BOOK XIX. XXIV. 71 -XXV. 75 



scraped oti' when tliey are served as food ; and 

 although it is healthy and agreeable in a variely of 

 ways, it is nevertheless one of the rinds that cannot 

 be digested by the human stomach, but swell up. The 

 seeds that were nearest the neck of the plant produce 

 long gourds, and so do those next to the bottom, 

 though the gourds grown from them are not compar- 

 able with those mentioned above ; the seeds in the 

 middle grow into round gourds, and those at the sides 

 into thick and short er ones. The seeds are dried in the 

 shade, and when they are wanted for sowing they are 

 steeped in water. The longer and thinner gourds 

 are, the more agreeable they are for food, and 

 consequently those which have been left to grow 

 hanging are more wholesome ; and this kind contain 

 fewest seeds, the hardness of which Hmits their 

 agreeableness as an article of diet. Gourds kept for 

 seed are not usually cut before winter ; after cutting 

 they are dried in smoke for storing seeds of garden 

 plants — the farm's stock in store. A plan has been 

 invented by which they are preserved for food also — 

 and the same in the case of cucumbers — to last almost 

 until the next crops are available. This method em- 

 ploys brine ; but it is reported that gourds can also be 

 kept green in a trench dug in a shady place and floored 

 with sand and covered over with dry hav and then 

 with earth. There are also wild varieties of both 

 cucumbers and gourds, as is the case with almost all 

 garden plants ; but these also only possess medicinal 

 properties, and therefore they will be deferred to the xx. 8; 13. 

 Books devoted to them. 



XXV. The remaining plants of a cartilaginous Onderground 

 nature are all hidden in the ground. Among these, p/u,!<i'f"""" 

 we might appear to have already spoken amply ^'""'»p* "««^ 



469 



navew. 

 126 IT. 



