CUCUMBER 87 



all sorts, and that of all the pumpkin and squash tribe ; and 

 that is, that it is a great error to sow them too thick. One 

 plant in a hill is enough ; and I would put two into a pot, 

 merely as a bar against accidents. One will bring more 

 weight of fruit than two, (if standing near each other,) two 

 more than three, and so on, till you come to fifty in a square 

 foot ; and then you will have no fruit at all ! Let any one 

 make the experiment, and he will find this observation 

 mathematically true. When cucumbers are left eight or ten 

 plants in a hill, they never shoot strongly. Their vines are 

 poor and weak. The leaves become yellow ; and, if they 

 bear at all, it is poor, tasteless fruit that they produce. 

 Their bearing is over in a few weeks. Whereas, a single 

 plant, in the same space, will send its fine green vines all 

 around it to a great distance, and, if no fruit be left to ripen, 

 will keep bearing till the white frosts come in the fall. 

 The roots of a cucumber will go ten feet, in fine earth, in 

 every direction. Judge then, how ten plants, standing close 

 to one another, must produce mutual starvation !" 



Mr. Armstrong has the following observations with regard 

 to early cucumbers : " To obtain these, we must have re- 

 course to artificial heat ; and with the less reluctance, as, 

 of all plants, the cucumber is that with which it best agrees. 

 To this end, therefore, scoop as many large turnips as you 

 propose to have hills ; fill these with good garden mould, 

 sow in each three or four seeds, and plunge them into a 

 hot-bed. The advantage of the scooped turnip, as a seed- 

 bed, over pots or vases, will now appear; for, instead of the 

 ordinary difficulty of separating the mass of earth and the 

 plant from the pot which contained them, and without injury 

 to either, we re-inter both pot and plant, and even find in the 

 one an additional nutriment for the other. The subsequent 

 treatment does not differ at all from that of plants sown and 

 cultivated in the open air." Mem. of N. F. Board of Agr. 

 vol. ii. p. 115. 



Training. To force the cucumbers into early fruit, Aber- 

 crombie directs to " stop the runners as soon as the plants 

 have made two rough leaves : as the bud that produces the 

 runner is disclosed at the base of the second rough leaf, it 

 may be cut off or picked out ; or, if the runner has already 

 started, it may be pinched off close. This is called stop- 

 ping at the first joint, and is necessary to promote a stronger, 

 stocky growth, and an emission of fruitful laterals ; and 

 from these the prolific runners will be successively pro- 

 duced. The vines, without the process of stopping, would 



