CHAPTER XX. 
SQUASHES, GOURDS, AND MARROWS. 
“ Go to, then ; we'll use this wholesome humidity, 
This gross watery pompion ; well teach 
Him to know turtles from jays.” 
Merry Wives , III ., 5. 
S HE appearance of pumpkins and gourds on every cottager’s 
fence proves that they are in universal request, and so 
easily grown that they might almost be classed with the 
weeds of the kitchen garden. To make a lengthy chapter on 
the cultivation of these useful fruits would be to tax the reader’s 
time unfairly, for, given a certain few very simple conditions, 
and there is nothing more simple in all the horticultural 
practices. 
The Squash, Cucurbita melo-pepo; the Pumpkin, C. pepo ; 
the Pottron, C. patira; the Vegetable Marrow, C. ovipera , 
and the rest of this useful and variable family may be grown 
to the greatest perfection by very rough means, provided they 
have the advantage of a long hot summer. In a cold wet 
season they are scarcely profitable ; but fair average con- 
ditions satisfy them, provided only they begin life well. _ 
We will suppose that in a sunny sheltered nook in the 
garden, there is a great heap of earth derived from an excava- 
tion on the premises, or carted in for some special purpose, 
as for example, that the turf in it may be rotted down for the 
potting shed. On this mound a lot of gourds or pumpkins 
may be grown without the least injury to the bulk of stuff, 
and it scarcely matters what the stuff is, whether top spit of 
pasture laid up at some cost, or clay from a foundation, or 
mere rubbish, that no one knows what to do with. Let us 
make a profitable garden of this miniature mountain. In the 
first -week of April we sow in pots seeds of the gourds intended 
to be grown, and put the pots on a sunny shelf in a green- 
house or on a mild hot-bed. As soon as the plants have about 
three rough leaves each, we knock them out and pot them 
