THE CUCUMBER. 



359 



the produce. Any check to growth develops tough- 

 ness or bitterness in the produce. Besides, these 

 annual plants have no intrinsic value in themselves, 

 such as choice Heaths, Rhododendrons, or other stove 

 or greenhouse plants ; Cucumbers are grown simply 

 and only for a certain amount of produce. That of 

 first-rate quality, in the shortest time, is therefore 

 all that the cultivator has to trouble about : the 

 Lettuce being well hearted up and cut, the stump is 

 relegated to the rubbish-heap ;' and so in a measure 

 with Cucumber plants. After yielding a dozen, 

 fifty, or a hundred fruits, the plants are useless, 

 and can be cleared away to make room for others. 

 Should the plants even break down under express 

 culture after a dozen or a score of crops, the quick 

 retiirns, as heavy in quantity as superb in quality, 

 would still be in favour of express culture ; but 

 unless cropped to excess or otherwise mismanaged, the 

 plants do not break down. On the contrary, the 

 faster they grow and the heavier the crop of fruits 

 they set and swell, the more vigorous the plants 

 gi'ow. The plants throw off produce as an athlete 

 muscular vigour, gaining more strength with each 

 display of agility or force. 



Nor is the secret of the apparently inexhaustible 

 supply of vital and productive force far to seek. 

 Three conditions are needful to insure success 

 in the express mode of growing Cucumber^. 

 These are light, heat, and moisture. The first 

 is the source of strength ; the second, the cause 

 of motion ; the third, the means of keeping the 

 plant fully supplied with all it needs. Experienced 

 cultivators, as well as novices, will observe that one 

 thing that is mostly made so much of by cultivators 

 is conspicuous "by its absence, that is, air. Cucumber- 

 growers by express look upon air with suspicion. 

 As mostly applied, it wastes time as well as heat and 

 moisture, hinders growth, and puts a drag on the 

 wheels of rapid production. Hence, they simply 

 ignore it. No doubt air will reach Cucumbers or 

 other plants without our aid, and in spite of our 

 attempts to hinder it. But that is quite a different 

 matter to the building and warming of Cucumber- 

 houses, and taking means to semi-saturate the air of 

 the same by artificial means, and then sweeping out 

 all these aids to growth by the in-rush of the ex- 

 ternal air through open ventilators. This is a folly 

 that the express Cucumber-grower declines to be 

 guilty of. 



Fully exposed to the light. Cucumber plants will 

 bear a temperature of 120° with impunity. With 

 the atmosphere at saturation the fruit and plants 

 will grow like weeds in a temperature ranging from 

 90" to 120''. The expression must not be understood 

 to mean that tbe plants will become weedy : quite the 

 contrary. Fully exposed to the light in a semi- 



saturated atmosphere, with the roots fully fed with 

 solid or liquid manure, the plants continue in the 

 most robust vigour, under these forcing conditions. 

 The leaves are full of vigour, verdure, and sub- 

 stance ; the soil filled with a perfect network of 

 roots, overflowing the root-runs into the moist air 

 so rapidly as to need top-dressing to cover them at 

 least once a week or ten days. This incessant top- 

 dressing with solid compost, and root-feeding with 

 sewage or manure water, is one of the secrets of suc- 

 cess in the express culture of the Cucumber. Hence, 

 the importance of a thoroughly drained basis and a 

 porous bottom of rough, turfy loam, to make sure of 

 the rapid escape of water, and prevent the possibility 

 of stagnation. Anything like sourness of root-run 

 proves fatal to this mode of culture. 



The tops should also be gone over daily ; each 

 shoot stopped at the joint showing fruit, and so on 

 continually. The next leaf formed will have one or 

 more fruit in its embryo, every one of which will 

 swell under proper management. 



All fruit should be cut when about three-quarters 

 grown. It is the later development of the fruit, and 

 the effort to form and ripen seeds, that proves most 

 exhausting to the plant. During the earlier stages 

 of the growth of Cucumbers, they drain the plants of 

 but little strength, and no sooner is one removed 

 than the growing strength seems to run at once into 

 the new channels of successive Cucumbers. Hence, 

 the Cucumbers should be cut daily, or at the least 

 three times a week. After each cutting, one can 

 almost see the succession fruit grow ; and the weight 

 of the produce may be doubled, as well as its quality 

 kept up to the highest standard, by the simple and 

 safe practice of early cutting. 



No fruit must be kept for seed under this system, 

 for two very good reasons : the first, which seems* 

 suflBcient, viz., that little or no seed will be formed or 

 ripened under express culture ; the second is, that 

 one Cucumber left for seed will probably rob the 

 cultivator of at least fifty edible Cucumbers of the 

 highest quality. 



As this system develops an enormous amount of 

 root force and power, it is not needful to sacrifice 

 all this, even should the plant, after six months or 

 more of bearing, show signs of exhaustion or 

 distress. They may be cut back, more or less, as 

 their condition may seem to require, and with 

 liberal top dressings, and a continuance of all the 

 express modes of forcing growth, the old plants 

 will break into new vigour, and go on bearing even 

 more plentifully than before. 



Finally, the express system is the only remedy 

 and antidote yet discovered for the Cucumber 

 disease. The latter can be grown out and kept out 

 by express treatment when all other methods have 



