waterings will be required as they come into free bearing and the sun gets more powerful, rendering much more air necessary; and occasional watering with dung-water will be beneficial. Keep them always regularly stopped and thinned of all superfluous growths and leaves, but being careful never to remove the leaf from a joint where there is a fruit swelling off. Never allow the growths to run beyond one or two joints without stopping them. This treatment carefully carried out will keep them always in a vigorous and fruitful condition, and producing fine straight cucumbers beautifully covered with bloom, and the flower fresh at the end of each when ready to cut. As the season advances, and they have been in bearing for some time, remove by degrees the older growths and foliage, and train younger ones into their places. This should be diligently seen to the whole season, in order to keep the pit full of young bearing growths and healthy leaves, without which a regular supply of cucumbers cannot be maintained. Under such treatment I have invariably had these early plants as healthy and fruitful in the end of September as in May, and have seldom ever been troubled with insects or disease.

After the first week of June fresh linings are unnecessary in the southern half of England, but in more northern districts it is necessary to attend to them a little later. In the hottest weather, especially when such has been preceded by a continuation of dull days, a slight shade in the middle of the day is sometimes beneficial. When it is desired to have these plants healthy and bearing after September, it is necessary to apply fresh linings, or mildew will soon destroy them. The foregoing directions, I trust, will be sufficient

for those who can only command a brick pit and heat from fermenting material with which to produce spring cucumbers. Those who only grow them in summer will find them so accommodating for four or five months of the year that directions specially for that season Iwould be a waste of words. For any one who has a frame, a little fermenting material, such as litter and short grass or leaves, and glass lights, can have little difficulty in rearing them in summer in almost any district; while in the south the ridge varieties do well in the open air the same as vegetable marrows or pumpkins. And, without adverting to the undesirableness of attempting to supply cucumbers throughout the dull winter months in dung-pits, I will now offer some remarks on their winter management in cucumber-houses or stoves heated by hot water.

WINTER CUCUMBERS.

Experienced gardeners know very well that, whereever sufficient space can be afforded in such as a fruiting pine-stove where a high temperature is necessary, there is no great difficulty in keeping a tolerably good supply of cucumbers in pots throughout the winter. I am, however, not going to recommend their being mixed up with pines or anything else: although circumstances can be modified to suit different subjects, such is not desirable. And now, where there is a demand for cucumbers all through the winter, there is generally a house or pit specially for that purpose. As in the case of the winter-forcing of the vine or any other plant in midwinter, a lean-to house facing due south, with a white back-wall and white-painted woodwork and clear sheet-glass, is the best. And the greatest amount of

sun and light that can be had is perhaps of more importance in the case of winter cucumbers than any other crop.

CUCUMBER-HOUSES.

Fig. 23 represents an excellent house for winter cucumbers. Such houses are wired the same as for vines. A house 10 feet wide requires four rows of

hot-water pipes for surface, and as many for bottomheat, whether the latter be on the tank system or merely a hot-air chamber, both of which suit equally well, and the latter is the least expensive. The bed for the soil should be 16 inches deep, giving room for 6 inches of drainage or fresh leaves, and 10 inches for soil.

SOIL, ETC.

In filling up this depth of soil, I do not recommend more than 8 inches at first when the cucumbers are planted, nor need the bed be filled the whole widththe other two inches to be made up with top-dressing, and the whole of the bed to be filled in after the plants come into bearing. The soil should consist of light turfy loam two parts, and one part of leaf-mould or well-decayed manure, with a sixth of the whole of coarse sand, pounded charcoal, or charred soil. A light open soil is best for winter cucumbers: soil that is likely to become solid and inert is at all times an evil in cucumber-culture, and more especially so in winter.

To have plants well established and in a strong bearing condition before winter, they should be planted out in the fruiting-house by the end of August, or very early in September. Some cultivators prefer raising plants intended for winter bearing by cuttings, which are rather more disposed to fruitfulness in their earlier stages of growth, on account of their less vigorous growth than seedlings. They are easily struck in a frame or pit with a little bottom-heat. The best way is to strike them singly in 4-inch pots, with a little sandy soil round the base and neck of each cutting. Good plants can thus be prepared in three weeks. When raised from seed, it requires to be sown in the beginning of August. I am aware that many do not sow so early, but later sowing is a mistake, as the plants should be thoroughly established and beginning to bear by the middle of October, in order to have a good supply through the winter. And by a proper selection of varieties, there is no difficulty

in getting seedlings to bear well enough when sown as early as recommended, and they generally yield finer individual cucumbers.

PLANTING, TEMPERATURE, ETC.

The plants should not be planted closer than one every 2 feet, as crowding in the dull months of winter is very injurious; and throughout September and October they are all the more sturdy and hardy when grown with a liberal amount of air. A thin flimsy foliage grown in a too close moist atmosphere often becomes a prey to thrips and red-spider, two enemies which should be kept at arm's-length, and to which end the house should be thoroughly washed and fumigated before planting the plants, and no old melon or cucumber soil where these pests have had a footing should be used. When they begin to bear avoid heavy cropping, and when November arrives be more sparing with atmospheric moisture and waterings, and avoid high night temperatures, which should not range higher than from 68° to 70°. The consequences of a high night temperature, when the days are short and dull, are weakly and unfruitful growths. A covering over the glass in cold weather is much to be commended; it saves firing, and is in all respects preferable to over-heated pipes. Frigidomo is an excellent material for covering, and can be fixed to roll up and down like a shade. It is most important all winter to give a little air every day when at all' practicable, and also to prevent the leaves from becoming crowded, and to stop the lateral growths at every joint.

Training, Stopping, &c.-Plants intended for winter