CUCUMBER. 
53 
*©ots of a cucumber will go ten feet, in fine earth, in every iirection. Judge 
(hen, how ten plants, standing close to one another, must produce mutual 
starvation! ” 
Mr. Armstrong has the following observations with regard to early cu¬ 
cumbers : “To obtain these, we must have recourse 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 hills ; fill these with good garden mould, 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, in¬ 
stead of the ordinary difficulty of separating the mass of earth and the plant, 
from the pot that contained them, and without injury to either, we re-enter 
both pot am plant, av en find 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.”— Mem. of N. F. Board of Agr. vol. ii, 
p. 115. 
Training .—To force the cucumbers into early fruit, Abercrombie 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 may be cut off or picked out; or, if the runner has already started, it 
may be pinched off close. This is called stopping 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 produced. 
The vines, without the process of stopping, would generally be both weaker, 
and so deficient in fertile runners, t^at they would sometimes extend two or 
three feet without showing fruit. When plants, which have been once 
stopped, have extended the first runners to three joints without showing 
fruit, they are to be again stopped for the purpose of strengthening the plant, 
and disposing it for bearing. As fertile runners extend, train them out regu¬ 
larly along the surface, fastening them down neatly with pegs.” 
Upright training .—Cucumber plants being climbers by means of their 
tendrils, some branchy sticks being placed to any advancing runners, they 
will ascend, and produce fruit at a distance from the ground, of a clean 
growth, free from spots, and well flavored. “Mr. J. W. of Philadelphia in¬ 
formed Dr. Mease, that he enriched the ground near the trunk of a peach 
tree, and sowed some cucumber seed, which came up very abundantly. He 
pulled up all the plants but one, and permitted the vine to run uf the tree. 
It bore 150 cucumbers. The numerous cree iers with which the cucumber 
abounds, and the result of this experiment, would seem to point out the 
climbing nature of the plant, and the great advantage arising from permit¬ 
ting it to attach itself to a frame or tree, instead of confining it to the 
ground.”— Dam. Encyc. 
Setting the fruit .—“The cucumber,” Abercrombie observes, “bears male 
