VEGETABLES. 151 



VEGETABLES. 



ESSEX. 



From the Report of the Committee. 



Your Committee are pleased to be able to report that the 

 display in the vegetable department this season was in some 

 respects an improvement on that of last year. The new re- 

 quirements were responded to in several products, and we 

 trust that as they become more and more known they will 

 recommend themselves to the intelligence of the farmers of 

 Essex, and the result will be to gather to our annual fairs 

 higher standards of excellence in vegetables. This change 

 cannot be brought about immediately, but where such good 

 farmers as Alley of Marblehead, and Merrill of Danvers, lead, 

 others in time will be sure to follow. 



I would recommend that hereafter the premiums for Hubbard 

 squashes be limited to those weighing from eight to twelve 

 pounds. Our exhibition of this season gave us some fine speci- 

 mens, with the exception that the size of many of them was 

 too great. We all know how destructive to both quality and 

 purity is the tendency to select the largest specimens in the 

 squash family for stock seed. With the Hubbard it will result 

 in the loss of the shell, a coarseness of fibre, and will ultimately 

 destroy those characteristics which give it the greatest value for 

 table use. We have lost the ancient excellences of the Mar- 

 row, in all probability, by this unhealthy course of sacrificing 

 everything most desirable to mere size ; let us fight a good 

 fight for the Hubbard in its best estate. 



In my report of last year I presented some of the best kinds 

 of several varieties of vegetables. To " know beans " is pro- 

 verbially a measure of wisdom ; yet the knowledge of the ag- 

 ricultural public of this vegetable, which demands its place in 

 every garden, is not always exhaustive. 



In addition to the old classification into bush and pole, we 

 have tlie intermediate varieties. These are more productive 

 than the common bush, require about three feet between the 

 rows, where they will develop well at two and a half feet apart, 

 and yet are not of so running a habit as to need poles. Tl.e 



