510 CULTIVATION OF THE CUCUMBER. 



SUBSECT. IV. Culture and Treatment of the Cucumber for Prize Exhibitions. 

 1081. The largest growing varieties are chosen, of which Allen's Victory 

 of Suffolk, the Roman Emperor, Snow's Horticultural Prize, and Duncan's 

 Victoria, appear to be among the best. The plants must not be allowed to 

 set fruit till they have attained considerable strength. The fruit is put into 

 cylinders of glass or tin to protect the prickles and bloom. Every means is 

 employed to encourage vigorous growth, and rather a higher temperature is 

 maintained than hi ordinary culture. "In the event of fruit being ready to 

 cut before the time wanted, they should be divided three parts across their 

 foot-stalk, and secured to the trellis to prevent falling. By this means they 

 will keep fresh and stationary several days, much better than by cutting 

 or entirely separating them from the plant. If necessary to carry or send 

 them to a distance, they should be packed nicely in a box made for the 

 purpose, in the largest nettle leaves that can be got, or in cucumber leaves, 

 but by no means in smooth leaves, which are certain to rub off the 

 bloom. They may then be folded in tissue-paper, and wrapped in 

 wadding, and placed in narrow boxes of well-thrashed moss (see 860). 

 By these means the spines, powdery bloom, and partially withered blossom 

 at the end of the fruit are preserved, without which no cucumber can 

 be considered handsome, or well grown. In being exhibited they should 

 be put in dishes in pairs or leashes, on a little clean moss, or on vine leaves, 

 and the brace or leash should always be of the same sort, and if possible of 

 the same length, and of a kind having a pure black spine." (Duncans 

 Cucumber Culture, p. 81.) When cucumbers have lost their bloom, the 

 blossom at the end of the fruit, or even some of their prickles, or when they 

 have not grown quite straight, all these defects used formerly to be supplied 

 by art. A bloom was put on the fruit by laying it on a wire frame in a 

 close box, and with a powder-puff charging the air of the box with a powder 

 formed of perfectly dry magnesia, minutely calcined. Half-decayed blos- 

 soms were stuck on the point of the fruit with a little gum ; and prickles 

 were inserted into small holes made with the point of a pin. Crooked cu- 

 cumbers were rendered straight by placing them in a damp cellar, and there, 

 by two strips of wood, one applied to each side, gradually effecting the object 

 in view. All these processes will be found described in detail in the 

 Gardeners' Magazine for 1828, p. 36 ; since which exposure they have been, 

 we believe, almost entirely given up ; but it is well to know that such tricks 

 have existed, in order to be on our guard against their revival. 



SCBSECT. V. Cultivation of the Cucumber in the open air. 

 1082. Cucumbers grown in the open air are commonly protected by hand or 

 bell glasses. The seeds are sown some time about the middle of April in a 

 cucumber or melon bed, and when they come up, they are potted out into 

 small pots, two or three plants in each pot, and are kept properly watered, 

 and stopped at the first or second joint. About the middle of May, a warm 

 situation, where the mould is very rich, is pitched on, and a trench is dug 

 out about two feet deep and three feet broad, and the length is proportioned 

 according to the number of glasses it is intended for. The bottom of this 

 trench is covered with primings of bushes, or coarse vegetable rubbish of any 

 kind, and it is then filled with good warm dung, and when the dung is come 

 to its full heat, it is covered over with eight, ten, or twelve inches deep of 



