1835 - Mr. Ives and his Squash

I'm a sucker for people who love their particular vegetable and push it...

The Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries 

and Improvements in Rural Affairs, Volume 1, 1835

Mr. Ives of Salem Massachusetts appears in the horticultural journals for many decades presenting his squash. Starting around 1835, everyone seems to agree is really a good squash for pies and winter keeping. Incorrectly identified at first as a variety of the summer type, Cucurbita melopepo, it is a Cucurbita maxima, in spite of having a thinner skin than you might expect.

Mr John M. Ives, of Salem, Mass. has furnished us with the above cut and the following description of a very useful vegetable. 

Fruit obovate, depressed on one side; stem very large, and inclined upwards, almost at right angles with the fruit; a small truncate callosity at the other extremity. Color reddish cream, with spots or dashes of bright ochre when in maturity. Flesh orange, seeds large, pure white, with an elevated margin; average weight, eight pounds. 

The above new variety of Squash, Cucurbita melopepo var. has been lately brought into notice in this vicinity, on account of the delicacy of its grain, and excellence of flavor. We have called it "Autumnal Marrow" as it comes in succession to the summer varieties, but may be kept throughout the winter.
A peculiarity in this variety is the extreme thinness of its skin, being of the consistency of the inner envelope of an egg. 

We recommend it to all lovers of this vegetable for its many excellent qualities: we speak thus confidently from the testimony in its favor of those who have used it at their tables.

We find there is nothing gained by forcing the plants in a hot bed, as there is no difficulty in ripening the fruit in almost any season, provided the seed is sown as early as the first of June, or at the time of sowing the Canada Crook-neck, as it ripens much earlier than that variety. We think the plants are stronger and healthier raised in the open air than under glass. 

The greatest difficulty in the cultivation of the Autumnal Marrow is to keep it from the large squash bug (Egeria cucurbitacece.) If care is taken to destroy them previous to the depositing of the eggs there is but little trouble in checking them. 

With regard to the proper soil for their culture, we find that newly broken up grass land is better than highly manured soil, as in the latter they run and grow so vigorously as to form the fruit too late in the season. In a quantity which we had raised on a highly manured spot, their average weight was but about five or six pounds; whereas others grown upon old grass land turned up in the spring of the same year, averaged from nine to twelve, and some larger. They should be thinned out on the appearance of the third leaf, to three plants in a hill. 

This vegetable is well worthy of cultivation not only for its fine quality, but for keeping well in winter. I have a number perfectly sound, which have been kept in the same situation with the Crook-neck since they were housed in October last.

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A current source of the seeds can be found at Victory Seeds. From their catalog...

"Early mentions of 'Boston Marrow' describe it as weighing from five to six pounds. By the mid-1930s, its size had been increased to what we now see today. The fruits have reddish-orange skin and measure about twelve inches in diameter by about sixteen inches in length. Weighing from eleven to over fifty-two pounds each, they average about twenty-five pounds. The flesh is fine-grained, yellow-orange, and bakes to a bright orange color. 

The leading seedsmen of the late 19th Century referred to 'Boston Marrow' as the "true pie squash," and seemed to prefer it over the drier varieties. It can be used as a table squash as well as for pie filling."