GOURD, or a melon, botanically speaking, is not always something good to eat, or in some other way useful. The Latin word cucurbita, or gourd, gives the name to an extensive family of vine-like plants, some of which climb and others do not, all of which bear fruits, or what are botanically regarded as such, some of which are among the most inviting that come upon the table. Others are bitter and medicinal, as the colocynth of Palestine, and others again are rank and nauseous. What is usually regarded as a gourd* is a hanging fruit, which at maturity has a hard wood-like rind and contains a pulp, very bitter, that dries almost entirely away, leaving little but what holds the abundant seeds of the fruit. One peculiarity of the plants producing what we call dipper gourds or calabashes is the musk-like odor that most of them give out when their leaves are pinched.

We generally look upon a gourd as something unsuitable for the table; but this is an error, as when cooked, several of the species of Syria, Japan and Brazil are palatable when prepared young, especially those which grow long, thin and green, like the Hercules' Club.

One sort furnishes the reticulated skeleton used as a bathing-scrubber and in making beautiful bonnets. It is sometimes called a " dish-cloth gourd," from one of its » uses in our gulf states. In India the natives eat one of the varieties when quite young ; but we never discovered anything to tempt one to test any of a dozen varieties we have grown in this city. The Sponge-bearing cucumber (Luffa macrocarpa) of Egypt and Japan will reach perfection in Philadelphia in five months, and will' stand the climate from June 1st to November 15th ; but the plants should be started in the house, to make sure of a crop, as the fruits sometimes set very late. The Egyptian luffa, described by Prosper Alpinus in 1645 among the plants and fruits of Egypt, is the one best suited to this country, and should be grown as a climber, although near Cairo, where there is no rain, it is raised over large tracts of land, as a cucumber is grown. Still, even in Egypt, the skeletons are often rendered dark and inferior by their manner of growth and preparation, as compared with some of silvery whiteness produced in this city on the south side of a wooden building where the sun reached them all day.

Here, seeds planted in June, bore perfected fruits with jet-black seeds by November 1st, and I have not seen more silvery skeletons. We have tested seeds' from Cuba, Egypt, India, China and Japan, and have found fruits that produced no network north of southern Florida, as they required that the plants should have a growth of eight months. A bower of these plants is a pretty sight, and the leaves of some of the varieties are beautifully marked. The most curious of all of the varieties, is the Luffa nocti-flora odorata, which as its name indicates, blooms at night and has a perfume. It has a small drupe-shaped, ridged fruit, a thin network, smaller flowers than the other varieties, and seeds like a watermelon. As the flowers open at night and droop in the morning, I have secured seeds by doing the work of the bee with a soft camel's hair brush.

Philadelphia. Robert P. Harris, M. D.

(*) In England the term "gourd" is generic for all kinds or pumpkins and squashes. - Ed. Am. G.