146 AMERICAN GARDENER. 



in this way as you please. Have a larger bed 

 ready to put the pots into, and covered with earth 

 so that the pots may be plunged in the earth up 

 to their tops. Cover this bed like the last. 

 When the plants have got two rough leaves out, 

 they will begin to make a shoot in the middle. 

 Pinch that short off. Let them stand in this bed, 

 till your cucumbers sown in the natural ground 

 co?ne ufi ; then make some little holes in good 

 rich land, and taking a pot at a time, turn out 

 the ball and fix it in the hole. These plants will 

 bear a month sooner than those sown in the natu- 

 ral ground ; and a square yard will contain 36 

 pots, and will of course, furnish plants for 36 

 hills of cucumbers, which, if well managed, will 

 keep on bearing till September. Those who 

 have hot-bed frames, or hand-lights, will do this 

 matter very easily. The cucumber plant is very 

 tender and juicy ; and, therefore, \vhen the seed- 

 lings are put into the pots, they should be water- 

 ed, and shaded for a day or two ; when the balls 

 are turned into the ground, they should be water- 

 ed, and shaded with a bough for one day. That 

 will be enough. I have one observation to make 

 upon the cultivation of cucumbers, melons of 

 all sorts, and of all the pumpkin and squash 

 tribe ; and that is, that it is a great error to sow* 

 them too thick, One plant in a hill is enough ; and 

 I would put two into a fiot, merely as a bar against 

 accidents. One will bring more weight of fruit 

 than two (if standing near each other,) two more 

 than three, and so on, till you come to fifty in a 

 square foot ; and then you will have no fruit at 

 all ! Let any one make the experiment, and he 

 will find this observation mathematicallv time, 



