96 
THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 
summer we grew an immense quantity of vegetable marrows, 
which were exceedingly grateful to our sheep on the burnt-up 
pastures. 
Vegetable marrows are well known as a garden esculent; 
these, too, are varied as to sort, but the long green and yellow 
varieties are very productive, and, when young, are by some 
esteemed as a vegetable. Larger examples of these are useful 
for cattle, sheep, and pig food. 
We grow our vegetable marrows on the top of the farm 
mixen, and so easily get enormous crops, which are used for 
the table, or, getting beyond this, for cattle food. 
Pumpkins were formerly as much grown in England as 
they are now in America. Our transatlantic cousins seem to 
have taken with them the love as well as the art in making 
of the “punkin” (pumpkin ?) pie. We remember this solace 
of our youth far beyond even the famous mince pie of modern 
days; but of late years we have not had an opportunity of 
testing whether this was merely a youthful partiality, or 
whether it would stand the test of a matured taste ; but if 
the latter, we can only consider the lapse of pumpkin-pie 
making to be a national loss. 
Gourds are principally known to us for their curiously- 
formed, vari-coloured, and ornamental fruits. In the tropics 
many of these are employed for water-bottles and domestic 
utensils of various forms and sizes. 
Speaking of the order in general. Professor Lindley says :— 
“ There is reason to believe that some, at least, if not all the 
edible sorts, owe their freedom from poisonous properties to 
cultivation, for some in the wild state are found to possess 
them in much activity. 
The Lagenaria vulgaris or bottle-gourd may be cited as an 
example of this, it being recorded that some sailors were 
poisoned by drinking beer that had been standing in a flask 
made of one of those gourds, and Dr. Hoyle mentions a some¬ 
what similar case, where symptoms of cholera were induced 
by eating the bitter pulp.” 
In concluding our remarks upon this order of plants, whose 
structures for the most part are the receptacles for very active 
principles, we should mention that the seeds usually form 
an exception to this, as they are mostly sweet, oily, and de¬ 
mulcent, some being of the size and equal in flavour to the 
almond. 
One genus, however, presents species whose seeds are in¬ 
tensely bitter ; such are those of the Feuillaa corclifolia and 
F. trilobata. Dr. Lindley tells us that “ they yield a fatty 
oil, used instead of ointment in pains of the joints. In fine. 
