THE EARTH’S BIGGEST FRUIT 
portance. There are others who maintain that it came 
out of the Far East along with the cantaloupe and the 
cucumber, which are kindred gourds and grow on similar 
vines. 
Certain it is that the American Indians were found 
growing pumpkin vines among their corn not long after 
Europeans came to America. It may be that yet earlier 
Europeans had passed that way and left pumpkin seed. 
It is not known whether or not pumpkins existed in the 
East before Columbus discovered America. Whole groups 
of their kindred, such as squashes and muskmelons, were 
referred to in terms which were interpreted in English as 
“ gourds,” but whether or not any of them was the mod¬ 
ern pumpkin nobody has been able to find out. 
45 
