CHAPTER II. 



CUCUMBERS 



THE man who can grow cucumbers on a large scale and grow them 

 well can grow anything. In their remarkably rapid growth 

 they soon prove themselves to be either a great success or a 

 great failure. In experienced hands the crop may be said to be 

 perfectly safe, but in the hands of a novice one would not care 

 to say as much. It demands certain hard and fast conditions, 

 given which its cultivation, though exacting, is fairly simple. 



i. 2. 3. 



FIG. 7. Cucumber Seed, 

 i. Just Sown ; 2. After a Week ; 3. After Three Weeks. 



We are not here writing of the casual growing of a few plants 

 as a catch crop in the frames on rule-of -thumb principles or lack 

 of principles, but of growing for market on a large scale, where 

 the difference between success and failure is a very serious one. 



It is claimed that cucumber growing can be made as profitable 

 as the growing of tomatoes, and though our own experience 

 does not dispose us to contradict this, we cannot accept it without 

 reservation. It is possible at times to reach the limit of the 

 demand for cucumbers even at very low prices, but in the case 

 of tomatoes it is much less possible. 



The essential conditions for cucumber growing are : (i) a 

 good rooting medium, well drained yet retentive of moisture and 

 heat ; (2) a high equable temperature ; (3) an abundance of 



21 



