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which administer to the nutrition of a plant, is the most 

 rational means of inducing a state of fruitfulness. 

 This may at first sight be questioned ; cases may readily 

 enough be quoted, in which food has been bountifully 

 supplied, and the plants have grown amazingly, but not 

 fruited; if however, food had been thus supplied, in con- 

 nexion with a due share of light, and an excess of heat 

 had been avoided, we have natural evidence to prove 

 unquestionably that fructification would have followed. 

 An abundance of food, a high temperature, and a defi- 

 ciency of light, are just the conditions which are opposed 

 to the developement of the floral organs in plants, and 

 are inductive of mere barren extension : not that plants 

 grow thus, because they delight in such a state of things, 

 but because they are thereby unnaturally excited and com- 

 pelled to do so, although that growth cannot under such 

 circumstances, become properly matured; and hence 

 arises the impossibility of their producing blossoms. 



The advantage of raising plants of Cucumbers from 

 seeds, consists in the facility thus afforded of altogether 

 avoiding transplantation : the roots of Cucumbers are of 

 a very tender nature, and however carefully they may be 

 transplanted, they are liable to sustain injury in the 

 removal : by having recourse to depositing the seeds at 

 once in the soil where they are intended to grow, this is 

 entirely obviated, and there can be no possible reason 

 why the conditions necessary to germination should not 

 be as fully supplied in a hillock of soil, as when a por- 

 tion of the soil is placed within a garden pot ; this vessel 

 can certainly have no influence in producing more perfect 

 or healthy germination, whilst the mutilation of even the 

 most careful act of transplantation, may tend to check 

 the future developement of the plant. 



It may be, however, that circumstances prevent the 

 sowing of the seeds at once in their ultimate position, 

 and in such cases, they may be sown singly in pots partly 



