IQ2 CUCUMBER. 



ratio of thickness to length, the shape of the shoulder 

 or stem end, the color of the tip, and the like. 



Origin of this type of cucumber. To the student of 

 plant variation, the forcing cucumbers possess unus- 

 ual interest. As a class, these cucumbers are very dis- 

 tinct from all others, and yet they are known to have 

 come in recent times from the shorter and spiny field 

 sorts, at least those particular varieties which we 

 now grow. It is not improbable that very long cu- 

 cumbers were known some centuries ago. The Cu- 

 cumis longus of Bauhin, 1651, is figured, as pointed 

 out by Sturtevant*, "as if equaling our longest and best 

 English forms." But these older types do not appear 

 to have been the ancestors of our modern forcing kinds. 

 Our types all appear to have originated within the pres- 

 ent century. The English have always been obliged, 

 because of their climatic limitations, to grow cucumbers 

 largely by the aid of artificial heat, and since the im- 

 provements inaugurated by M'Phail t over a century ago, 

 and extended by others shortly afterwards, special pits 

 or houses have been designed for them. "Under these 

 conditions," as Vilmorin remarks,} "the race could not 

 fail to greatly improve in appearance and size, earliness 

 and hardiness being regarded as qualities of secondary 

 importance. This has actually occurred, and there are 

 now in cultivation in England about ten or a dozen va- 

 rieties of the long green cucumber, all bearing long and 

 nearly cylindrical fruits, nearly spineless, with solid flesh, 

 and seeding very sparingly." M'Phail and other early 

 writers do not speak of special or named kinds for forcing, 

 showing that there had been little departure at that time 

 from common sorts. The earliest mention which I find of 



*Amer. Nat. 1887, 909. 



tA Treatise on the Culture of the Cucumber, by James M'Phail, 

 Second ed. 1795. 



\ Les Plantes Potageres, Second ed. 187. 



