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ENGLAND

The following was recently sent to me by my 2nd Cousin in Arkansas, the article is from the Portland Oregonian in 1899.


STRANGE BUT TRUE...

There was a man out in Prinevill (Oregon) who had established an industry of furnishing pumpkins of a given
weight to ambitious farmers who desire to take prizes at the county fairs. How does he grow them? This
pumpkin manufacturer feeds the pumpkins milk---just good, rich milk, and when the pumpkin has grown to the weight
called for in his order from the ambitious farmer, he cuts it from the vine and turns it over to the one
ordering it.

Every day he fills a quart vessel with milk, places it on the ground, and connects it with a slit in the pumpkin
vine with a rubber tube. The vine draws in the milk by capillary or some other attraction. It was extremely
interesting to go out in the evening and see the owner feed the pumpkins. The vines had become so used to it
and appeared to like the milk so well, that they actually rustled as the man with milk approached. And when the
milk had been consumed, the vines settled down for the night, as contently as a band of cows chewing their cuds.

4/22/2006 2:41:21 PM

Indiana

Must be why he didnt beat William Warnock....interesting Mike

Tom

4/22/2006 2:48:05 PM

Spanish Ontario

I,VE tryed milk an an beer it DONN,T WORK milk goes sour beer makes DIZZY AN I FALL DOWN

4/22/2006 3:44:03 PM

ordinary,VA

Got rotten vines?

4/22/2006 4:45:36 PM

San Luis Obispo, Ca.

Hokus Pokus! "The spirit's are about to speak!"

4/22/2006 4:54:15 PM

Appalachian Mtns.

Milk would curdle in a pumpkin....

4/22/2006 9:35:33 PM

Rhode Island

i like milk as much as the next guy buy would rather have it with a few cookies or a piece of apple pie and icecream.
ill let the calcium get into the plant from the root zone.

4/23/2006 8:52:49 AM

Itzetown City

Oregon? Is't the home of the Hesters? lol

4/23/2006 9:10:16 AM

Phoenix, AZ

Prineville is out in the middle of nowhere. High desert. What the heck they doing growing pumpkins there 100 years ago?

4/23/2006 4:17:19 PM

Deer Park WA

Anyone ever try it on a tertiary...

4/23/2006 11:17:34 PM

Syracuse, NY

i wonder if there would be any advantage to adding milk
to the DRENCH/OVERHEAD watering in very small quantities.
IMAGINE if you could get all you wanted (beyond freshness date)from the local
milk bottling (jugging, lol?) plant...i should do a site search thing to see what has been said about it; i thought there was some inhibitive effect on powdery mildew by spraying it on the leaves, or something....

4/24/2006 6:22:02 PM

[email protected]

Unprocessed milk is great as a foliar spray for Powdery Mildew if it's applied several times a week to the undersides of leaves. I've often wondered if this isn't why the wives tale got started in the first place. Healthy Powdery Mildew free plants DO grow bigger pumpkins.

4/24/2006 6:30:14 PM

Norton, MA

It doesn't take alot of milk to put a terrible layer of cheese in the soil. If it doesn't get washed thouroughly before the first half inch of soil or so dries, it will become an impermeable cement that breeds disease. I wonder what an impermeable layer on the leaves would do though, block pores obviously, but that means no fungus attaching? I tried milk in an experiment once (just to prove it to myself), but didn't do any foliar. AleX Noel.

4/24/2006 7:44:11 PM