AMERICAN KITCHEN GARDENER. 
i>'2 
£ then give air night and day, s ufficient to allow the steam to jass off, and 
once in two days I fork the surface over, about nine inches deep, to sweeten 
it, and if, in the operation, I find any part dry, I carefully wet it. The bed 
being quite sweet, I prepare it for tbe mould, by making the middle about 
eight inches lower than the sides, as the sides are liable, from the weight of 
the frames, to settle faster than the middle, which often causes the hills of 
earth to crack, by which the roots of the plants are greatly injured.”— Hort. 
Trans, vol. iii, p. 147. « 
Mr. Cobbett says, “ If you wish to have cucumbers a month earlier than 
the natural ground will bring them, do this:—Make a hole, and put into it a 
little hot dung; let the hole be under a warm fence. Put six inches deep of 
fine rich earth on the dung. Sow a parcel of seeds in this earth; and cover 
at night with a bit of carpet, or sail-cloth, having first fixed some hoops over 
this little bed. Before the plants show the rough leaf, plant two into a little 
flower-pot, and fill as many pots in this way a£ you please. Have a larger 
bed ready to put the pots into, and covered with earth, so that the pots may 
be plunged in the earth up to their tops. Cover this bed like the last. When 
the plants have got two rough leaves out, they will begin to make a shoot in 
the middle. Pinch that short off. Let them stand in this bed. till your cu¬ 
cumbers sown in the natural ground come up; then make some little holes in 
good, rich land, and, taking a pot at a time, turn out the ball , and fix it in the 
hole. These plants will bear a month sooner than those sown in the natural 
ground; and a square yard will contain thirty-six pots, and will, of course, 
furnish plants for thirty-six hills of cucumbers, which, if well managed, will 
keep on bearing till September. Those who have hot-bed frames , or hand- 
lights , will do this matter very easily. The cucumber plant is very tender 
and juicy ; and, therefore, when the seedlings are put into the pots, they 
should be watered and shaded for a day or two; when the balls are turned 
into the ground, they should be watered , and shaded with a bough for one 
day. That will be enough.—I have one observation to make upon the cul¬ 
tivation of cucumbers, melons of all sorts, and that of all the pumpkin and 
squash 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 pot, merely as a bar 
against accidents. One will bring more weight of fruit than two, (if stand¬ 
ing 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 make 
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 T eak. 1 he leaves become yellow: and, 
if they bear at all, it is poor, tasteless fruit that they produce. Their bear¬ 
ing is over in a few weeks. Whereas, 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 ripen . will keep bearing till the white frosts come in the fall.—The 
