206 



THE GARDEN AND FIELD. 



October, 1913 



well to scrape the bean. When 

 cut into leng-ths of three to six 

 inches and sliced, it lis very like 

 a particularly fine dish of .French 

 beans both in ajipearance and 

 color. An Indian method of cook- 

 ino^ is to stufi three-inch lengths 

 with minced meat, etc. 



.\ bean five or six feet long 

 would weigh a couple of pounds. 

 It al^pears to object to very wet 

 or verv dry weather, on the other 

 hand it will .stand all the heat 

 there is about. It seems to be 

 suited bv the same conditions as 

 the Choko. 



THE IvUFFA. 



The vegetable sponge is well 

 known in the bathroom, but one 

 . mav safelv admit that the average 

 gardener would be siirprised to 

 meet it on his dinner table. In its 

 vounger state, however, it is con- 

 sidered in manv countries to be 

 good to eat, for the interwoven 

 fibres do not develop until attain 

 ine maturity. They grow readily 

 with us, merely as curio.sities, but in 

 Japan and South Africa are grown 

 largelv for export. The vine is 

 not partiqularly rampant, and is 

 trained on a rough trellis. Five 

 or .six good sponges (or fruits) 

 are considered a good crop, and 

 this works out at the rate of 

 planting at about twenty-four 

 thousand to the acre. Its pre- 

 paration is quite sim])le. There 

 is a considerable demand for them 

 and does not appear tb be any 

 reason whv they should not pay 

 commercially. 



THE PIPE GOITRD. 



We have never heard of the true 

 pipe gourd being eaten even as a 

 second rate of vegetable but a 

 variety known in Queensland as 

 the Butter Gourd is sometimes 

 called the poor man's vegetable 

 marrow. When fully ripe and dry, 

 savs the Queensland Agricultural 

 .Journal, these gourds have a 

 tough shell, and might be used in 

 a similar manner to the Bottle 

 gourd, but if cut quite young are 

 excellent eating. This variety 

 bears best on the ground when 

 a vine , will carrv five to tfen large 

 fruit u]) to three feet in length, 

 and six inches in diameter, it often 

 assumes fantastic shape, some- 

 times forming a com])]ete knot. 



The true pipe gourd — I,agcnaria 

 Vulgaris — is another of the gourds 

 grown as curio.sities with us, but 

 for which an extensive demand has 

 grown up in Sonth Africa from 

 wht-nce the Calabash ])ii>es, as they 

 are called, are largely exported. 



The vine makes a very satisfactory 

 cover but its rather rank odonr 

 may be objectionable too near the 

 house. The chief interest in grow- 

 ing the vine is, how^ever, in the 

 shaping of the gourds. The plants 

 thrive in any rich garden soil, and 

 cucumber treatment will satisfy 

 them complete, y. The fri'iit .should 

 be allowed to lie on the ground or 

 rather not be trained to a trellis, 

 but it seems to induce a . mo're 

 perfect neck if when half grown 

 they are rested on their big ends. 

 They are brittle at this stage, but 

 afterwards become unbreakable. 

 The vine bears freely from ten to, 

 mavbe, twenty, but only a propor- 

 tion .shape up well. With a sys- 

 tem of bending and training, on a 

 board six or eight inches square, 

 perforated something like a crib- 

 bage board, with suitable pegs, the 

 neck can be manipulated in almost 

 any desired form. . 



The manufacture of the pipe is a 

 very simple matter, the necessary 

 materials being easily obtained 

 from a tobacconist. 



Vegetable Beds. 



In winter and early spring we 

 slope our beds to the north, 

 ridge them for tbe same purpose 

 — to get light and heat — ^and raise 

 them to get drainage, a quite un- 

 necessary precaution, by the way, 

 during the last winter. 



It is often surprising what a 

 marked advantage, an apparently 

 little thoujrh reallv important dif- 

 ference, will make in the result of 

 a sowing. .Just lately, for in- 

 .stance, a planting of French beans 

 came up quickly and' evenly but 

 another bed of the same .seed, same 

 soil, same manure, same every- 

 thing, excei^t that one was on the 

 sunny side of a row of cabbages 

 and the other the .shady .side, not 

 only came up later, but mostly 

 failed to come up at all and have 

 long .since rotted. In .summer, on 

 the other hand, we level the beds 

 to prevent evaporation and .sink 

 them to save surface wa.ste of 

 water. 



In making early beds of cucum- 

 bers and that tribe it is very 

 general to dig out a trench or 

 number of holes and concentrate 

 the manure in them, covering with 

 a light covering of earth. The ob- 

 ject is, of couTse, to get heat and 

 a quick start, which is accomplish- 

 ed if enough manure is used and 

 it is sufficiently but not too new, 



that is in the " hot bed " condi- 

 tion. You get what you want 

 but, as in most things, have to 

 pay a price for it. Plants are 

 tender and want watching, and so 

 bv the way, does the water bill if 

 you do much of this trenching on 

 some soils, say a sandy loam on 

 gravel, or on shallow limestone, 

 where the cru,st has been broken or 

 taken out. Of course if you have 

 a nice clay sub.soil you can trench 

 to your heart's content and not 

 be afraid to look your water 

 meter in the face. A friend of 

 ours once took out some of these 

 trenches, he jnade them big and 

 beautiful, thev only had one fault, 

 which he discovered afterwards, 

 they had no bottom. He described 

 his exi>erience as follows : — First I 

 stopped home from chiirch to 

 water my cucumbers, then dropped 

 going to cricket, next I took my 

 summer holidays before I wanted 

 them, then I asked my mother-in- 

 law to stay with me to help on 

 the job and she stopped till Easter 

 and finally I had to sell the piano 

 to pay the water bill. He's not 

 perhaps as truthful as he might 

 be, but anyway he serves to what 

 is usually called, " Sound a note 

 of warning." The hot bed is not 

 necessary at this time of year and 

 any manure you use is better dis- 

 tributed over the whole area of the 

 bed and dug two spits deep. If 

 you put three or four, barrow-loads 

 of stable manure on each five by 

 twenty feet of bed, with albs, of 

 super and half a pound of sulphate 

 of potash, yon are being pretty 

 liberal ; anyway, you won't go 

 sho'rt of cucumbers, melons, etc. 

 Such a bed will hold th'ree or four 

 holes. Put half a dozen seeds at 

 around each hole and thin 

 out each hole to two soon after 

 they are up. You can majce tip 

 ^•onr mind to take the remaining 

 one out when both have fairly 

 started. It is c^uite easy to do 

 so now, later you will think it ; 

 seems a sinlul waste. If \'OU| start 

 with three holes in that space it ' 

 probably won't make much differ- 

 ence one way or other other, you 

 ought to get more cucumbers than 

 an ordinary family can want dur- 

 ing the time they are fn fruit. \ 

 Planting three holes of one plant 

 at different tim.es is better than 

 three plants in one hole at one 

 time for ordinary famih' use. 



ArOAUClS : aomathin^ itbont 



yur m (.hid*"' braading, raarintf 

 and maBJt^ntf Ltiva Btoek ? L«t 

 as hav* it if it will anly fill tb« 

 baak m4 a Pw* oavcL 



I 



