1890.] History of Garden Vegetables. 739 
A quite numerous series of pumpkins are known to our seeds- 
men’s catalogues, and some of a form quite distinct from those 
here noticed, but I have not as yet sufficiently studied these so 
as to form an opinion. I think, however, that much may be yet 
learned through the examination of quite complete sets of varie- 
ties within each of the three described species of Cucurbita which 
furnish fruits for our consumption. Notwithstanding the ready 
crossings which are so apt to occur within the ascribed species, 
there yet seems to exist a permanency of types which is simply 
marvellous, and which would seem to lend countenance in the 
belief that there is a need of a revision of the species, and a 
closer study of the various groups or types which appear to have 
remained constant during centuries of cultivation. 
If we consider the stability of types, and the record of varia- 
tions that appear in cultivated plants, and the additional fact that 
so far as determined the originals of cultivated types have their 
prototype in nature" and are not the products of culture, it 
seems reasonable to suppose that the record of the appearance of 
types will throw light upon the country of their origin. From 
this standpoint, we may hence conclude that, as the present types 
have all been recorded in the Old World since the fifteenth cen- 
tury, and were not recorded before the fourteenth and succeed- 
ing centuries, there must be a connection between the fact of the 
discovery of America, and the fact of the appearance of pump- 
kins and squashes in Europe. i 
The Gourd. 
The word gourd is believed to be derived from the Latin 
curcurbita, but it takes on various forms in the various European 
languages. It is spelled gowrde by Turner in 1 538, gourde by 
Lobel in 1576, and gourd by Lyte in 1586. In France it is 
given as courgen and cohurden by Ruellius in 1 $36, but appears 
in its present form, courge, in Pinaeus, I 561. Dalechamp used 
coucourde in 1587, aname which now appears as cougourde in 
129 See A Study of the Dandelion. AM. NAT., Jan., 1886. 
See History of Celery. AM. NAT., July, 1886 
See A Study in Agr. Botany. Proc. of the Soc. for Prom. of Agr. Sc., 1886. 
See History of the Currant. Trans. of West N. Y. Hort, Soc. 
