1886 .] 
The AMERICAN 
MEW SQUASHES. 
Tlicro is such an endless diversity of forms 
a)id shapes in Squashes, and tlio con- 
si ruction of the flowers so readily faeilitates 
the crossing by bees and other insects that 
it is hut natural that now varieties should 
appear almost ovorj' year; yetitis surprising 
that among so groat a number of kinds there 
should bo comparatively few really first 
class varieties. jMossrs. AV. Atloo Burpee & 
Co., Philadelphia, are now introducing the 
now varieties, shown in our illustrations, 
which are claimed to 
be equal, if not su¬ 
perior, to any of the 
older and standard 
kinds. 
New Bed China 
Squash-—Tho skin of 
this is of a vivid red 
color, faintly striped 
longitudinally with 
pale yellow. The 
flesh is rich orange-' 
yellow, firm, fine¬ 
grained, sweet and 
excellent in quality, 
both for table use 
and for pies. It ma¬ 
tures early, keeps 
well and is immense¬ 
ly productive. 
New Brazil Sugar Squash .—Tliis is a sum¬ 
mer and fall variety. When full grown, tlie 
fruit weighs from two to four ])ounds, 
measuring six to eight inches in length. The 
skin is canary-yellow, and warted, the flesh 
is slightly greenish-yellow. It is said to be 
enormously productive and to exceed in 
quality any of the early varieties. 
■ Salem Improved Valparaiso Squash. —Ori¬ 
ginated in Salem, N. J.; skin rich orange; 
flesh yellow and fine grained. This grows 
to veiy large size, weighing from fifty to over 
GARDEN. 
BRAZIL SUGAR SQUASH. 
one hundred pounds each; season late, and 
the originator claims for it several times as 
much weight per acre as the Hubbard. 
EXPEEIEMOES WITH TOMATOES. 
It would be interesting to know what pai- 
ticular charjcter of the Tomato suggested 
the name " Love Apple,” by which it is 
known in at least three languages, doubtless 
many readers of the Amkbican Gauden can 
remember when under this name our mothers 
grew this fruit for ornament, and we were 
told never to touch it as it was poisonous. 
We should certainly be grateful to some un¬ 
known adventurer for dispelling this e- 
Ittsion by what must have seemed too 
hardy experiments. Now we should fin ^ i 
difficult to substitute the peculiar I’cfies nn„ 
flavor of this fruit, and a garden without 
"tomatoes seems to lack one of its most im 
Portant features. 
to scamilv”^ of tile 'I’omato is so simple as 
nrovoT u roitoration, tho most ap- 
piovcd writers on kitchen g.ardening urge 
moie orless strongly the importance of start- 
L 11 e plants with artificial heat, of train- 
Incl mid of pinching 
back the loading shoots to promote carli- 
less, etc. Wore these admonitions criven 
because those authors had proved by 
oxporimont that they are necessary, or were 
tho .authors guided by reason alone, into 
assuming that in the nature of the case 
RED CHINA SQUASH. 
that must be the best ivay to raise 'lomatoes? 
Listen to the result of some experiments. 
Last spring I had it in mind to find out how 
much we gain by starting Tomato plants in 
the hot-bed. Accordingly, I planted a 
quantity of seed of the Livingston’s Favorite 
variety in the latter part of March, in boxes, 
.and placed the latter in a hot-bed where (he 
temperature r.anged from 70 to SO degi-ees. 
The plants came up promptly, and grew 
rapidly, and many who saw them inquired 
if I should have any to spare. On the 24th 
of April, twenty-eight days after this plant¬ 
ing, I planted some more seeds from the 
same package, in hills in the garden, just 
as've plant Sweet Corn, except that I cow 
cred them less deeply. These seeds vege¬ 
tated after nineteen days and for a time, of 
course, bore little comparison to their hot¬ 
bed rivals. In due time the latter .after be- 
in^ first carefully hardened off were trans¬ 
planted to a plat near to the planted hills and 
I awaited the result of the competition 
with interest. The hot-bed plants turned 
pale, and, as if weary of standing erect, 
bent their stems to rest their heads upon the 
o-rouud. The others were of the deepest 
green, with chubby stems, and with leaves 
reaching as far as the plants were tall. 
Now for the result, the hot-bed plants 
i-iimned their first fruit August lOth, and 
the others ripened theirs August -1st, only 
1 In for ‘From this time forward, 
ECplants grown in tho open ground showed 
either in the quantity or 
Here is an interesting 
planting in tho open ground, until I have 
had more experience with this manner of 
culture. In regions visited with late spring 
frosts, it mightat times bo necessary to pro¬ 
tect the young plants from seed sown in the 
open ground ; and yet I have never seen To¬ 
mato plants that came up from self-sown 
seed, injured by frost in spring. Possibly 
those who grow 'Tomatoes for canning pur¬ 
poses, might plant tlieir seeds in the open 
ground witli a saving of expense. 
I have also made a comparative trial be¬ 
tween plants trained 
upon a trellis, and 
those allowed to 
grow upon the 
ground ; also be- 
tween plants 
pinched back, and 
those unpinched. 
'The results showed 
no gain in earliness 
either from the train¬ 
ing or pinching. I 
should add, howev¬ 
er, that the Tomato 
is one of our most 
capricious plants, 
and the results of 
the test may, or may 
not be confirmed by 
anothfer. It is too 
early to pronounce the question settled. 
Last season, seeds saved from a very 
gieen fruit produced plants that ripened 
Tomatoes several days earlier than plants of 
the same variety grown from mature seeds. 
The plants from the green seeds were how¬ 
ever perceptibly feebler in growth than those 
from the ripe seeds. The seeds from fruits 
gathered before fully grown and ripened by 
exposure to the sun, germinated well, and 
no inferiority, either 
soil of the g. enjoying the con- 
plants in the ho gr Was the care- 
diaons of „ det.ta.nW, or 
fully made ^en their vitality? 
did the artificial . jigynjr “ would you 
®?“*®f?open“ir method of growing the 
Cato rSrould not depend wholly upon 
SALEM IMPROVED VALPARAISO SQUASH. 
produced appai-ently healthy plants. Seeds 
gathered from the first fruits to ripen pro¬ 
duced plants that matured their first fruits 
slightly earlier that those from seeds from 
the latest fruits. 
This seems to bo an invariable rule in oth¬ 
er fruits also, that seeds from unripe fruits 
tend to promote earliness in the ratio of 
their immaturity. 
A very noticeable feature in a test of many 
varieties of the Tomato, was that the sorts 
that were earliest in 1883, were not so in 
1884. Indeed there seemed to be little uni¬ 
formity in the order of ripening of varieties 
in the two tests. “ 
