IV ADVERTISEMENT. 



tables with a fucceffion of choice, wholefomc, 

 ufeful, rare fruits and vegetables. 



But granting that gentlemen will not allow 

 their gardeners a brick bed, yet I am in hopes 

 that the diredlions which I have given relative 

 to flopping the plants, fetting the fruit, mould, 

 heat, water, air, &c. will prove ufeful to many, 

 efpecially to young men, even in the manage- 

 ment and culture of the cucumber on a dung 

 bed : This will infallibly be the cafe, if that be 

 true, in general, which is faid by a refpe£table 

 modern author, I mean Dr. Hunter ; for in his 

 edition of Evelyn's Silva, publifhed in the year 

 1786, vol. ii. p. 143, he fays, " The gardeners 

 advife that the barren flowers of cucumber 

 plants fliould be carefully plucked off, by reafon 

 they think thefe deprive the plants too much of 

 its nourifhment; but, without doubt, they are 

 miftaken ; for the reafon why the fruit drops 

 off is, for want of being impregnated, and not 

 for want of nfourifliment, as is the vulgar opi^ 

 nion." And nearly the fame obfervations are 

 made by the Rev. Robert Pierfon, and publifhed 

 in Hunter's Georgical EfTays. 



Both thefe learned gentlemen cenfure gar- 

 deners in general without giving fufficient di- 

 reftions themfelves for performing what we 

 gardeners call fetting the fruit. This fpirit of 



cenfo- 



