THE 



AMERICAN 



GARDENER'S MAGAZINE. 



APRIL, 1836. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. On the Construction of Brick Pits for early Forcing; 

 to which is added the Cultivation and Forcing of the Cucum- 

 ber ; taken from Horticultural Memoranda, and exhibiting the 

 State of their Progress from January until September. By 

 the Conductors. 



( Continued from page 81.) 

 JOURNAL. 



April 2d, 1832. — The weather to-day very fine and mild ; the 

 mercury indicating 54° at one o'clock, P. M. The plants are now 

 growing vigorously, and show large numbers of flowers. 



At the close of this article, in our last, we alluded to a practice 

 general among gardeners, commonly termed " setting the fruit ;" 

 but what is perhaps more proper, or, at least, better understood, by 

 this, is the impregnation of the pistillate flowers, or those with 

 embryo fruit, with the staminate flowers, or those erroneously 

 called false blossoms. Formerly it was a practice with many per- 

 sons, to pull off" or destroy all the false blossoms, from the suppo- 

 sition that they injured the plants, by exhausting their strength. 

 This, however, is a bad practice ; and if pursued in early forcing, 

 the cultivator would be deprived of a large quantity of fruit, and 

 such as was produced, would be of inferior appearance. Some- 

 times a large quantity of staminate blossoms will appear, and no 

 pistillate ones ; when this is the case, they should be partly rubbed 

 off", as they are then of no use, and rather tend to keep the plants 

 from pushing out fraitful runners. Cobbett states, in his Gardener, 

 that the fertilizing of the pistillate blossoms is entirely useless, and 

 only pursued from its being an old practice among English gar- 

 deners. We were inclined to this opinion, until we had tried the 

 experiment to our satisfaction ; but we are now well assured that, 



VOL. II. NO. IV. 16 



