134 



THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 



water ed^ and shaded with a bough for one day. 

 That will be enough. I have one observation to 

 make upon the cultivation of cucumbers, melons of 

 all sorts, and that of all the pumpkin and squash 

 tribe ; and that is, that it is a great error to sow 

 them too thick. One plant in a hill is enough ; and 

 I would put two into a pot, merely as a bar against 

 accidents. One will bring more weight of fruit than 

 two (if standing near each other,) two more than 

 three, and so on, till you come to fifty in a square 

 foot; and then you will have no fruit at all! Le^ 

 any one make the experiment, and he will find thi? 

 observation mathematically true. When cucum- 

 bers are left eight or ten plants in a hill, they never 

 shoot strongly. Their vines are poor and weak, 

 the leaves become yellow, and, if they bear at all, 

 it is poor tasteless fruit that they produce. Their 

 bearing is over in a few weeks. Whereas, a single 

 plant, in the same space, will send its fine green 

 vines all around it to a great distance, and, if nc 

 fruit be left to ripen, will keep bearing till the white 

 frosts come in the fall. — The roots of a cucumber 

 will go ten feet, in fine earth, in every direction 

 Judge, then, how ten plants, standing close to one 

 another, must produce mutual starvation ! — If yox 

 save a cucumber for seed, let it be the first ftne fruil 

 that appears on the plant. The plant will cease to 

 bear much after this fruit becomes yellowish, — I 

 have said enough, under the head of Saving Seeds, 

 (Paragraphs, 139 to 146) to make you take care, 

 that nothing of the melon, pumpkin or squash kind 

 grow near a seed-bearing cucumber plant ; and that 

 all cucumbers of a different sort from that bearing 

 the seed be kept at a great distance. — There are 

 many sorts of cucumbers : the Long Prickly, the 

 Short Prickly, the Cluster, and many others ; but, 



