CUCUMBER. 



199 



The ordinary process of raising early cucumbers is 

 executed as follows : About the beginning of Octo- 

 ber, a sufficient quantity of fresh stable dung is got 

 together in a convenient open place, where it can be 

 repeatedly turned, watered if too dry, and intimately 

 incorporated, so that no part of the heap shall be 

 wetter or drier than another, but all of equal colour 

 and temperament. On the careful preparation of 

 dung intended for hotbeds, as already observed, much 

 of the success of their purpose depends. If the dung 

 be too wet, the heat rises too violently at first, and is 

 too soon over ; and if it has not been turned enough, 

 and all the rank qualities dissipated, the effluvia rising 

 from the bed, after being made, would be highly 

 injurious to the young plants. 



Of such prepared dung, a seed-bed for a one light 

 box or frame is made about the 15th of October. 

 By the 20th, the heat will have risen, and its quality 

 judged of, whether an agreeable sweet heat, or 

 having a strong ammoniacal scent ; if the latter, it 

 must have time to pass off, or be qualified by a 

 covering of dry leaf-mould or saw-dust. Previous to 

 sowing the seed, pots, or deep pans, filled with a 

 compost of equal parts of fresh loam, leaf-mould, and 

 well rotted dry dung, should be set within the frame 

 to get warm. In this single seeds are dropped two 

 inches apart, and covered half an inch deep. The 

 air within the frame should be kept at about 65 or 

 70 of Fahrenheit. 



It is usual to prefer seeds three or four years old 

 for early forcing, because plants from these show 

 fruit sooner. But some practitioners prefer new, or 

 such as has been saved in the same year, because, say 

 they, the seedliijgs are more vigorous ; and though 

 the plants may Vaquire more stopping, they yield at 

 last finer fruit, J.nd nearly as soon as plants raised 

 from old si 



In sowing, ^t is well to place each seed on a 

 nodule of dec'.yed dung, as on this the first fibres 

 take firm hold, and which renders their removal into 

 pots easy and safe, and which transplanting should be 

 done as soon as the seedlings show their first bud of 

 rough leaves. The plants are placed two or three 

 together in each pot, watered, and immediately 

 plunged in the seed-bed. They should be kept 

 within six inches of the glass, receive fresh air daily, 

 and be securely covered on nights by mats fastened 

 to the frame. 



While the seedlings are thus being reared in the 

 seed-bed, a fruiting-bed must be prepared for them. 

 The different methods of making these we have 

 already described ; and here it only remains to add, 

 that when the fruiting-bed is ready to receive the 

 plants, by having hills of compost laid under each 

 light or sash of the frame, when a due degree of heat 

 has risen through them, and the air within, sweet and 

 of proper temperature, a pot of plants is turned out, 

 and placed on the top of each hill, about six inches 

 from the glass. In doing this, the ball of roots dis- 

 charged from the pot is kept entire, and the compost 

 pressed closely round, and about an inch in thickness 

 over the top, among the stems. This will induce the 

 production of new roots from the stems, and greatly 

 assist the establishment of the plants in their new 

 abode. If heat from below, moisture in the mould, 

 and air within the frame, be regulated properly, and 

 if water (warm) and fresh air be given cautiously, and 

 every ray of light admitted, with sufficient coverings 

 on nights, the roots will soon extend themselves 



through the sides of the hills, in which case additions 

 of compost are from time to time applied, till the 

 whole surface of the bed is covered, and which should 

 be at the general depth of about ten inches. 



At this time the season is, perhaps, becoming more 

 and more severe, and therefore the heat must not be 

 allowed to fail, but rather, if possible, increased, and 

 so continued, to swell off the fruit. The temperature 

 of the bed may be lowered or heightened by the 

 thickness of the night coverings, and these must be 

 regulated according to the degree of bottom heat 

 obtained from the means employed, whatever these 

 may be. 



A very material part of the management of the 

 cucumber plant depends on the pruning it receives. 

 It is a climbing vegetable ; its tendency to grow 

 upwards, and support itself by its tendrils on other 

 plants, must be counteracted in the earliest stage of 

 its growth, by pinching off the extremity of the 

 leading, or principal shoot. This appears like a bud 

 at the base of the first rough leaf on the first joint 

 above, and between the cotyledons or seed-leaves, 

 and soon as it is of the size of a small pea, must be 

 removed. This mutilation induces the production of 

 lateral branches, which readily take a horizontal 

 range, and are allowed to run till they show fruit. 

 But if they produce nothing but male flowers, on the 

 first fourteen inches of their growth, they should be 

 again stopped, to cause the production of a second 

 set of branches, which rarely fail to show fruit 

 abundantly. 



As soon as the female flowers are fairly expanded, it 

 is an old custom to impregnate them by hand. In 

 such a situation, where neither bees nor wind can 

 enter, manual assistance appears to be necessary ; 

 for, though it is no object whether or not the seeds of 

 such fruit be impregnated, and though it is known 

 that unimpregnated fruit arrive at a certain degree of 

 perfection, it is also well known that a duly f'ecundi- 

 fied fruit swells faster than one which has had no 

 impact of the pollen at all. This being the case, it is 

 well to follow the old custom, as it certainly can do 

 no harm. 



The compost for cucumbers should be rich and 

 porous ; rich, because the plant is a " gross feeder ;" 

 and perfectly loose, to prevent burning, by giving a 

 free transit to the humid warmth from below. The 

 openness of the compost also admits water readily, 

 and gives free scope to the spreading roots. Leaf- 

 mould, and fresh and lurfy loam, which has lain 

 under a heap of good dung for a month or two, and 

 afterwards mixed with twice its bulk of leaf-mould, 

 will be found very suitable. 



It has been already observed, that the rank steam 

 of stable-dung is destructive to young cucumber 

 plants, as indeed it is to most others ; but after this 

 rankness is gone off, they appear not to be averse to 

 the mild effluvia arising from the body of the bed. 

 On this account it is a good practice, in order that 

 this effluvia may be evolved more copiously, to 

 water and hand-fork up the dung between the hills 

 frequently before the bed is moulded over ; and yet, 

 after linings begin to be applied, care must be taken 

 that the warm steam from them does not enter the 

 frame, which it is apt to do, especially if the night- 

 coverings are suffered to project, or hang over the 

 new linings. A further precaution is, to cover the 

 linings with boards or dry earth. 



If the attempt to obtain early cucumbers has been 



