196 CUCUMBER, 
not know if this is true of the common cucumbers, but 
we have made several unsuccessful efforts to grow Me- 
dium Green (Michol’s Medium Green) in the house 
without pollination. In the early days of cucumber forc- 
ing, hand pollination was practiced, but it has been 
abandoned by many growers.* It is possible that the 
forcing cucumber sets more freely now without pollen 
than it did before its characters were well fixed, or per- 
haps the early gardeners performed an unnecessary labor. 
We have sometimes thought that the fruits set more 
freely without pollination as the plants become matu:e. 
As a result of several years’ experience, however, we 
find that hand pollination is essential to the certainty of 
securing a crop. 
Many gardeners suppose that pollen causes the fruit 
to grow large at the end, as in Fig. 68, and they, there- 
*“ Fertilization was formerly considered necessary for the setting 
of cucumbers, but it has long been proved to be needless. Indeed, 
fruits intended for eating are better without, as the seedS in them are 
not so numerous. For seeding purposes fertilization is decidedly re- 
quired, if good, heavy seed be needed.’’—Aztchen and Market Gard. 150 
(London, 1887). 
‘“Except for seeding purposes, it is not necessary that the latter 
[pistillate flowers] should be fertilized, the fruit reaching the same 
size, and being all the better for the absence of seeds. In winter 
time, or in the case of weak plants, the whole of the male flowers 
might with advantage be kept removed.’’—Jicholson’s Dict. Gard. 
I, 405. 
General Russell Hastings, of Bermuda Islands (whose house is ~ 
shown in Fig. 64, page 185), writes me as follows upon this question of ¢ 
pollinating the forcing cucumbers: ‘‘I am growing the English frame © 
cucumber, many fruits growing 2 feet long and weighing as high as 3 
pounds. When I first began, some six years ago, having read of the 
necessity of pollinating by hand, I used to perform this work; but I 
became neglectful, and it seemed entirely unnecessary to pollinate, as 
my growth was fully as good as before my careful attention. I went so 
far in my experiment as to select a pistillate bud which, if left alone, 
would have opened the following day, and with care cut off the bud 
and destroyed the pistil. From this I raised a very large cucumber, 
but, of course, without a seed from one end to the other. When I first 
began with my glass house, I had no bees, and never saw one in the 
house, but for the past two years I have had bees not far from the house, 
and as the sash stands open nearly every day, it is, of course, constantly 
visited by bees. The result in the number and growth of cucumbers 
is no Urea than when I did not pollinate, nor when there were no bees 
around.’ 
