Ig2 CUCUMBER. 
ratio of thickness to length, the shape of the shoulder 
or stem end, the color of the tip, and the like. 
Origin of this type of cucumber.—To the student of 
plant variation, the forcing cucumbers possess unus- 
ual interest. As a class, these cucumbers are very dis- 
tinct from all others, and yet they are known to have 
come in recent times from the shorter and spiny field 
sorts, at least those particular varieties which we 
now grow. It is not improbable that very long cu- 
cumbers were known some centuries ago. The Cr 
cumis longus of Bauhin, 1651, is figured, as pointed 
out by Sturtevant*, ‘‘as if equaling our longest and best 
English forms.’”’ But these older types do not appear 
to have been the ancestors of our modern forcing kinds. 
Our types all appear to have originated within the pres- 
ent century. The English have always been obliged, 
because of their climatic limitations, to grow cucumbers 
largely by the aid of artificial heat, and since the im- 
provements inaugurated by M’Phail+ over a century ago, 
and extended by others shortly afterwards, special pits 
or houses have been designed for them. ‘‘Under these 
conditions,’’ as Vilmorin remarks,{ ‘‘the race could not 
fail to greatly improve in appearance and size, earliness 
and hardiness being regarded as qualities of secondary 
importance. This has actually occurred, and there are 
now in cultivation in England about ten or a dozen va- 
rieties of the long green cucumber, all bearing long and 
nearly cylindrical fruits, nearly spineless, with solid flesh, 
and seeding very sparingly.’? M’Phail and other early 
writers -do not speak of special or named kinds for forcing, 
showing that there had been little departure at that time 
from common sorts. The earliest mention which I find of 
* Amer. Nat. 1887, 909. 
+A Treatise on the Culture of the Cucumber, by James M’Phail, 
Second ed. 1795. 
+t Les Plantes Potagéres, Second ed. 187. 
