258 STATE HORTICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 



become established. Plant from the middle of June to the middle of July, 

 and after the vines come up you will find plenty of employment in circumvent- 

 ing the striped bug and other insect pesis, at first witli gauze frames, and 

 later as the vines grow larger, with plaster, bone dust, etc. The Short Prickly, 

 Early Cluster and Early Frame varieties are recommended. When the cucum- 

 bers are about four inches long they are large enough to pick, and better than 

 if allowed to grow larger. Pick every day, clearing the vines of all that are 

 up to size, and in picking leave half an inch of stem attached to the cucum- 

 ber, and be very careful not to bruise them nor to handle them too much. 

 Have ready clean, open casks half full of strong brine, into which put the 

 cucumbers as fast as they are gathered, keeping them constantly covered by 

 the brine. AVhen the picking season is over, take out the pickles, throw away 

 the brine, rinse out the casks, put back the pickles with a new, strong brine 

 made of clean rock salt, filling the barrels as full as possible, and cov^er care- 

 fully for a few weeks, after which they may be headed up and shipped to mar- 

 ket. If the process has been skillfully done the pickles thus prepared will 

 keep until the next summer. Manufacturers prefer to buy them thus salted 

 rather than in vinegar as each has his own method of further preparing them 

 for use. 



JUSTICE TO THE WATERMELON". 



The average mind is accustomed to regard the watermelon with mild hor- 

 ror as being the repository and lurking place of more colic, cholera morbus, and 

 other such unpleasant matters than any other vegetable, not excepting the 

 chilly and insidious cucumber. Like many other popular superstitions it has 

 little ground for existence, and it is high time it was exploded and the water- 

 melon given the credit it deserves. It is, in fact, one of the most wholesome 

 of fruits, and like many other?, has a distinct medical quality in healing the 

 diseases incident to the season in which it appears. No such sure and speedy 

 cure for summer complaint is known as this melon, which contains about 95 

 per cent of purest water, a trace of pure sugar, and nothing whatever deleteri- 

 ous. Too close scraping toward the rind, however, may well be reprehended 

 as unwholesome. — Bostoii Journal. 



SOWING ONION SEED IN THE FALL. 



Onions are largely sown in September, and the practice is, on several accounts, 

 to be preferred to spring sowing. There is more time in fall than in spring to 

 get a bed in good condition for the seeds, and as they start much earlier than 

 from spring-sown seeds, there is consequently much less labor required to keep 

 them free from weeds, which it is absolutely necessary to do in order to perfect 

 a crop. The time of sowing is not so important as with cabbage, though if 

 sown too early they are less likely to bottom Avell, while on the other hand, if 

 the sowing be deferred until too late, they are less likely to stand the winter with- 

 out injury. In central Pennsylvania, from the tenth to the twentieth is about 

 about the proper time. Farther south they should of course be sown correspond- 



