Ig 5 CUCUMBER. 



not know if this is true of the common cucumbers, but 

 we have made several unsuccessful efforts to grow Me- 

 dium Green (Nicholas Medium Green) in the house 

 without pollination. In the early days of cucumber forc- 

 ing, hand pollination was practiced, but it has been 

 abandoned by many growers.* It is possible that the 

 forcing cucumber sets more freely now without pollen 

 than it did before its characters were well fixed, or per- 

 haps the early gardeners performed an unnecessary labor. 

 We have sometimes thought that the fruits set more 

 freely without pollination as the plants become mature. 

 As a result of several years' experience, however, we 

 find that hand pollination is essential to the certainty of 

 securing a crop. 



Many gardeners suppose that pollen causes the fruit 

 to grow large at the end, as in Fig. 68, and they, there- 



(Lonc 



*" Fertilization was formerly considered necessary for the setting 

 of cucumbers, but it has lone been proved to be needless. Indeed, 

 fruits intended for eating are better without, as the seeds in them are 

 not so numerous. For seeding purposes fertilization is decidedly rc- 



ired, if good, heavy seed be needed." Kitchen and Market Card. 150 

 idon, 1887). 



" Except for seeding purposes, it is not necessary that the latter 

 [pistillate flowers] should be fertilized, the fruit reaching the same 

 size, and being all the better for the absence of seeds. In winter 

 time, or in the case of weak plants, the whole of the male flowers 

 might with advantage be kept removed." Nicholson's Diet. Card. 

 i, 405- 



General Russell Hastings, of Bermuda Islands (whose house is 

 shown in Fig. 64, page 185), writes me as follows upon this question of 

 pollinating the forcing cucumbers: "I am growing the English frame 

 cucumber, many fruits growing 2 feet long and weighing as high as 3 

 pounds. When I first began, some six years ago, having read of the 

 necessity of pollinating by hand, I used to perform this work ; but I 

 became neglectful, and it seemed entirely unnecessary to pollinate, as 

 my growth was fu'.ly as good as before my careful attention. I went so 

 far in my experiment as to select a pistillate bud which, if left alone, 

 would have opened the following day, and with care cut off the bud 

 and destroyed the pistil. From this I raised a very large cucumber, 

 but, of course, without a seed from one end to the other. When 1 first 

 began with my glass house, I had no bees, and never saw one in the 

 house, but for the past two years I have had bees not far from the house, 

 and as the sash stands open nearly every day, it is, of course, constantly 

 visited by bees. The result in the number and growth of cucumbers 

 is no better than when I did not pollinate, nor when there were no bees 

 around." 



