CULTURE OF THE CUCUMBER IN POTS. 507 



which have been published on the same subject, but in our opinion the best. 

 Mr. Ayres's great object is the production of "quantity" of fruit rather 

 than fruit of large size ; " a dozen fruit of moderate length," he says, " may 

 be grown in the same time that it takes to prepare the plant and produce 



one or a brace of fruit of unusual dimensions." "In every garden 



where either pines are grown or vines forced early, frame-forcing of 

 cucumbers may be entirely dispensed with, and fruit of superior quality, 

 in greater quantity, and at a fiftieth part of the expense, produced." (Pref.} 

 The principal features in which Mr. Ayres's book differs from those which 

 have gone before it, is in advocating a lower temperature at night and in 

 dull weather ; in taking greater advantage of light ; in not stopping the 

 leading shoot till the plants are fully established ; and his using water of 

 the same temperature as the soil the plants grow in. The principle of 

 maintaining a lower temperature at night is not to be disputed ; but a proper 

 distinction should be made between tropical plants inhabiting regions 

 where the usual difference between the temperatures of day and night is but 

 little and plants of higher latitudes, where a difference of 20 or 30 is not 

 unusual. In the case of plants kept generally in a temperature of 80, or 

 say in a mean of 75, a reduction of 5 will affect them as much as a reduc- 

 tion of 10 or 15 would others habituated to a mean temperature of 50. A 

 rustic in this country would scarcely feel a difference of 15 lower tempera- 

 ture, whereas a negro would feel miserably cold if he were placed in a tem- 

 perature as much as lo, or even 10, below 75, or any other higher degree 

 at which he might have previously found himself comfortable. If a range 

 of 20 is necessary to effect the requisite firmness of tissue in plants of this 

 climate, the same effect would be produced by a range of less than 10 as 

 regards the highly-excited plants of the tropical regions. 



" Cucumber pits and frames have the sashes generally placed at an angle of 

 15, which is 13 too low to obtain the full solar power in June, when the sun is 

 at his greatest altitude, GO too low for December, and 36 too low for March 

 and September." 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 consequently, 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 heating apparatus, that will place the hygrometric state of the atmo- 

 sphere 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. (p. 8.) 



1079. 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 influence 

 in midwinter. " To obtain the perpendicular rays of the sun in December, 

 it would be necessary in latitude 53 to place the glass at an angle of 75 28'; 

 in January, 71 52'; in February, 62 29'; and in March, 51 41'." As the 

 sun has but little influence from the autumnal to the venial equinox, Mr. 



