222 



VEGETABLE GARDENING. 



when set out there is little danger of attacks of the striped 

 beetle, and the fruit is earlier than when sown in the open 

 ground. In following out this plan, the seed should not be sown 

 before the first of May, or the plants will be too large to move 

 well. Before the plants are removed from the frames to the 

 open ground, they should be exposed without the sash for several 

 days until well hardened off. When these plants are moved to the 

 open ground, they should be set rather deeper than they grew in 

 the frames. They then are cultivated the same as plants from 

 seed sown in the hill. Another way for advancing the cucumber 

 season when hotbed sash is used is by planting a hill of them 

 very early, in the center of each sash of the hotbed, while the 

 rest of each sash may be used for an early crop. The cucumbers 

 will not need much room for several weeks, which will give time 

 to grow the early crop and get it out of the way of the cucumbers. 

 The sashes should be removed when warm weather comes, and 

 the vines allowed to grow in the frames all summer. 



Insects. — The cucumber has -8 serious enemy in the striped 

 beetle and is also liable to injury from the cut worm. (For reme- 

 dies see chapter on insects.) 



Seed. — Cucumber seed is easily raised, and in some loca- 

 tions it is a product of some importance. In raising seed it is 

 important to save it from the early fruit, which in a small way 

 are easily saved; on a large scale, however, the fruits are allowed 

 to ripen but not to rot on the ground. When the vines are dead, 

 the ripe cucumbers are split open, the pulp scooped out with the 

 seed and allowed to ferment for a few days, when it readily sepa- 

 rates from the seed. The whole mass is then thrown into a 

 sieve with a mesh small enough to not allow the seeds to pass 

 through, and the pulp is washed through the sieve, leaving the 

 clean seed, which is carefully dried. If the cucumbers are al- 

 lowed to get rotten before the seed is taken out, the skins will 

 become mixed with the seed, and the seed will be discolored, and 

 such seed is very liable to sprout in the cleaning and curing pro- 

 cess. 



Varieties. — For general home use and marketing, the White 

 Spine is a favorite variety. For pickles the m.ost profitable kinds 

 are those producing many small cucumbers, such as the variety 



