j'AltRY H.O 
QLjF 
VOL. XLVII. NO. 2030. NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22, 1888. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
[Entered According to Act of Congress, In the Year 1888, by the Rural New-Yorker, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.] 
fyaxtuultuxal, 
SQUASH CULTURE ON LONG ISLAND. 
W. FALCONER. 
Squashes profitable there only as a sub¬ 
sidiary crop; enormous yields ; why Boston 
Marrow is the Javorite; the Hubbard the 
highest-priced ; why only one kind is 
usually raised by each grower ; winter 
storage ; squash houses, their construction 
and use ; 11 He'' 1 and “ She ” squashes. 
One would hardly think that within 10 
miles of the city of New York, and on one of 
the best cultivated spots of land on the face of 
the earth, squashes could be grown as a re¬ 
munerative crop; but they are, and in large 
quantity too. Of course, they form only one 
of two or more crops taken from the same 
ground in a season, 
and in this way alone 
they can be profita¬ 
bly grown. Mr. Hop¬ 
kins,one of the old¬ 
est and best market 
gardeners on Long 
Island, whose place 
is between Jamaica 
and Aquaduct Sta¬ 
tion, tells me that he 
has often raised as 
many as 200 barrels 
of squashes to the 
acre. They are not 
grown as we grow 
pumpkins, in the 
field, along with the 
corn, but as we grow 
cucumbers—a full 
crop by themselves, 
succeeding some ear¬ 
ly crop. The Boston 
Marrow is the favor¬ 
ite variety; in fact, 
in only one instance 
did I find any other 
sort grown, and this 
was at Mr. Abram 
Van Sicklin's, who 
had a few Hubbards 
as well. The Boston 
Marrow is tho favor¬ 
ite squash with the 
marketmen as being 
in most demand for 
hotel and restaurant 
use ; but the Hub¬ 
bards bring a higher 
price and are bought 
up for private fami¬ 
lies mostly. As these 
market gardeners 
grow their own seed, 
they dislike to grow 
more than cue varie¬ 
ty on account of the 
liability of squashes, in common with other 
races of the Cucumber family, to intermix, and 
any sign of mixing—mis-shape, change of color, 
or streak or blotch of any other than the typi¬ 
cal color—amounts to a depreciation in their 
market value. The Boston Marrow is an 
orange-yellow-skinned variety, and the deeper 
the color, the better it will sell. If sown late 
so that the squashes do not have a good long 
ripening season, they are apt to bo somewhat 
pale-colored, hence not so marketable. Again, 
unless perfectly ripe, they don’t keep very 
well. If they get a slight touch of frost be¬ 
fore they are brought indoors, it may not 
show itself at the time, bub very soon after 
the squashes are housed, spotting of the skin 
and rot will betray those that frost had 
reached. The Boston Marrow, besides being 
a capital marketing squash, is particularly 
valuable for the market gardener, in so far 
that it grows and ripens a crop of squashes in a 
shorter time than is required by the Hubbard, 
Marblehead or other first-class late-keeping 
varieties; hence it is more available for plant¬ 
ing as a second crop—that is, after early 
potatoes, early cabbages, lettuce or other 
spring crops—than would be anyjof the varie¬ 
ties requiring a longer season of ripening. 
Of course, it is very interesting to see these 
squashes growing in the fields in summer 
and being harvested when ripe, but it is a 
good deal more interesting to see them in 
winter when stored in the squash houses 
awaiting better markets and bigger prices. 
And it is here that these city and suburban 
market gardeners have the advantage over 
the more distant farmers. The farmer has to 
get rid of his squashes before winter sets im 
else the cold weather will rot them in his 
ba^ns—for they are extremely impatient of 
or walls are very tightly constructed and 
have several windows for light and venti¬ 
lation. The floorings are not close as in a 
house, but made of 4j/£ or five-inch-wide 
boards with a space of half to three-quarters 
of an inch between them, so that in this way 
the interior of the house is pretty well open 
from the cellar to the ceiling, admitting of 
ready warming, drying and ventilating. Be¬ 
tween the floor and the ceiling (if I may so 
term the open floor above) of each story are 
arranged tiers of shelves five to six feet wide 
and the length of the house,with passages two 
to three feet wide between them. These 
shelves are made of narrow boards, set even 
more widely apart than are those of the floor. 
In Mr. Abram Van Sicklin’s house he has seven 
shelves 11 inches apart, one above the other, 
on each floor, and the squashes are laid one 
deep on these shelves; this gives him eight 
tiers of squashes on each floor—one on the 
floor itself and seven on the shelves. He has 
horny protuberance at the blossom end; but 
in the crop there occur a good many squashes of 
a chunkier and less attenuated form, and in¬ 
stead of the horny protuberance extending so 
pointedly, it is far less marked and sunk in a 
deep, wide or narrow concavity, as the case 
may be. The growers save their seed from 
these concaved-ended squashes because plants 
raised from them yield a far heavier crop 
than do plants raised from seeds saved from 
the sharp-pointed squashes. 
They insist that the same peculiarity in 
form and productiveness also occurs in the 
other squashes and pumpkins. Although this 
before now had escaped my own observation, 
there is something in it, for every one of these 
gardeners explained it to me in the same way, 
and they are a very responsible, intelligent 
and observing class of people. But Mr. Hop¬ 
kins tells me that a too close adherence to this 
concave form will eventually degenerate the 
strain. 
R. N.-Y.— Speci- 
mens of these 
quashes, called by 
the farmers on Long 
Island, respectively 
“He” and “She,” 
were given Mr. Fal¬ 
coner by Mr. Abram 
Van Sicklin of Ja¬ 
maica. We have had 
very careful draw¬ 
ings made to show 
the difference in 
shape. They are 
shown at Fig 407. 
We shall be glad to 
have those of our 
readers who have ex- 
p e r i m e n ted with 
’planting seeds from 
these * “ He ” and 
“ She ” squashes, let 
us know wnat tney 
have learned about 
this matter 
“A 
MODEL HEN¬ 
HOUSE.” 
(See page 846) 
SPECIMENS OF “HE" AND “SHE" SQUASHES. From Nature. Fig. 407. 
cold—or they may get frozen on their way to 
market. 
The market gardeners build regular squash 
houses, and heat them with stoves and main¬ 
tain a temperature of about60°, and hereeach 
can keep his squashes as long as he pleases 
and cart them to market in his own wagons 
at his convenience in winter, when he has no 
other bulky crops, as cabbages, cauliflowers, 
or potatoes, to bother with, and during the 
short time they will be in his wagons he can 
cover them up enough to protect them from a 
very sharp frost. All of the squash houses 
are after the same pattern and in outward ap¬ 
pearance much resemble a nicely constructed 
barn or dwelling-house two stories and an 
attic high, with a cellar under it. Each 
story is about eight feet high. The outsides 
now between 1,600 and 1,700 barrels of 
squashes in his squash house. He uses the 
cellar] for .other storing purposes as it is a 
little too damp for squashes to keep well 
in it. Mr. J. R. Fredericks, another large 
neighboring grower, has a good example 
of the squash house more commonly used. It 
resembles Mr. Van Sicklin’s in almost all 
particulars except the shelves. These are 
nearly two feet apart and consist of three 
ranges above the floor in each room; and in¬ 
stead of storing the squashes one deep he has 
them two and sometimes three deep. 
These market gardeners called my attention 
to something in squashes that I never took 
any notice of before. As we all know, the 
typical form of the Boston Marrow is some¬ 
what attenuated at each end, with a stout, 
This is what Mr. 
. F. F. Townsend, of 
Washington County, 
Iowa, calls the build¬ 
ing shown at Fig. 412 
—see page 846. As 
will be seen by an 
examination of the 
pictures, the build¬ 
ing is 14x20 feet, with 
walls eight feet high. The walls are double- 
boarded up and down with tar-paper between 
the boards. In the three drawings, A repre¬ 
sents the place for roosts; B, a floor under the 
roosts to catch the droppings, and C, a trough 
into which the droppings can be scraped. D 
is a door and W W are windows. It will be 
noticed that the feed room is directly under 
the roosts, but fully protected by the floor 
that is built to catch the droppings. These 
must be cleaned from such a place every few 
days. It will be noticed that there are two 
ventilators on the house. These are always 
closed in winter. From the numerous poultry- 
houses illustrated year after year in the Rural 
it should be easy to select a good one; while 
the liberal discussion of the subject should 
leave no doubt as to the evils to be avoided. 
