462 On pruning and training Cucumber Plants. 



comes to blossom the bed must be covered 1^ in. thick 

 with dry sand, if it can be got, but mould will do ; and do 

 not water the bed any more for at least three weeks. This 

 prevents the newly set fruit from turning yellow and damping 

 off. All shoots that appear, except the three above men- 

 tioned, must be removed. As these shoots will show fruit at 

 the first or second joint, if such fruit be set and taken care 

 of, it will be three parts grown before the vines will have 

 reached the outside of the bed, arriving at perfection in nearly 

 half the time it would have done if the vines had been left in 

 confusion. 



Particular care must be taken, in pruning, never to stop 

 the three shoots that bear the fruit, nor yet die lateral ones 

 produced from the same joint as the fruit. These lateral 

 shoots will show fruit at the first joint, which fruit must be 

 preserved until the other is swelling; then take off this lateral 

 fruit, but do not stop the vine. But should any accident 

 happen to the other fruit, the shoot bearing it must be taken 

 off, and the lateral shoot treated as a main one, when the fruit 

 on it will swell accordingly ; and all the laterals that spring 

 from the main shoot must be stopped, leaving one joint and 

 leaf only. I am, Sir, &c. 



John Lovell. 

 Brecon, July 16. 1829. 



Art. XIV. On pruning and training Cucumber Plants. 

 By Mr. W. P. Vaughan. 



Sir, 



I HAVE the Encyclopcsdia of Gardenings and the Gardener's 

 Magazine, with some other practical works; all of which con- 

 tain some excellent treatises on growing cucumber plants, but 

 nothing is said about pruning them. I consider their pro- 

 ductiveness as depending principally on pruning and the 

 age of the seed, and I will therefore lay down my system of 

 management. 



As I save a few seeds annually, I have always some thi'ee 

 years old. These I sow in shallow pans, in a dung heat not 

 under 70°. By the time they spread the seed leaves, I have 

 soil and 32-sized pots ready dried in the frames. I put a bit 

 of broken pot on the holes, and such a small quantity of soil 

 above it that when the plants are in they will but just reach 

 over the rim of the pot. I then take up the seedlings, avoid- 

 ing, as much as possible, injuring the fibres, and set three or 

 four of them in each pot in the form of a triangle or square. 



