CULTURE OF THE CUCUMBER IN POTS. 



507 



a succession of fruit, it is requisite to sow the seed at three different 

 times: the 1st and 20th of September, and the 5th of November. 

 The first and second sowing are fruited in No. 2 pots, and the third 

 are planted out. The branches are trained on a temporary trellis, and 

 the fruit is allowed to hang down. 



Messrs. J. Weeks and Co., who erected Mr. Green's pit, have 

 obligingly furnished us with a section of it (fig. 353) to a scale of one- 

 sixth of an inch to a foot. 



a a, Outer walls. 



6, Hot- water pipes, laid in a trough of 

 brickwork (c), which can be tilled 

 with water, and emptied at pleasure. 



d d, Ground level. 



, Joists of wood or iron, forming the 

 floor of the pit. 



/, Bed for planting or plunging, in which 

 there may be upright tubes, chimney 

 pipes, or flower-pots with the bottoms 

 out, at regular distances, so as to ad- 

 mit at pleasure the moist air from 

 the chamber below. 



0, The trellis. 



ft h, Hot-water pipes for top-heat. 



Fig. 353. 



Mr. Green's Cucu/uber-pit. 

 (Scale of an inch to a foot.) 



Culture of the Cucumber in Pots, in a Pinery, Vinery, or in a 

 Cucumber-house. 



The culture of the cucumber in pots has become common, and is 

 the cheapest of all modes of growing winter fruit. The fruit will not 

 generally be so fine as by other methods ; but small fruit rapidly 

 grown are the best and the most useful. 



To cut cucumbers through the winter, from November to February, 

 in pits or frames heated by fermenting materials only, is almost an 

 impossibility, let them be attended ever so closely. The reason of 

 this is, the atmosphere of the pit being too moist, the plants absorb 

 more aqueous matter than they can decompose and assimilate, and con- 

 sequently, their digestive energies being impeded, the leaves become 

 covered with mildew and other fungi, which consume their juices, 

 choke their respiratory organs, and general debility, if not death, ensues. 

 This is the cause of so many young plants damping off in dull 

 weather ; but keep them in an atmosphere which can be kept moist 

 or dry, in accordance with the absence or presence of light, and no 

 such effect will be produced ; thus proving the superiority of a heat- 

 ing apparatus that will place the hygrometric state of the atmosphere 

 under the control of the attendant, and explaining the reason of 

 cucumbers growing so much better in houses heated by fire, than in 

 dung-pits, in the winter season. 



Construction of the Cucumber-house. The grand point to deter- 

 mine is the slope of the glass, so as to obtain a maximum of solar in- 

 fluence in mid-winter. To obtain the perpendicular rays of the sun 



