THE AMATEUR’S KITCHEN GARDEN. 
177 
days must be allowed to elapse ; but if the heat is mild, the 
soil may be put on at once, and in a few days afterwards the 
plants may be bedded out, and be protected with hand-lights, 
so long as protection is considered necessary. Glass may be 
dispensed with altogether in the production of cucumbers on 
ridges, but hand-lights afford such valuable assistance that 
they should be invariably brought into requisition if available. 
By affording protection during the first two or three weeks, 
the cucumber plants can be put out early in May, instead of 
at the end of that month ; and a gain of two or three weeks is 
effected. They should be strong and well established when 
bedded out, and be put in a line down the centre of the ridge 
at a distance of about thirty inches apart. The points will 
require nipping out as soon as the plants begin to grow freely, 
to encourage the production of side shoots, but no further 
stopping will be necessary. During periods of dry weather, 
maintain a sufficient degree of moisture in the soil, by regu- 
larly watering them over head through a coarse rose, and in 
the evening. 
The Enemies of the Cucumber are many and various, but 
there is one way to keep them all at bay, and that is to keep 
the plants always growing freely without being subjected to 
any extreme whatever. Too much or too little of heat, air, or 
moisture will bring about a bad state of things in some way or 
other. The plant is often injured by excess of heat, and if 
this happens to be accompanied with deficiency of moisture, 
the entire substance of leaf and stem seems to be instantly 
transformed into green fly; the beginning of which at the back 
of the leaf is usually denoted by a change from a healthy green 
to a suspicious yellow. For all the insect plagues, fumigation 
with tobacco is the safest and surest remedy ; for mildew, 
dustings of dry sulphur, and for any condition to which the 
term “ disease” may be applied, the remedy must be found in 
restoring the vigour of the plants. To anyone in trouble about 
unhealthy cucumbers, we may recommend a careful perusal of 
the whole of this chapter ; some points of which will probably 
suggest in what the disease originated, and how it may be 
cured. All the plagues known to the plant are, with few and 
rare exceptions, completely at the command of the cultivator 
to prevent; them, but as to effecting a cure, that is sometimes 
impossible, and it is sometimes the cheaper process to destroy 
the plants than attempt to restore them to health. 
