CUCUMBER. 99 



part renewing. But much depends on the weather : 

 however, as before observed, let the thermometer be 

 resorted to ; and though the author did not use such 

 an instrument in the frame way for above forty 

 years, still it will be found useful to such persons as 

 have had but little experience. They are certainly 

 most useful in stoves and forcing houses. The first 

 the writer ever saw was pointed out to him by 

 Philip Miller, at Chelsea, above seventy years ago. 



Should either the amateur gardener or the young 

 horticulturist feel inclined to try his skill for the 

 production of a cucumber that will be likely to gain 

 a prize, he will do well to attend to the following 

 details. 



Various have been the ways by which to make 

 crooked fruit straight ; such as by a sort of narrow 

 glass case, or a wide-mouthed bottle &c. : in either 

 case a fine bloom on the cucumber will be essential, 

 this ornament being always admired both in the 

 animal and vegetable kingdom. 



Cucumbers have been for many years successfully 

 raised in pine stoves. Whether the fine brace 

 presented by Fowler (Sir W. Blount's gardener), 

 on Christmas or New-year's day, to George the 

 First, was raised in a stove, has not been recorded. 

 This presentation was made above 100 years ago ; 

 hence the cultivation of early cucumbers at that 

 time must have received very great attention : 

 that of some ordinary fruit was of a more recent 

 date, as a plate of fine well-ripened Duke Cherries 

 was sent to George the Second's table by Powell, 

 then the royal gardener at Kensington, on New- 

 year's day. Powell was succeeded by Greening, 

 H 2 



