CUCUMBER 331 
must be kept, or the pollen transferred by hand, in order 
that the flowers may be pollenized. It is well known, 
however, that pollination is not always necessary in order 
to insure the development of fruit; but this statement 
applies more particularly to the pure English varieties 
rather than to American or American-English crosses. 
In this connection, Bailey, in Bulletin 31, Cornell station, 
makes the following statement: 
“There is a question, however, if pollination is advisable in the 
house, for it is certain that the English cucumber will grow to per- 
fection without seeds and entirely without the aid of pollen. I do 
not know if this is true of the common cucumbers, but we have 
made several unsuccessful efforts to grow Medium Green 
(Nichol’s Medium Green) in the house without pollination. White 
Spine sets without pollen, apparently. In the early days of cu- 
cumber forcing hand pollination was practiced, but it has been 
abandoned by many growers. It is possible that the forcing cu- 
cumber sets more freely now without pollen than it did before its 
characters were well fixed, or perhaps the early gardeners per- 
formed an unnecessary labor. Many gardeners suppose that pollen 
causes the fruit to grow large at the end, and they therefore aim 
to produce seedless cucumbers for the double purpose of saving 
labor and of procuring straighter and more shapely fruits. For 
two winters we have performed many experiments upon these ques- 
tions, but we are not yet able to make many definite statements 
concerning them. We have found, however, that it pays to pollinate 
by hand if early fruits are desired. The early flowers nearly al- 
ways fail to set if pollen is withheld, but late flowers upon the same 
plant may set freely with no pollen. We follow the same method 
advised by Abercrombie and other writers of last century—pick 
off a staminate flower, strip back the corolla, and insert the column 
of anthers into a pistillate flower. Fruits which have set without 
pollination are uniformly seedless throughout, the walls of the ovules 
remaining loose and empty. Pollination does not occur when the 
fruits are left to themselves in the forcing house, especially in mid- 
winter, when pollen-carrying insects are not present. Upon old 
plants we often prevent pollination, for experimental purposes, by 
tying together the flower tube, or occasionally by cutting off the 
