CUCUMBER 



1668 



CUMBERLAND 



for it (see COWBIRD). The day before the 

 young cuckoo leaves the nest it is covered with 

 sharply-pointed pin feathers, and looks like 

 a little porcupine, but in twenty-four hours it 

 has a coat of soft, beautiful feathers. 



CUCUMBER, ku'kumbcr, a garden vege- 

 table, oblong and oval in shape, used green as 

 a salad and for pickling. It probably originated 

 in Northern India at least three thousand years 

 ago; since that time it has passed from coun- 



THE CUCUMBER 

 (a) Leaf; (ft) flower; (c) fruit; (d) vine. 



try to country and is now widely cultivated in 

 nearly every part of the temperate zones. 



The melonlike vine which bears the fruit 

 has a rough trailing stem with tendrils for 

 climbing, hairy leaves with three to five pointed 

 lobes, and short-stalked, yellow, bell-shaped 

 flowers, the male and female flowers both on 

 the same vine. The vegetable itself, according 

 to the species, grows from four to thirty inches 

 long. It contains numerous flattened seeds in 

 a somewhat watery pulp. Cucumbers are 

 picked for use before ripe, for if allowed to turn 

 yellow and to ripen they are tough and very 

 full of seeds. Like tomatoes, they are soaked 

 in water before peeling, then thick pieces are 

 removed from the ends and sides, as the 

 skins contain unwholesome juices. After the 

 peeled portion is sliced, salting removes more 

 of the undesirable juice and makes the cucum- 

 bers more digestible. Served as a salad with 

 cream dressing, the vegetable is as nutritious as 

 fresh celery. Small cucumbers used for pickling 

 are sometimes called gherkins. 



Cucumbers require a rich, moist, warm loam, 

 and as they are very sensitive to frost they 

 are often grown under glass to supply the 

 early summer demand. Indoors the seed 

 should be planted in March, outdoors from 

 April to July, one-half ounce of seed being 



required for 100 feet. The seed should be 

 planted one inch deep. It is usually planted in 

 little hills, enriched with well-rotted manure, 

 and about six feet apart each way. The plants 

 are subject to a number of diseases and insect 

 pests, but these can be checked by careful use 

 of fungicides and poisons (see INSECTICIDES AND 

 FUNGICIDES). 



CULLOM, kul'um, SHELBY MOORE (1829- 

 1914), an American statesman whose career is 

 fittingly summarized in the title of the book 

 which he published in 1911, three years before 

 his death Fifty Years of Public Service. He 

 was born in Wayne County, Ky., was admitted 

 to the bar in 1855, and began the practice of 

 law at Springfield, 111. Becoming an active 

 leader in Illinois politics, he was several times 

 elected to the state legislature, and sat in the 

 national House of Representatives for three 

 terms after 1865. As a delegate to the Na- 

 tional Republican Convention of 1872 he placed 

 General Grant in nomination for the Presi- 

 dency. Between 1876 and 1883 he was governor 

 of Illinois, in the latter year entering the 

 United States Senate as a Republican. To 

 this body he was reflected for every term until 

 the one beginning in 1913. Cullom was the 

 author of the Interstate Commerce Law and 

 served for many years as chairman of the 

 Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce. 

 In 1898 he was one of the commissioners to 

 establish American government in Hawaii. 



In 1913 he accepted his last public appoint- 

 ment, that of commissioner in charge of the 

 Lincoln Memorial at Washington, D. C. No 

 other service could have been more pleasing 

 to him than this, for he was one of Lincoln's 

 personal friends. 



CUMBERLAND, kum'ber land, Mo., the 

 county seat of Allegany County, noted chiefly 

 for its large coal interests. It is situat'ed in 

 the extreme northwestern section of the state, 

 on the Potomac River and on the Chesapeake 

 and Ohio Canal. Pittsburgh is 150 miles north- 

 west; Baltimore and Washington are respec- 

 tively 178 and 152 miles southeast. Railway 

 transportation is provided by the Baltimore & 

 Ohio, the Cumberland & Pennsylvania, the 

 Pennsylvania and the Western Maryland rail- 

 roads. Cumberland was founded in 1785 on the 

 site of Fort Cumberland, which was built in 

 1754-1755; the town was incorporated in 1815 

 and became a city in 1850. It was the first 

 city in Maryland to adopt the commission form 

 of government (1909). In population it is 

 second in the state, ranking next to Baltimore; 



