4SS 
Extraordinary Fecundity of Cucumher-planis, [Dec. 1, 
of savages. I had under my eyes the 
lineal descendants of the primordial 
family of man; I saw them with the 
same system of manners which prevailed 
in the days of Agar and of Ismael, and 
which they have preserved since that 
era: I saw them in the same desert 
which was assigned to them by tiie Lord 
as their inheritance. “ Moraius esf in 
solitudine, hubiiavitque in deseido Phu- 
rand^ I found them in the valley of 
Jordan; at the foot of the mountains of 
Samaria; on the spot wliere t!ie voice of 
Joshua was heard to resound; in thq 
fields of Gomorrha, once blasted by the 
anger of Jetiovah, but since consecrated 
hy the miraculous mercies of Jesus 
Christ. 
What particularly distinguishes the 
Arabs from the aborigines of the new 
world is this—-ihat, even under the rude¬ 
ness of their barbarism, you can discover 
a certain degree of refinement; you can 
at once perceive that they are natives of 
thatr East from which the arts and sci¬ 
ences, as well as ail religions, have 
sprung. The Canadian savage, buried 
in the extremities of the West, and apart 
from the rest of the world, Inhabits val¬ 
leys w’atered by immense rivers, and 
shaded by forests of eternal duration. 
The Arab, thrown on the liigh road, as it 
were, of the universe, between Asia and 
Af rica, wanders among the sliiningclimes 
of the sun, and treads a soil without 
aBioisture or vegetation. Among the 
tribes of the posterity of Ismael there 
must he masters, and slaves, and domestic 
animals, and the restraints of positive law. 
Among the American hordes, man is 
still insulated ajid in tlie eiijoyment of 
liis proud and pernicious independence. 
Instead of a tunic, he wears the skin of 
a bear; he carries an arrow' instead of a 
laace, and a club instead (>f a poniard. 
He knows m;t, and would reject with 
disdain, such food as the date, and tl-.e 
milk of the camel: for him there must be 
a repast of flesli and blood. He has 
never woven a tissue of goat’s iiair to 
form a tent as an asylum from the in¬ 
clemencies ofthe season, nor ever ta-med 
the horse to the chase. He claims no 
descent fiorn great civilised nations; the 
name of liis ancestors is not enrolled in 
the archives of illustrious empires; an- 
tique oaks still standing were their co- 
temporaries. The tombs of his fathers 
remain hidden in unknown forests, as 
monuments of nature and not of history. 
In short, every thing about the American 
Indian indicates the stivage who has not 
yet attained to the refinement of civi¬ 
lisation ; but whatever characterises the 
Arab, di.->covers the civilised man dege¬ 
nerated or relapsed into barbarism. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine^ 
SIR, 
S I am a constar.t and much de¬ 
lighted reader of your excellent^ 
and most useful Misci llany, I beg you 
will allow me to call the attention of 
your readers to the most prodigious 
fecundity of only four cucumber plants, 
I believe ever known, or vet heard of 
before.—My gardener made the bed, as 
usual, with the best rotten dug he could 
get, in the beginning of April last; and, 
about the end iS the same month, he 
placed four cucumber-plants under a 
square hand-^Iass, one at each corner, 
w hicli soon began to flourish, and to fill 
the glass with stems and leaves. In 
May, he was obliged to let them out, 
.raising and supporting the hand-glass, at 
each corner, by a brick. About the 
middle of June I began to cut cucum¬ 
bers, and I constantly kept a regular 
account as I cut them ; and, it’s wonderful 
to relate it as a fact, that in the months 
of June, July, August, Septeniber, and 
October, I absolutely cut from this single 
vine, three hundred and eight cucumhers, 
full grown-, and of a large size. I cut 
four, the last, on Tuesday the 22d day of 
October. The stalks of these four plants, 
expanded and extended to so great a 
degree, covering tfie earth, and spread¬ 
ing in every direction, and the leaves 
became so long and broad, that in Seji- 
tember last I measured their circum¬ 
ference, which really was .above eighteen 
yards. I soon found that the more I 
watered them, the more fruit I had, so 
that I w'as able to cut eight, ten, or 
twelve, cucumbers whenever I pleased. 
They were of the Tuikcy sort; and I 
let four stand for seed; and when they 
became quite ripe, and of a most beau¬ 
tiful yellow, I measured their length and 
thickness. I found the first 17| inches 
long; the second 18 inches; the thiid 
; and tl.e fourth above 20 inches in 
length; and they were ail about 13 
inches in girth. Add to this, they were 
tlie first-flavoured cucumbers 1 ever 
tasted ; not strong, no unpleasant taste, 
not sticky; and I could never have be¬ 
lieved the fecundity to have been so 
excessive, if I had not cut tijcm all my¬ 
self. . JuUN Proctor. 
IppolitHy neiir Mitchin, 
' Oct. 1811, 
