SQUASHES, HOW TO GROW THEM, ETC. 65 



and lowering their value for market purposes. In washing 

 the seed, the water used may be made about milk warm, and 

 so soon as they have been squeezed out of the entrails, 

 skim them off the surface, dropping them into a sieve 

 about as coarse as a common coal sieve ; when this is nearly 

 full, dash over them a couple of buckets of water, giving 

 them immediately a quick shaking, which will tend to 

 work out through the meshes fragments of the entrails that 

 were taken out with them. If the hand is thrust into a 

 mass of freshly washed seed, it will collect a good many 

 pieces of the entrails. After pouring the water on the 

 seed, incline the sieve at a sharp angle, in order to drain 

 off the water. After they are well drained, pour them 

 out on a large piece of soft cotton cloth, and rub and 

 roll them well to absorb as much of the moisture as possi- 

 ble. Now spread as above directed. Two good hands, 

 with seed in the right state, will sometimes wash out not 

 far from one hundred pounds of seed in a day. 



When are Squash Seed Sufficiently Dry 1— It took me a 

 couple of years to learn a very simple rule by which this 

 can be infallibly determined ; meanwhile I suffered a great 

 deal of anxiety, took a great deal of extra care, (I got out 

 twenty-six hundred pounds of squash seed one season,) and 

 yet after all had a feeling of uncertainty in the premises. 

 The ordinary way is to call squash seed dry when the en- 

 veloping skin has sejmrated from the seed, and the seed 

 itself is much contracted and has a dry look. If the tem- 

 perature to which it has been exposed is quite low, 

 this is a pretty safe guide, but if it has been dried at a 

 somewhat high temperature — though the seeds may rustle 

 with quite a dry sound when handled, yet appearance 

 is a very deceitful guide — and if such seed are packed 

 in barrels, they will be very likely to sweat, and when 

 turned out, come out in caked masses, and if left together, 

 will soon become musty. Squash seed, to be really dry, 



