The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-18
COLLECTION OF aouRDs.
The Many Uses to Which They Were
 Put in Pioneer Days. ..--

put Tn Pioneer OayB. O. Nashville; (Tenn.), American.
 Miss Susie Gentry of Franklin will fur nish for the Tennessee State exhibit at the St. Louis Worlds Fair one of the most interesting exhibits that will appear in the Agricultural Building. She has made a study of the gourd family. the uses of gourds. and the conditions of their growth. She has made a collection of all the different varieties grown in Tennes- see, and she has collected some fne spe- cimens from foreign countries.
 In the earlier stages of Tennessee civil ization, when cooperage vessels and glassware might have been chased as luxuries, nature supplied the most essen- tial from the gourd family. The great grand-mothers of the present generation were familiar with the pungah gourd. and they used it for many purposes. It was the receptable for keeping such things as lard, molasses, sugar, coffee, fruit. eggs, preserves, salt and soap. It served the purposes of the modern cans, boxes, jugs, bottles, buckets, etc.
 Legislators valued 1t SO much that they exempted it by law from sale by execu- tion for debt. The pungah gourd has no handle, and the largest size. is to IF inches in height and from 14 to IS inches in diameter. A large one will hold 100 dozen eggs. and one lady of the early times says she packed her silk wedding dress in one of them. The next size has a handle and was used as a water. gourd in the field, for carrying salt to stock etc
 Then comes the gourds with long han dles, some about feet in length. for dip ping water from deep springs. and others approximating in size and shape the brit a1nia or cocoanut dipper. Then follow the skins, smaller in size, the alarming gourds the dancing gourds, which were the spinning tops of our forefathers, and the baby Pattlers, the smallest in size. There are the whiskey bottle gourds. in which the early settlers carried their bot tied lightning, almost exactly the shape of the old-fashioned black bottles. There is the quill gourd, in which the women weavers kept their quills by the loom, and gourds in the shape of squashes that were used to make kitchen utensils, and sometimes jewelry boxes. There are fun mel gourds. and the gourds that were hung on poles in the poultry yard to make homes for the martins. There Is the tobacco gourds for storing tobacco seeds and for tobacco boxes.
 There are swimmers gourds, substi- tute for modern life preservers; the Her cules club" which looks like baseball bat, and snake gourds. which under the artistic hand of Miss Gentry have been made to look so much like snakes that you can almost hear them hiss.
 There are gourds in the shape of goose, turkey, duck. guinea and chicken eggs, that are colored so naturally that when one is placed in the nest as a nest ege the fowl that made the nest would swear to the maternity of the geurd. Then there is the orange gourd. just like an orange, and the Turks cap. that makes a beautiful pincushion. There is the vegetable lace" or 'dishrag gourd.' the inside of which could be used to orna- ment a ladies' hat or to wash dishes. etc
 Miss Gentry has in her collection a lady's hat which Is strictly an agricul- tural product. The body of the hat Is vegetable cream lace; the trimming Is flowers made of grass rope and corn