CUCUMBER. 51 
Seed is allowed to remain on the drying frame until 
it is reasonably dry, and then it is removed therefrom 
and spread out thinly on the floor of a dry, airy room, 
where it is watched until it is thoroughly dry, being 
stirred and turned over occasionally. 
Another way of drying after being taken off the 
screens, is to place the seed in sacks, filled about one- 
third full, and these are thrown across a fence or other 
convenient place in the air during the day, till the 
seeds have become thoroughly dry. 
Cucumber seed should not be stored or packed for 
shipment until perfectly dry, known by seed breaking 
crisply without bending. 
Market.—Besides being grown in all private gardens, 
cucumbers are planted extensively for market by 
truckers, and also by farmers as a field crop for com- 
mercial picklers. The consumption of seed, therefore, 
in this country is very large, and runs up to many 
hundreds of thousands of pounds annually. It is all 
produced here, the most of it in Connecticut, New 
York, New Jersey, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, 
and Colorado, but as is shown by these localities, 
almost any section in the United States is adapted for 
its culture. 
In a favorable season a yield of cucumber seed will 
average 250 pounds per acre, though at times it has 
been known to greatly exceed this, having reached as 
high as 750 pounds. 
Up to within the past few years, growers’ prices have 
ruled from twelve to fifteen cents per pound, but since 
the disastrous crop failures in the seasons of 1902 and 
1908, due to ravages of plant lice, prices have gone 
higher, ranging now from twenty-five to thirty-five 
cents per pound. When the market returns to its nor- 
