THE GARDENING WORLD. 
787 
August 11 , 1888 . 
R oyal horticultural society. 
Patron : Her Majesty The Queen. 
President: Sir Trevor Lawrence, Bart., M.P. 
Offices : 111, Victoria Street, S.W. 
IVTOTICE! The next meeting of the Emit 
_Lx and Floral Committees will be held in the Drill Hall of 
the London Scottish Rifle Volunteers, James Street, S.W., on 
Tuesday, August 14tli, when the special subjects invited for 
exhibition will be Hardy Fruits, Phloxes, Pentstemons, 
&e., &c. 
Open to Fellows at 12 o’clock, and to the public at 1 p.m. 
For particulars respecting the election of Fellows apply to the 
Secretary, 111, Victoria Street, S.W. _ 
National Co-operative Flower Show, Crystal 
Palace, August 18th, 1888. 
(1KAA AND MEDALS in Prizes for 
ot Va A/ Flowers, Fruit, Vegetables, and Honey, open 
to members of Co-operative Societies throughout the Kingdom ; 
also for Skill of Workmen in all Trades for Amateur Work 
and Entomological and other specimeus. 
Schedules of Prizes on application to 
WM. BROOMHALL, Secretary. 
1, Norfolk St., Strand, W.C. __ 
Caine Horticultural Society. 
T HE 24th ANNUAL EXHIBITION will 
be held in Bowood Park on Tuesday, the 21st inst., when 
prizes to the value of £170 will be offered. Amongst others are 
the following, open to all England 12 vars. Stove and Green¬ 
house Plants, £15j £10, £5 ; 0 Ornamental Foliage Plants, £10, 
£5, £2 10s. ; 8 Exotic Ferns, £4, £2 10s., £1 10s.; 36 Roses (cut 
flowers), Cup or £5., 50s., 30s. 
Next Week’s Engagements. 
Monday, August 13.— Sale of Dutch Bulbs at Protheroe & 
Morris’s Rooms. 
Tuesday, August 14tli.—Royal Horticultural Society : Meeting 
of .Fruit and Floral Committees at 11 a.m. Annual Exhibi¬ 
tion of the Oxford Union of Carnation and Picotee Growers. 
Flower Shows at Clay Cross, Elland, and Weston-super- 
Mare. Sale of Orchids at Protheroe & Morris’s Rooms. 
Wednesday, August 15tli. — Flower Shows at Reading, St. 
Albans and Wells. Sale of Orchids in Flower at Stevens’ 
Rooms. 
Thursday. August 16th. Exhibitions at Taunton, Ludlow and 
Maidenhead. Sale of Imported Orchids at Stevens’ Rooms 
Sale of Dutch Bulbs at Protheroe & Morris’s Rooms. 
Friday, August 17th.—Exeter and Cheadle Flower Show. Sale 
of the remaining portion of Mr. Philbrick's Orchids at 
Protheroe & Morris’s Rooms. 
Saturday, August ISth.— National Co-operative Flower Show at 
the Crystal Palace. Carnation and Picotee Show at Man¬ 
chester. Sale of Dutch Bulbs at Protheroe & Morris’s 
Rooms. 
FOR INDEX TO CONTENTS, SEE P. 798. 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”— Bacon. 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 18S8. 
Vegetable Marrows. — The cultivation of the 
Gourd dates back for a considerable period, 
but of the many species and varieties the 
Vegetable Marrow (Cucurbita ovifera) is the 
one most largely used in this country for 
culinary purposes. Did all the different types 
of Gourds that we see in the present day 
originate from a single type 1 That is a 
question perhaps a little difficult to answer, 
but to Mons. Charles Naudin certainly belongs 
the credit of having first thrown light upon 
the chaos of species and varieties, and of 
having ascertained the origin and parentage 
of the different forms, all of which he refers 
to three very distinct species, viz., Cucurbita 
maxima, C. moschata and C. pepo. How- 
ever they may have originated, and notwith¬ 
standing the botanical distinctions that can be 
drawn by specialists, the Gourds, in their 
growth and fruit, exhibit a striking resem¬ 
blance, from which it is easy to understand 
how it was that they -were for a long time 
supposed to be mere varieties of a single 
species. They are all annual climbing plants, 
furnished with tendrils ; the plants grow very 
rapidly, and heat is indispensable for their 
development. Being originally natives of 
warm climates, they are essentially summer 
plants, and they are of so tender a char¬ 
acter that early and late frosts alike make 
havoc of their green parts, and completely 
stop their growth. 
Mr. Folkard gives a very curious legend 
respecting the Pumpkin. He relates that 
there once existed a mighty man, named 
Iaia, whose only son died. The father wished 
to bury him, hut did not know where, so lie 
placed him in an enormous Pumpkin, which 
he conveyed to the foot of a mountain, not 
far from his habitation. Impelled by his 
love for the departed one, he one day . had 
the curiosity to revisit the spot, and desirous 
of once again seeing his son, he opened the 
Pumpkin, and immediately whales and other 
immense fish jumped out. Iaia was frightened, 
returned home, and told what he had seen 
to his neighbours, adding tliat the Pumpkin 
appeared to be filled with water and quantities 
of fish. Four brothers, who had been born 
at one time, rushed off in haste to the spot 
indicated, in order to secure the fish for 
food. Iaia followed to prevent them from 
injuring the Pumpkin. The brothers, who 
had succeeded in lifting the gigantic vegetable, 
were frightened at seeing Iaia approach, and 
let fall "the Pumpkin, which was, in conse¬ 
quence, cracked in several places. From the 
fissures thus made poured forth such a volume 
of water that the whole earth was inundated, 
and from this circumstance the oceans were 
formed ! 
The commonest form of the Vegetable 
Marrow grown for edible purposes is the 
Long White, which is a very free grower 
and bearer, and having a smooth skin, but 
seminal varieties vary in character. The 
market gardeners, who grow it largely for 
market, appear to prefer the ribbed form of 
the Long White. This is traversed by five 
longitudinal ribs, and it is said to be earlier 
and to produce larger fruit in a shorter time. 
As a matter of course, Vegetable Marrows 
are usually eaten before the fruits are fully 
grown, and by cutting and so preventing the 
energies of the plant from being devoted to 
the perfect maturation of the fruit, the plant 
continues to produce new fruits in succession. 
There are also green-skinned varieties of the 
foregoing, that are probably merely sports 
obtained from seed. 
The Bush Marrows are much grown by 
the Bedfordshire market gardeners. The stems 
of this type, instead of running, remain rather 
short and very thick, bearing closely set 
leaves of a dark green colour, with a few 
greyish blotches, and deeply cut and toothed at 
the edges. How this type originated is perhaps 
not accurately known. There is a white and 
green form of it; the fruits are longer and 
larger than those of the ordinary Vegetable 
Marrow, and ribbed. The white form, when 
it becomes more plentiful, is likely to dis¬ 
place the green one for market purposes, as it 
is very quick and swells to size very rapidly. 
The fruits are thrown out thickly round the 
heart of the plant, and they produce more 
in rapid succession. 
What is known as the Italian Vegetable 
Marrow is a long green ribbed form ; the 
fruit is much elongated, the skin very smooth, 
of a dark green colour and marbled with yellow 
or paler green. This Gourd is much grown 
in Italy, and the fruit there is eaten quite 
young, when it is hardly the size of a small 
CucumbeT, sometimes even before the flower 
has opened, when the ovary, which is scarcely 
as long or as thick as the finger, is gathered 
for use. The plants, which are thus deprived 
of their undeveloped fruits, continue to flower 
for several months most profusely, each pro¬ 
ducing a great number of young gourds, 
which, gathered in that state, are exceedingly 
tender and delicately flavoured. Messrs. 
Vilmorin & Co., in their Vegetable Garden, 
recommend that this system of culture should 
be tried - in this country, and the same excellent 
way of gathering young fruit adopted. The 
stems of this variety do not run, and it would 
appear to answer to the green form of the 
Bush Marrow, as grown in this country. 
Moore’s Vegetable Cream, which is closely 
allied to Hibbard’s Prolific, is a seminal 
variety, producing short, plum-shaped white, 
smooth-skinned fruits, and is a good form for 
small gardens. King’s Acre Cream is a kind 
of long Moore’s Vegetable Cream, but not so 
white in colour as the Long White •; the fruits 
are the same size in their full length, and it 
is a very free hearer. The Custard Marrow 
is too well known to need description, and it 
is only sparingly cultivated. The Zuchina 
Vegetable Marrow is a novelty, hearing round 
green fruit, with a bushy habit of growth. 
It is scarcely necessary to say much about 
the cultivation of the Vegetable Marrow. In 
Bedfordshire the bush varieties are planted 
thickly, in widths of 10 ft. or 12 ft., and hands 
of Rye are previously sown on either side to 
afford shelter from tearing winds. Round Lon¬ 
don the Long White is most generally grown. 
The plants are placed out where they have 
ample space over which to run, and the soil 
is mulched with spent hops or short manure, 
which keeps the earth cool and moist, besides 
assisting to fertilise it. 
-- 
The Northern Show of the National Carnation 
and Picotee Society is postponed to August ISth at 
the Royal Botanic Gardens, Manchester ; under the 
auspices of the council of the Royal Botanical Society. 
Gardening' Engagement. — Mr. G. Waller, late 
foreman at Billinghem Park, Wokingham, as gardener 
to J. Godman, Esq., Park Hatch, Godaiming. 
Nursery Employes at the Sea-side.—The employes 
of Messrs. John Laing & Sons, Forest Hill Nurseries, 
to the number of eighty, spent a most enjoyable day on 
Friday, the 3rd inst., at Brighton. 
“ Lindenia.”—The twelfth number of the third 
volume gives fine plates of Cypripedium Cannrertianum, 
which is a fixed sport from C. Roebelinii, with divided 
lower sepals striped like the superior one ; the now 
plentiful, but still puzzling Odontoglossum Harryanum ; 
the curious Masdevallia spectrum, somewhat like a 
narrow M. Chimsera, with curious eyes and rays in the 
centre ; and the new Catasetum d-ecipiens, which at 
first sight reminds one of both C. discolor and C. 
longifolium, but is, however, distinct and handsome 
enough. 
The Weather in Switzerland.—Writing from 
Lucerne on the 6th inst. a correspondent says :—“On 
Thursday last, August 2nd, we hid 3 ins. of snow— 
terrible for August—and to-day it comes down again. 
The weather has been very broken, but now and again 
we have had some glorious days and view’s. As with 
you, there has been much rain here and thunderstorms 
—so very different from the splendid weather I had 
here last year. ” 
The Weather.—A Yorkshire correspondent writes : 
—“What a wonderful difference between this season 
and last—then we suffered from drought, now we are 
in difficulties from an excess of wet. ‘ R. D.’ happily 
said, Happy is the enthusiastic gardener or amateur 
who has a glass roof under which to shelter his pet 
plants from the pitiless downpour, but happier still, 
say I, is the man who has also an overcoat, an umbrella, 
and a silo, for these are the most seasonable things in 
this very unseasonable weather.” 
A Busy Week.—Next week will be a busy one for 
exhibitors all over the country. On Tuesday, besides 
the meeting in the Drill Hall, at Westminster, 
the Oxford Union of Carnation and Picotee Growers 
will hold high court in Mr. Dodwell’s garden, and 
flower shows will be held at Clay Cross, Chesterfield ; 
Elland, and Weston-super-Mare. On Wednesday the 
Readiug, St. Albans, and Wells Shows will be held ; 
on Thursday, Taunton, Ludlow, and Maidenhead will 
hold the field ; on Friday the venue will be changed to 
Exeter and Cheadle ; and on Saturday we shall have 
the National Co-operative Flower Show at the Crystal 
Palace, and the Carnation and Picotee Show at Man¬ 
chester. 
Chrysanthemum 'carixatum or tricolor.—A 
stand of cut blooms of this charming annual Chry¬ 
santhemum, shown at the exhibition of the St. Neots 
Horticultural Society, held on the 4th inst., were 
much admired, as they deserved to be. They varied 
largely, from an almost pure white variety with faint 
rin^s of colour down to the deep chestnut-red of the 
variety Burridgeanum. These Chrysanthemums aie 
easily grown, and besides being very effective in the 
border, are also very useful for cutting from. 
