‘DREER’S VEGETABLES UNDER GLASS. 63 
the vines may be trained ten feet upward on two opposite, 
sloping trellises, thus covering fully a ten-foot-wide strip of 
ground space from one end of the greenhouse to the other. 
A greenhouse twenty-five feet wide would therefore warrant 
the digging of only two or three trenches. 
Fermenting manure is placed in the trench to the depth 
of ten inches, and firmly packed after the manner of making 
a hot bed. Soil to the depth of eight inches is put on the 
manure, and the general level of the bed restored. The 
cucumber plants are dumped out of the pots and set directly 
over the manure in the trenches, and a tropical temperature 
is maintained in the house. 
The plants are set 314 feet apart, two plants at each 
point, for training in opposite directions upon the trellises. 
The bottom heat furnished by the manure in the trenches, 
aided by the temperature of the house itself, stimulates the 
already vigorous plants into a rapid growth, and enables 
them to produce blossoms and fruit in the course of a few 
weeks. 
The cucumber grower has no more 
useful ally than the honey bee; and the 
same industrious, unpaid laborer will do 
good service among tomato blossoms. 
Every New England gardener has one 
~ or more swarms of bees, and a hive is 
carried into the forcing house soon after 
the cucumbers are planted, so that the 
A FRIENDLY atuy Dees may be ready to visit the first 
OF THE UNDEB-GLASS blossoms. 
COLTOURIST. The cucumber (like other plants of 
its tribe) bears two kinds of blossoms on the same vine. 
One sort has stamens and the other a pistil. It is necessary 
for the pollen of the former to be carried to the latter. The 
work was formerly done by hand, with a camel’s hair brush, 
until it was found that the same result could be obtained 
