So our real goal in studying a model is to draw not bones and muscle and insignificant details but rather squash and stretch and weight distribution, plus — just to keep life interesting — composition, shape and form, perspective, line and silhouette, tension, plans, and negative and positive shapes, to mention a few.
But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business was reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous Baron. In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales, in which he gives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing that picture to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for your summary retreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier's Sperm Whale is not a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of a whaling voyage (such men seldom have), but whence he derived that picture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor in the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with the pencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us.
"Um! I love you even without the brandy, but with scoundrels I am a scoundrel. Ivan is not going to Tchermashnya--why is that? He wants to spy how much I give Grushenka if she comes. They are all scoundrels! But I don't recognize Ivan, I don't know him at all. Where does he come from? He is not one of us in soul. As though I'd leave him anything! I shan't leave a will at all, you may as well know. And I'll crush Mitya like a beetle. I squash black-beetles at night with my slipper; they squelch when you tread on them. And your Mitya will squelch too. _Your_ Mitya, for you love him. Yes, you love him and I am not afraid of your loving him. But if Ivan loved him I should be afraid for myself at his loving him. But Ivan loves nobody. Ivan is not one of us. People like Ivan are not our sort, my boy. They are like a cloud of dust. When the wind blows, the dust will be gone.... I had a silly idea in my head when I told you to come to-day; I wanted to find out from you about Mitya. If I were to hand him over a thousand or maybe two now, would the beggarly wretch agree to take himself off altogether for five years or, better still, thirty-five, and without Grushenka, and give her up once for all, eh?"
I went over to my friend, he was eatin' a pickle. I said "Hi, what's happenin'?" He said "Nothin'." Try to sing this song with that kind of enthusiasm; As if you just squashed a cop. -- Arlo Guthrie, "Motorcycle Song"
GOURD, a name given to various plants of the order _Cucurbitaceae_, especially those belonging to the genus _Cucurbita_, monoecious trailing herbs of annual duration, with long succulent stems furnished with tendrils, and large, rough, palmately-lobed leaves; the flowers are generally large and of a bright yellow or orange colour, the barren ones with the stamens united; the fertile are followed by the large succulent fruit that gives the gourds their chief economic value. Many varieties of _Cucurbita_ are under cultivation in tropical and temperate climates, especially in southern Asia; but it is extremely difficult to refer them to definite specific groups, on account of the facility with which they hybridize; while it is very doubtful whether any of the original forms now exist in the wild state. Charles Naudin, who made a careful and interesting series of observations upon this genus, came to the conclusion that all varieties known in European gardens might be referred to six original species; probably three, or at most four, have furnished the edible kinds in ordinary cultivation. Adopting the specific names usually given to the more familiar forms, the most important of the gourds, from an economic point of view, is perhaps _C. maxima_, the _Potiron Jaune_ of the French, the red and yellow gourd of British gardeners (fig. 6), the spheroidal fruit of which is remarkable for its enormous size: the colour of the somewhat rough rind varies from white to bright yellow, while in some kinds it remains green; the fleshy interior is of a deep yellow or orange tint. This valuable gourd is grown extensively in southern Asia and Europe. In Turkey and Asia Minor it yields, at some periods of the year, an important article of diet to the people; immense quantities are sold in the markets of Constantinople, where in the winter the heaps of one variety with a white rind are described as resembling mounds of snowballs. The yellow kind attains occasionally a weight of upwards of 240 lb. It grows well in Central Europe and the United States, while in the south of England it will produce its gigantic fruit in perfection in hot summers. The yellow flesh of this gourd and its numerous varieties yields a considerable amount of nutriment, and is the more valuable as the fruit can be kept, even in warm climates, for a long time. In France and in the East it is much used in soups and ragouts, while simply boiled it forms a substitute for other table vegetables; the taste has been compared to that of a young carrot. In some countries the larger kinds are employed as cattle food. The seeds yield by expression a large quantity of a bland oil, which is used for the same purposes as that of the poppy and olive. The "mammoth" gourds of English and American gardeners (known in America as squashes) belong to this species. The pumpkin (summer squash of America) is _Cucurbita Pepo_. Some of the varieties of _C. maxima_ and Pepo contain a considerable quantity of sugar, amounting in the sweetest kinds to 4 or 5%, and in the hot plains of Hungary efforts have been made to make use of them as a commercial source of sugar. The young shoots of both these large gourds may be given to cattle, and admit of being eaten as a green vegetable when boiled. The vegetable marrow is a variety (_ovifera_) of _C. Pepo_. Many smaller gourds are cultivated in India and other hot climates, and some have been introduced into English gardens, rather for the beauty of their fruit and foliage than for their esculent qualities. Among these is _C. Pepo_ var. _aurantia_, the orange gourd, bearing a spheroidal fruit, like a large orange in form and colour; in Britain it is generally too bitter to be palatable, though applied to culinary purposes in Turkey and the Levant. _C. Pepo_ var. _pyriformis_ and var. _verrucosa_, the warted gourds, are likewise occasionally eaten, especially in the immature state; and _C. moschata_ (musk melon) is very extensively cultivated throughout India by the natives, the yellow flesh being cooked and eaten. Entry: GOURD
_Vegetable Garden._--This is a busy month. In localities where the frost is out of the ground, if it is not wet, seeds of the hardier vegetables can be sown. The list of seeds given for the southern states in January may now be used at the north, while for most of the southern states tender vegetables, such as egg plant, okra, sweet potatoes, melon, squash, potatoes, tomatoes, &c., may be sown and planted. Hotbeds must now be all started. In March flower seeds and vegetable seeds may be sown in boxes or flats in the greenhouse, or in residence windows, or near the kitchen stove. Unless one has space under glass, or in hotbeds, in which the plants may be transplanted before they are set in the open ground, it is well not to start the seeds too early, inasmuch as the plants are likely to become too large or to be pot-bound, or to become drawn. Entry: MARCH
Vegetables are grown everywhere, and form a large part of the diet of the people. There is a comparatively small export, except in the case of turnips and potatoes and of vegetables which have been canned or dried. Besides potatoes, which thrive well and yield large quantities of excellent quality, there are turnips, carrots, parsnips and beets. The cultivation of sugar beets for the manufacture of sugar has been established in Ontario and in southern Alberta, where in 1906 an acreage under this crop of 3344 yielded 27,211 tons, an average of 8.13 tons per acre. Among the common vegetables used in the green state are peas, beans, cabbage, cauliflowers, asparagus, Indian corn, onions, leeks, tomatoes, lettuce, radish, celery, parsley, cucumbers, pumpkins, squash and rhubarb. Hay, of good quality of timothy (_Phleum pratense_), and also of timothy and clover, is grown over extensive areas. For export it is put up in bales of about 150 lb each. Since 1899 a new form of pressing has been employed, whereby the hay is compressed to stow in about 70 cub. ft. per ton. This has been a means of reducing the ocean freight per ton. The compact condition permits the hay to be kept with less deterioration of quality than under the old system of more loose baling. Austrian brome grass (_Bromus inermis_) and western rye grass (_Agropyrum tenerum_) are both extensively grown for hay in the North-West Provinces. Entry: AGRICULTURE
The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, made a decided scramble for it, and the three other horses followed suit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled on, with the jack-boots of its passengers squashing along by its side. They had stopped when the coach stopped, and they kept close company with it. If any one of the three had had the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead into the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair way of getting shot instantly as a highwayman.
On account of climatic conditions, in part at least, the development of agriculture in North America has not reached with many Indian tribes a high state of development, although its diffusion is much greater than is generally believed. In the south-eastern part of the United States beans, squashes, pumpkins and some other gourds and melons, potatoes, Indian corn, tobacco, a variety of the sunflower, &c., were cultivated, the growing of beans, squashes and pumpkins extending as far north as Massachusetts and the Iroquois country, in which latter also tobacco was cultivated, as the tribal name ("Tobacco Nation") of the Tionontati indicates. The cultivation of Indian corn extended from Florida to beyond 50° N. and from the Atlantic to far beyond the Mississippi, and, to judge from the varieties found in existence, must have been known to the Indians for a very long period. In the arid region of Arizona and New Mexico a special development of agriculture occurred, made possible by the extensive use of irrigation in pre-Columbian and in more recent times. Here Indian corn, melons, beans, cotton, &c., were cultivated before the arrival of the Spaniards. For religious purposes the Zuñi appear to have selectively produced a great variety of colours in the ears of corn. Where women had much to do with agricultural operations they greatly influenced society and religious and mythological ideas. Hunting and fishing, as might be expected in an extensive and varied environment like the North American continent, exhibit a great range from simple individual hand-capture to combined efforts with traps and nets, such as the communal nets of the Eskimo, the buffalo and deer "drives" of the Plains and other Indians, with which were often associated brush-fences, corrals, "pounds," pitfalls, &c., advantage taken of a natural _cul-de-sac_, &c. A great variety of traps, snares, &c., was used (see Mason in _Amer. Anthrop._, 1899) and the dog was also of great service with certain tribes, although no special variety of hunting-dogs (except in a few cases) appears to have been developed. The accessory implements for the chase (spear, bow and arrow, harpoon, club, &c.) underwent great variation and specialization. The throwing-stick appears in the north among the Eskimo and in the south-west among the Pueblos. In the Muskogian area the blow-gun is found, and its use extended also to some of the Iroquoian tribes (Cherokee, &c.). In part of this area vegetable poisons were used to capture fish. In the New England region torch-fishing at night was in vogue. With the tribes of the Great Plains in particular the hunt developed into a great social event, and often into a more or less marked ceremonial or religious institution, with its own appropriate preliminary and subsequential rites, songs, formulae, taboos and fetishes, &c., as seen e.g. among certain tribes of the Caddoan stock in very interesting fashion. Entry: 1