eUCUMBEK. 



all sorts, and that of ail tlie pumpkin and squasli 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 potj 

 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 ! Let any one 

 Inake the experiment, and he will find this observation 

 mathematically true. When cucumbers are left eight or ten 

 plants in a hill, they never shoot strongly. Their vines are 

 poor and w^eak. The leaves become yellov/ ; and, if they 

 bear at all, it is poor, tasteless fruit that they produce. 

 Their bearing is over in a few weeks. V/hereas, a single 

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

 around it to a great distance, and, if no fruit be left to ripens 

 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 !" 



Mr. Armstrong has the following observations wdth regard 

 to earl}/ cucumbers : — " To obtain these, we must have re- 

 course to artificial heat ; and with the less reluctance, as, 

 of all plants, the cucumber is that with which it best agrees. 

 To this end, therefore, scoop as many large turnips as you 

 propose to have ; fill these with good garden mouid^ 

 sow in each three or four seeds, and plunge them into a 

 hot-bed. The advantage of the scooped turnip, as a seed- 

 bed, over pots or vases, will now appear; for, instead of Ihe 

 ordinary difficulty of separating the mass of earth and the 

 plant from the pot v/hich contained them, and without injury 

 to either, we re-interboth pot and plant, and even fmd in the 

 one an additional nutriment for the other. The subsequent 

 treatment does not differ at all from that of plants sown and 

 cultivated in the open air. 



n — Mem. of N. F. Board of Agr. 



vol. ii. p. 115. 



Training. — To force the cucumbers into early fruit, Aber- 

 erombie directs to " stop the runners as soon as the plants 

 have made two rough leaves : as the bud that produces the 

 runner is disclosed at the base of the second rough leaf, it 

 maybe cut off or picked out; or, if the runner has already 

 started, it may be pinched off close. This is called stop- 

 ping at the first joint, and is necessary to promote a stronger, 

 stocky growth, and an emission of fruitful laterals ; and 

 from these the prolific runners will be successively pro- 

 duced. The vinesj without the process of stopping^ woul-d 



