44 MY GARDEN 



duly set out during May. All prospered and all 

 fruited freely. But now began the enchantments 

 of Sir Thomas that horticultural Prospero of the 

 Italian seaboard. Those six vines bore no less than 

 four distinct varieties of fruit ! I show you a picture 

 of them, and can bring witnesses to prove the story. 

 Two plants produced flat, small gourds, like the 

 parent ; two furnished a gourd also flat, but larger 

 than the first, and marked with alternate bars of dark 

 and light green ; one vine carried an oval gourd of a 

 very dark green throughout ; and the last bore warted 

 fruit, rather bigger than an ostrich's egg, of a pale corn- 

 colour, streaked and splashed with brilliant orange. 



Now this is a most interesting experience, and 

 botanists ought to make a great deal of it. What 

 troubles me is not so much the scientific side, as the 

 opportunity that I have thrown away. Had I guessed 

 at the magic nature of this little gourd from the South ; 

 had I received any inkling of its amazing properties, I 

 should, for one year, have devoted my entire garden 

 to the raising of gourds, and become the greatest 

 gourd expert in the world. Because, if six seeds 

 produced four varieties, twelve must have given me 

 eight, and a hundred, no less than sixty-six. Multiply 

 sixty-six by five, for the gourd contained at least five 

 hundred seeds, and we get three hundred and thirty 

 different gourds. But there are not three hundred 

 and thirty gourds known to cultivation. Therefore 

 it follows that, had I produced such a crop of new 

 varieties, my name must have rung through gourd 

 circles to the end of time. 



