■] 



PUMPKIN, RADISH. 



127 



they will produce little roots fit to plant out for a crop next 

 spring. Few people take the pains to do this, the sorts being 

 already as numerous as the stones of the pavement of a large city. 



173. PUMPKIN. — A thing little used in England, but of great 

 use in hot countries. They are of various sorts, the fruit of some 

 of which are of immense size, and the fruit of others in veiy 

 common use in the making of pies, where however they require 

 the assistance of cream, sugar, nutmeg, and other spices ; but, 

 when so prepared, are very pleasant things. They are by no 

 means bad cattle food, especially for milch cows, during two 

 months in the fall of the year ; and I have no doubt that they 

 would produce twenty ton weight upon an acre of land. The 

 time for planting them in the natural ground is the middle of ^lay. 

 They are not so sensible of frost as the cucumber. They will be 

 up in the first week of June, and you have nothing to do but to 

 keep the ground clear of weeds. The best way is to put three or 

 four seeds in a clump, and put the clumps at ten or twelve feet 

 apart. The runners should have a proper direction given to them, 

 should be fastened down to the ground with pegs at every two or 

 three feet, and the runners will then send new roots down into the 

 ground. You know when the pumpkins are ripe by tiieir tinming 

 yellow, and striped, and when the leaves begin to die. If you wisb 

 to save the seed, you must let the pumpkin be quite ripe, and then 

 manasie the seed as in the case of the cucumber. Different sorts 

 must not grow near one another. If they do, they will mix. 



174. PURSLANE. — A mischievous weed, eaten by Ereocbmea 

 and pigs when they can get nothing else. Both use it in salad, 

 that is to say, raw. 



175. RADISH. — There are two distinct species of radishes, the 

 tap-rooted, and the turnip-rooted. Of the latter, there are red and 

 white. The former are all red ; some, how^ever, of a deeper dye 

 than others. The great thing in the case of radishes is to have 

 them early in the Spring, and, for this purpose, the tap-rooted 

 kinds only are used, as they come quicker than others. In the 

 open natural ground, radishes are sowed in the latter end of 

 February, or early in March, and a few once a fortnight, until the 

 beginning of May. If sowed later than that, they are hot and 

 disagreeable, and very few people care for them. The turnip- 

 rooted sorts should be of the latest sowings ; bat even they be- 

 come hot, if sowed after the first of May. I should hardly prevail 



