82 THE VEGETABLE CULTIVATOR. 



as a considerable degree of skill in the regulation, 

 management, and application of the heat, which is 

 required to bring them to maturity in the best and 

 most perfect manner. 



There being so little to be said of raising the 

 cucumber in the natural way, the author has re- 

 versed the order in this instance, and proceeds with 

 the culture by artificial means, which being pre- 

 mised, he has to observe that no plant in the culinary 

 line of vegetables has given the gardener more 

 anxiety than the one now treated of, during the 

 most changeable, dreary, and severe part of the 

 year. However, much of that care and anxiety has 

 been lessened within these last forty years by 

 M'Phail's pits, which have been glanced at in the 

 early part of the work. That excellent invention 

 has certainly rendered the forcing of this vegetable 

 more simple, and reduced it to a more regular and 

 certain system ; so that at this time few gentlemen's 

 gardens, and few of the principal market-gardens 

 in the vicinity of London and various other large 

 towns, are without them. 



As it is not convenient for every one who wishes 

 to have early cucumbers to erect a permanent hot- 

 bed, the culture on dung hot-beds will be first 

 noticed. 



In raising and cultivating the cucumber in this 

 way, the apparatus and materials principally neces- 

 sary in carrying it to any considerable extent, are 

 a sufficient number of frames or pits of different 

 sizes, with glass lights for covering them ; and it 

 is usual when this culture is much attended to, 

 and practised in the most perfect manner, to have 



