more than lost in corn. 

 Squashes are more delicate in their habits than the hardy, 

 rough vined pumpkin, and the result of attempting to 

 grow them with corn is usually a small crop of inferior 

 specimens. 



SETTING OF THE FRUIT. 



Soon after the runners have put forth, blossom buds 

 will begin to appear at the junction of the leaf-stalks with 

 the vine. As the buds develop, the stems will develop 

 also, until the latter grow a foot or more long, a little 

 longer than the leaf-stalks. The blossom now opens,' 

 and we have a large yellow flower, several inches in di- 

 ameter, with a powerful and rich fragrance, very similar 

 to that of a magnolia. This flower has at the center a 

 yellow cylinder, about an inch, in length, covered with fine 

 yellow pollen. I find that many persons look for their 

 squashes from this class of flowers. Squash vines have 

 the sexes distinct in each flower, being what botanists call 

 monoecious. These are the male flowers, and from their 

 structure ''can never produce squashes; their office is 

 wholly to supply pollen to fertilize the pistillate or female 

 flowers. The first pistillate or female blossom rarely ap- 

 pears nearer the root than the seventeenth leaf, or farther 

 than the twenty-third. Instead of having a long stem to 

 support it, this flower opens close down to the juncture of 

 the leaf-stalk with the vine. It has a small globular for- 

 mation beneath it, which is the embryo of the future 

 squash. If the structure of the center of the blossom is 

 examined, it will be found to differ from the tall, male 

 flower, in having the central cylinder divided at the top 

 into several parts, usually four, sometimes six in number. 

 These are what botanists call the pistils, aud it is necessary 

 2 



