100 



KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. 



[chap. 



will they leave with the kernel of it not eaten. After all, if you 

 have no hot-bed at all, a couple of wheelbarrows full of hot dung 

 put into a hole a foot deep, and with good mould a foot deep laid 

 upon the dung, is a very good situation for cucumbers, which you 

 may sow there about the middle of May ; two or three plants 

 upon such a hill or bed ; and, if you have a hand-glass, keep the 

 plants covered with that in the night-time and when the days are 

 cold, always giving air, however, when the sun is out, and, in time, 

 raising the glass upon bricks, and letting the vines run out under it. 

 Even if you have no hand-glass, you may cover, with the help of 

 hoops and a mat or a cloth, until the weather be such as to render 

 it safe for the plants to be at large. Finally, in very rich and warm 

 ground, you may sow cucumber-seed in the natural earth, the 

 ground having previously been well dug, and being kept very clean 

 afterwards ; and, though there be a chance of your having no crop, 

 you may have, and generally will have, a great quantity of cucum- 

 bers to pickle by the latter end of August. Before I dismiss this 

 article, let me observe that I have omitted to say anything about 

 what is called setting the fruit by poking the centre of the male 

 blossoms into the centre of the female blossoms ; because I deem 

 it to be arrant nonsense. The reader ought, before I entirely quit 

 this article, to be informed that the hot-bed, in which the cucum- 

 ber plants were first raised, may be turned to very good account 

 after the plants come out of it ; asparagus may be put into it im- 

 mediately ; or, it may be sowed with radishes, onions, lettuces, 

 small-salad, or with carrots. Many purposes will suggest them- 

 selves to every man. •And, if the bed should fail of its original 

 purpose altogether ; or if, owing to some accident, the four-light 

 bed should fail of its purpose, still these hot-beds will be found to 

 be of great use for other purposes, and will be quite sufficient in 

 point of strength for plants of a more hardy nature. 



147. DILL is an aromatic herb, very much like, only smaller 

 than, fennel, and it is used by many amongst cucumbers to give an 

 additional relish ; as it is also in soups. It is a hardy biennial 

 plant, and a small patch in the herb garden of two feet by six will 

 be enough for any family. Sow in drills six inches apart, in the 

 spring, making the ground fine first, and raking fine earth fightly 

 over the drills. Thin the plants out when they are a couple of 

 inches high, and let them then remain where they are ; and you 

 will have abundance of self-sowed plants every spring for renew- 

 ing your bed. 



