24 



CUCURBITACE^:. IV. CUCUMIS. 



middle at 3^ feet distance. Sometiines the bed is made in a 

 moderate trench, 12 or 15 inches deep, in some good soil in the 

 kitchen -garden, in order to have the excavated earth of the 

 trench ready at hand for moulding the bed. When the earth 

 under the glasses is warm, proceed to put in the plants, remov- 

 ing them from the nursery-bed, with as much earth as will 

 adhere about the roots. If you have any plants in small pots, 

 turn them out with the ball entire, and plant 3 plants under each 

 glass. Give a light watering; put down the glasses, and shade 

 the plants from the sun, till they have taken root, after which 

 let them enjoy the sun and light fully, only covering the glasses 

 and bed every night with mats till June, or commencement of 

 warm weather. Admit air every mild day, by propping up the 

 southward side of the glasses 1 or 2 inches ; moderate waterings 

 will be necessary twice a-week or oftener. As the plants push 

 runners of considerable length, train them regularly. When 

 extended to the limits of the glasses, and when the weather is 

 settled warm, about the beginning or middle of June, they 

 should be raised upon 3 props 2 or 3 inches high, and the runners 

 trained out in regular order, but cover them on cold nights with 

 mats, for the first week or two. Continue the glasses, and cir- 

 cumspectly water in dry weather, as may be necessary ; the 

 plants will produce fruit in June, July, August, &c. in plentiful 

 succession. To obtain a crop from hot-bed ridges, under hand- 

 glasses, you may, in default of plants raised in a previous nur- 

 sery-bed for transplanting, sow seed under the glasses in April 

 or May, inserting several seeds in the central part under each 

 glass. When the plants have been up a few days or a week, 

 thin them to 3 or 4 of the strongest in each patch, managing 

 them afterwards as the others. They will come into bearing 

 towards the end of June or July, and thence to September. 

 (Should there be a scarcity of dung to make a regular bed,) 

 in the last week of April, or in May, you may dig circular holes 

 2 feet wide, a spade deep, and 4 or 5 feet asunder ; fill them 

 with hot dung, trodden down moderately firm, and earthed over 

 6 inches. In these put either plants or seed, and place on the 

 glasses ; the plants will produce fruit in June or July till Sep- 

 tember. (In default of hand-glasses,) make a hot-bed, or holes 

 of dung, as above, in May ; put in plants or seed, and defend 

 with oiled paper frames, to remain constantly, day and night, 

 till settled warm weather in June or July. Give the additional 

 protection of mats over the paper frame in cold nights and bad 

 weather. In the culture of all the crops, give proper supplies 

 of water in dry warm weather, 2 or 3 times a-week, or every 

 day in the hottest season of June, July, and August. In the 

 hot-bed ridges, made above ground in April or May, if in 3 or 

 4 weeks or more after making, the heat be much declined, and 

 the nights or general season remain cold, let a moderate lining 

 of hot dung be applied to the sides, which will both throw in a 

 reviving heat, and widen the bed for the roots and runners of the 

 plants to extend." 



Cultivation of the cucumber in ajlucdpit.- Nicol says, " Those 

 who would have cucumbers on the table at Christmas (a thing 

 sometimes attempted), will find it more practicable, and less 

 troublesome, if the plants be grown in a flued pit, in the manner 

 of late melons, than if they be grown in a common hot-bed. 

 In this case the cucumbers should take place of the melons 

 planted in this compartment in July, and which will, by the 

 middle or end of the month, have ripened off all their fruit of 

 any consequence. The seeds of some of the early sorts (those 

 best for early being also best for late) should be eown in small 

 pots about the first of the month, and should be placed in the 

 pit along with the melons, or under a hand-glass, on a slow dung 

 heat ; where let the plants be nursed, and be prepared for plant- 

 ing about the second or third week in the month, as hinted at 

 above. Observe to sow old seeds, not those saved this season, 



which would run more to vine than to fruit. Let the pit be 

 prepared for their reception, by trenching up the bark or dung, 

 and by adding fresh materials, in so far as to produce a mo- 

 derate growing heat ; observing the directions given for pre- 

 paring the pit for the melons in July, and moulding it (however 

 with proper cucumber earth) all over to the depth of a foot or 

 14 inches. The plants may be placed closer in planting them 

 out than is necessary in a spring hot-bed. They may be planted 

 at the distance of a yard from each other, and 2 rows lengthwise 

 in the pit, as they will not grow very vigorously at this late 

 season. They should be moderately supplied with water once 

 in 4 or 5 days, and should always be watered over the fo'iage, 

 the more especially when strong fire-heat becomes necessary, as 

 cucumbers naturally like a moist rather than a dry heat. The 

 temperature should be kept up to about 64 or 65 in the night, 

 by the aid of the flues, and by matting, or otherwise covering 

 the pit. Air should be as freely admitted as the state of the 

 weather will allow, and so as to keep the mercury down, in sun- 

 shine to about 70. The plants will require little other pruning 

 than to stop the vines, as they show fruit at the joint or two 

 above it ; for they will not push many superfluous shoots. Ob- 

 serve to pick ofF all damped leaves as they appear ; and other- 

 wise carefully attend to them, as above directed, while they 

 continue to flourish, or to do any good worthy of such attend- 

 ance." 



Cultivation of the cucumber in M'Phail's brick- bed pit. 

 " When I used," observes M'Phail, " to cultivate cucumbers on 

 a dung-bed, the fruit were sometimes watery and ill-tasted ; but 

 after I began to cultivate them on a brick bed, the fruit were 

 constantly firm and well flavoured, which is certainly occasioned 

 by the goodness and wholesomeness of the food with which the 

 plants are fed or nourished." M'Phail's pit has many advantages 

 over a common hot-bed : there is no chance of burning the roots 

 of the plants in it, the linings being placed all on the outside, 

 without any dung underneath the plants. " All the materials of 

 my newly-invented bed are clean and sweet ; and the flues being 

 made perfectly close, no tainted or bad-smelling air can get 

 through them into the bed ; so that it is of little or no concern 

 whether the dung of the linings be sweet or otherwise, or whe- 

 ther the linings be made of dung or of any thing else, provided 

 there be a sufficient heat kept in them, and no pernicious steam I 

 be drawn in among the plants by the current of air." A shel- 

 tered dry situation is of the first consequence for this pit. The 3 

 bed being built, " when the frame is about to be set upon it, a ] 

 layer of mortar is spread all round upon the upper course of * 

 brick-work, on which the bottoms of the frames are to rest. ! 

 Thus the frames are set in mortar on the bricks ; and the flues J 

 are, with a bricklayer's brush, well washed, and rubbed with a j 

 thick grout, made of lime and water, which stops every crack I 

 or hole, and prevents the steam of the linings from getting into \ 

 the frames. This washing of the flues I had done once a-year, I 

 for no crack or hole must ever be suffered to remain unstopped I 

 in the flues. I found little or no trouble in keeping the flues i 

 perfectly close, nor is it indeed likely that they should become I 

 troublesome, if the bed stands on a sound foundation, for the I 

 heat of the dung has not that powerful effect on the flues, as I 

 fire-heat has on the flues of the hot-house ; because the heat of * 

 dung is more steady and not so violent as the heat of the fire, I 

 and, besides, the flues of a cucumber-bed are almost always in 1 

 a moist state, which is a preventive in them against cracking 

 or rending. When the bed is first built, the pits are about 3 

 feet in depth below the surface of the flues. The pits I had 

 filled tip about a foot high, some of them with rough chalk, , 

 some of them with small stones, and some of them with brick- 

 bats ; this is to let the wet drain off freely from the mould of ' 

 the beds. After this filling up with chalk, stones, and broken ' 



