Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1823-05-10
CUCUMBER.

To give minute rules tor the propaga-
ton and cultivation of this plant, in a
country like this, would be waste of time.
However, if you wish to have them a
month earlier than the natural ground
will bring them, do this Make hole
and put into it a little hot dung: let the
hole be under warm fence. Put six
inches deep of fine rich earth on the dung.
Sow a parcel of seed in this earth, and
cover it at night with BIZ of carpet or
sail cloth, having fixed some hoops
over tbs little bed. Before the plants
show the rough leaf, plant two into a
little flower pot, and fill as many pots in
this way as you please. Have larger
bed ready TO put the pots into, and CO.
vered with earth SO that the pots may
be plunged into the earth up to theirtops.
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 cucum-
bers sown in the natural ground come
up; then make some little holes in good
rich land, aud taking a pot at time,
turn out the ball and fix it in the hole.
These plants will bear a month sooner
than those in the natural ground and
a square yard will contain SO pots, and
will, of course, furnish plants for IS hills
of cucumbers, which if well managed,
will keep on besring 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 wa
tered and shaded for day or two; when
the balls are turned into the ground, they
should be watered, and shaded with
bough for one day. That will be enough.
| have one observation 10 make upon
the cultivation of cucumbers, melons of
all sorts, and Of all the pumpkin and
squash tribe; that is, that II Is great
error to SOW them too thick. One plant
in hill is enough; and | would put two
into a pot, merely as bar against acct
dents. One will bring more weight OF
fruit than two, (if standing 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 I!
Let aey one try the experiment, and he
will find this observation mathematioally
true. When cucumbers are left eighl
or ten plants in hill, they never shoot
strongly. Their vines are poor aud
weak. The leaves become yellow; and
if they bear at all, il is poor tssteiess
fruit that they produce. The bearing is
over in few weeks. Whereas, a single
plant in the same space will send its fine
green vines all around it to a great dis
lance, and if no fruit be lett to ripen,
vii! keep bearing till the white frosts
come in the fall. The roots Of cucum-
Der will go ten feet in fine earth in every
direction. Judge then, how ten plants,
standing close to one another, must pro-
duce mutual starvation. If you save a
cucumber for seed, let it be the first fine
fruit that appears on the plant The
plant will cease to bear much after this
fruit becomes yellowish. Care should
be taken that nothing OF the melon, pump
kin or squash kind grow near seed
bearing cucumber plant; and that all
cucumbers of different sort from that
bearing the seed be kept at a great dis
lance. There are many sorts of cucum-
bers; the Long Prickley, the Shor,
Prickly, the Cluster, and many others
but, the propagation and cultivation oil
all the sorts is the same.