332 GARDENING FOE THE SOUTH. 



plant is very tender, and will not bear the least frost. If 

 the soil be deeply trenched, the plant is much less suscep- 

 tible to drought. After the ground is prepared, dig out 

 holes fifteen inches deep and the same in diameter, six 

 feet apart each way, and partly fill them with well-decom- 

 posed manure. A little guano, or fowl manure, sprinkled 

 in the bottom of the hills will be ver} r beneficial. Do not 

 use fresh manure, or the plants will die out. Cow manure 

 and leaf-mould are excellent. Cover over the manure 

 with rich, mellow loam. Raise the hills a little above 

 the surface, and put eight or ten seeds in the hill; cover 

 an inch deep, and when they get rough leaves, pull up the 

 poorest plants, and leave but three in the hill. Old seed 

 is much better than new, as the plants will run less to 

 vines and bear better. 



The Florida Experiment Station recommends the fol- 

 lowing as an excellent fertilizer: 



" Available phosphoric acid, 7 per cent. 



Potash, 8 per cent. 



Nitrogen, 5 per cent. 



" Fifteen hundred of 2,500 pounds per acre will be re- 

 quired on most lands. If the land is rich in organic mat- 

 ter use less or none of the nitrogen. A tablespoonful of 

 nitrate of soda sprinkled about the hills as soon as the 

 plants are up will hurry them along out of danger from 

 insects. Too much nitrogeneous matter makes poor 

 shippers and overgrown sizes." 



As soon as the vines get rough leaves, nip off the ex- 

 tremities, to make them branch out, and they will fruit 

 the sooner. This is called stopping. Cucumbers are very 

 subject in cool, dry seasons to attacks of insects, espe- 

 cially the striped bug and the cucumber flea. Dry wood, 

 ashes or air-slacked lime, dusted thoroughly upon the 

 plants when the dew is on, will generally repel them, and 

 bring the plants forward. But warm rains will soon 



