The Kitchen Garden. 101 



at the distance of six feet apart eacli way. Fill these holes 

 with a rich mixture of well decayed manure and light soil, 

 adding, if convenient, a little ashes, bone-dust, and common 

 salt. Raise the hills a little above the level of the ground, by 

 covering the manure mixture with loam, and make them 

 slightly concave on the top. Plant about the first of May, or 

 so soon as the season will admit, putting eight or ten seeds in a 

 hill. When the plants have made rough leaves, thin them out 

 to three in a hill. Nipping off the points of the vines to make 

 them branch out will hasten their fruiting. Stu- the ground 

 frequently, and keep it free from weeds. 



By forcing in hot-beds, cucumbers may be had in March or 

 April ; but few except professional gardeners care to undertake 

 the somewhat delicate operation. They may be much for- 

 warded, however, with little trouble, by the use of small boxes 

 covered with glass, or by the following method : 



Make a hole, and put into it a little hot dung ; let the hole 

 be under a warm fence. Put six inches deep of fine rich earth 

 on the dung. Sow a parcel of seeds in this earth, and cover at 

 night with a bit of carpet or sail-cloth, having first fixed some 

 hoops over this little bed. Before the plants show the rough 

 leaf, plant two into a little flower-pot, and fill as many pots in 

 this way as you please. Have a larger bed ready to put the 

 pots into, and covered with earth, so that the pots may be 

 plunged in the earth up to their tops. Cover this bed like the 

 last. When the plants have got two rough leaves out, they 

 will begin to make a shoot in the middle. Pinch that short ofil 

 Let them stand in this bed tUl your cucumbers sown in the 

 natural ground come up ; then make some little holes in good, 

 rich land, and, taking a pot at a time, turn out the lall^ and fix 

 it in the hole. These plants wUl bear a month sooner than 

 those sown in the natural ground. 



The second week in July is sufiiciently early to plant for the 

 fall and pickling crop, in the Northern States. In the South, 

 the late planted crops are apt to be destroyed by the melon- 

 worm. 



