1891.] ESSAYS. 57 



to temperature, and tlie better control of heat, secured by hot 

 water, and this time at a saving of over 32 per cent, in coal in 

 favor of the hot water. 



Cucumbers Under Glass. 



The conditions required to grow cucumbers successfully under 

 glass are, in several important respects, radically different from 

 those of lettuce — so much so, that the two plants cannot be grown 

 together in the same frame or green-house. The high night 

 tem])erature (60° to 65°) which the cucumber requires would be 

 ruinous to lettuce, while the low temperature (35° to 40°) at 

 night needed for the healthy growth of lettuce would soon give 

 the cucumber its death. 



Both lettuce and cucumbers might do fairly well together in 

 the day temperature suitable for lettuce in sunny weather, pro- 

 vided no cold air was admitted to keep the thermometer from 

 going above 70°. But while we should ventilate the lettuce when 

 the thermometer was getting above 70°, we should not give air 

 to cucumbers until the temperature reached 100° or more. 



Another radical diff'erence between the cucumber and lettuce is 

 in the very much greater skill and care required in manipulating 

 the cucumber plants. Any one can transplant the lettuce and 

 make it live. None but an expert can transplant the cucumber 

 with any success at all. A single day's work of a novice at pot- 

 ting cucumber plants once occasioned me a loss of a little over 

 $300 even after being carefully instructed and shown just how 

 to do it. 



But even very much greater skill and care are needed to trans- 

 plant a cucumber from the pot or from the bed into the place 

 where it is to grow and fruit, than in potting the plant when 

 small. If the soil falls off, or becomes very much loosened from 

 the roots of a large cucumber plant when placing it in the hill, 

 you might as well throw it away, first as last, for it can seldom be 

 saved so as to amount to anything. 



In planting out the cucumber into hills where it is to fruit 

 it must be handled with such gentleness and care that it will 

 .never know it has been moved. To check the growth, even but 

 a little, does the plant an almost irreparable injury. 



