54 



buist's family kitchen gardener. 



requisite temperature is from 65° to 75°, and from 75° to 100° 

 by day Experience can manage these affairs with sight and 

 feeling, but the untutored require the aid of a thermometer 

 and a stick to poke into the dung-bed, to ascertain the inter- 

 nal heat of the material. When it begins to decline, give it a 

 fresh lining of manure all around, of eighteen inches in thick- 

 ness, and as high as to cover half of the frame. The vines, if 

 well managed, will bloom within a month from the day of sow- 

 ing. The male and female flowers are on the same plant, and 

 art may render assistance, by taking the male blossom and put- 

 ting its centre within the female, which is easily distinguished 

 by having at its base a form of a cucumber, half an inch long. 

 After being impregnated, it will be fit to cut in two weeks. 

 These operations may be begun and gone through any time 

 from Christmas to March. To cultivate cucumbers extensive- 

 ly, all that is requisite is a preparation of manure, frames, 

 and sash. Use the above described bed for growing the seed- 

 ling plants, transplanting them into larger frames or pits, (see 

 fig. 15,) three plants being sufficient for each sash, and fifty to 

 seventy fruit may be cut from each light. When the author was 

 gardener to the late Henry Pratt, Esq., of Lemon Hill, near this 

 city, he cut Cucumbers in February, and had them for the table 

 regularly till they could be obtained from the open ground. 



Cucumbers can also be cultivated under hand-glasses ; (see 

 Fig. 13.) Dig out a pit early in April, eighteen inches deep 

 and wide, fill it with warm manure, and cover with six or 

 eight inches of rich light soil, in which sow the seed. Hand- 

 glasses are made of various sizes, but such as are eighteen 

 inches square will be found the most useful. Admit air dur- 

 ing sunshine, as directed for frames, and if cold nights prevail, 

 cover them with mats or litter of any kind. Cucumbers for 

 pickling should be sown from tne end of June to the 15th of 

 July. Either the Short Prickly or Long Green is suitable 

 for the purpose. There is also a small Cluster Cucumber used 

 by some for bottling or mixing with a finer sort of pickles 



