THE OUCUMIiKli 



CUCUMIS 

 SATIVUS 



Cucumber 





Kakri. 



u \urii'ty nf *. frfo Hm fruit is cylindrical, MIIIOH! li (not fluted), 

 ii. ..i t It-, I \i-ll, i\v iitiii gnt'ii and more like the cucumber, except that it in lem 

 scabrous and larger. There are several distinct lorms met with in the hot and 

 ruiiiy -i-ji- cultivutvd in c<itt<ni <>r maize fields, etc., here and there 



limit Indiii. mid \\ln-ii tin' fruit hits burst, which it down HpontaneoiiHly, 

 tlu< ili--i i is mealy but not sweet, though palatable when eaten with sugar. When 

 \..HII< tin- fruit is a good substitute for the cucumber, and kachra in in fact a 

 viilmilili' vegetable. 



(i) var. utillsslmus, aoxb.,sp. ; Duthie and Fuller, l.c. ii., 66, tt. liii., liv. The 

 kukri, kdkur, or kdnkur, kukri, dosray, vettiri, kakkarik, kakadi, kakdi, tarkakdi, 

 tukhra, tavcuhi, etc. This melon approaches the cucumber. According to 

 Hue haiuui lluiuilton (Stat. Ace. Dinaj., 1833, 196) it is the fifth most important 

 fruit. It varies from short oval to elongate (sometimes three feet in length). 

 \Vhi-ii young it is covered with soft down and is pale green in colour, but with 

 (i^o changes to dark green or white and bright orange when fully ripe. It is Cultivation. 

 cultivated in Bengal, the United Provinces, the Panjab and Western India, etc., 

 during the hot weather and the rains. It prefers a dry, loose, open soil. After 

 manuring the ground should be laid out in beds and three or four seeds sown 

 three feet apart. Being in season long before the cucumber, the young fruit 

 is much eaten by Europeans as a substitute for that vegetable, though it is 

 somewhat insipid. Kakri is moreover an important article of FOOD with the Food. 

 poorer classes during the hot months. When half -grown it is pickled ; when 

 "pe eaten raw or in curries. The seeds are pressed, dried, ground to meal ; 

 oil expressed from them is used with food, in medicine, or in lamps. It 

 ins probable that some at least of the forms spoken of by authors as 

 cucumbers should in reality bo placed under the present plant. 



C. sativus, Linn. ; Duthie and Fuller, l.c. 53-4, tt. li., lii. ; Sen., Cucumber 

 Kept. Agri. Stat. Dacca, 1889, 47 ; N. N. Banerjei, Agri. Cuttack, 1893, 115 ; or Khira. 

 Finninger, l.c. 169. The Cucumber, khira, kaknai, kakdi, sasd, muhevehri, 

 dozakaia, sante kayi, trapusha, sukasa, thagwa, Idr, etc. 



There seems to be no doubt that one at least of the original homes of the Habitat 

 icumber was in North India, and its cultivation can be traced to the most 

 icient classic times of Asia. Royle's '. tianiirifkii (a plant wild from 

 [umaon to Sikkim) is in no important respect different botanically from C. 

 i Urn*, though it has distinctive vernacular names (air-dlu, pdhari-in-drayan, 

 3.), and is collected and used as a substitute for <-i>icynth (Illust. Him. Bot., 

 47). The classic and other European names for the cucumber, as stated by 

 Candolle, would seem to point to a European cultivation quite as ancient 

 can be shown for Southern Asia. Hehn (Kulturpfl. und Haust., 6th ed., 

 1894, 308-14) gives a useful account of the historic and etymological considera- 

 ions. Briefly it may be said that he, and his editors Schrader and Engler, 

 jfer most of the early names for the cucumber, the melon and the gourd to the 

 of certain forms of these fruits as water and oil bottles. [Cf. Cucurbita, 

 441, and Lagenaria, p. 700.] 



There are two primary forms of cucumbers : a creeping field plant of the Forms. 

 )t weather, and a garden climber of the rainy season. The former has small 

 -shaped fruits (mandi kakuri of Orissa) and is sown in drills in February or 

 larch, preferably in rich soil. The latter or rainy-season varieties have much 

 rger fruits (kantali kakuri), dark-green or creamy-white, changing to rusty- 

 arown when full grown. The rainy -season varieties are the most common, being 

 iten by both Natives and Europeans. The hot-season forms are also, however, 

 iten either raw or cooked in curries. Gathered in a young state they are 

 snerally known under the name gerkin or gherkin, and constitute a much- 

 rized vegetable ; they are ^Iso very extensively pickled and eaten in that form. 

 It would thus seem fairly certain that the gherkin of India is the hot-season form 

 <\ unit mi and not the somewhat doubtful <: .\itgtirla of the West Indies. 

 J. D. Hooker (Bot. Mag., t. 6206) has described a special form of cucumber 

 lat seems peculiar to Sikkim. 



In the hot-weather supply three sowings are usually made, namely at the 

 id of February, in the middle and at the end of March. The seeds are sown 

 long both sides of drills, the drills being one foot apart. In dry soil, water is 

 iven immediately after sowing and subsequently every ten days, but not too 

 * arally. The rainy-season forms thrive with little care, and are always sure of 



439 



Gherkin. 



