The author may take this opportunity of returning his thanks to those who have noticed and commended the former edition, and of expressing a hope that the present will receive an equal share of favour.
Botanical name, and affinities of the Cucumber--properties-- foreign names--improvements in cultivation 9
Structures--dung beds--brick pits--forcing houses--gutter system of heating--the tank system--bottom heat--description of Cucumber house--aspect--position--angle--covering 11
Propagation by cuttings--early fruitfulness--preservation of varieties--layers--objections to cuttings and layers--seeds-- disadvantages--progressive growth--seed sowing 23
General principles of culture--importance of light--pruning and training 31
Composition of the soil--heath soil--leaf mould--preparation of soil--charcoal--manures--liquid manures 36
Application of water to the soil--special conditions-- atmospheric moisture--insects--mildew--canker--mode of watering 42
Regulation of temperature--principles to be kept in view--day and night temperature--deductions 46
Admission of air--effect of cold air on tender plants-- deterioration--evils resulting from unguarded atmospheric changes--mode of admitting air--atmospheric influence on vegetation--nitrogen--carbon 50
Growth of Persian Melons in summer--peculiarities of treatment--soil--watering--solar heat--light 56
The Cucumber, _Cucumis sativa_, is supposed to be a native of the East Indies; but like many other of our culinary plants, the real stations which it naturally has occupied, are involved in obscurity: in habit it is a trailing herb, with thick fleshy stems, broadly palmate leaves, and yellow axillary monæcious flowers. In the natural arrangement of the vegetable kingdom, the genus of which it forms part, ranks in the first grand class, _Vasculares_, or those plants which are furnished with vessels, and woody fibre; in the sub-class _Calycifloræ_, or those in which the stamens are perigynous; and in the order _Cucurbitaceæ_, or that group, of which the genus _Cucurbita_, or Gourd family is the type.
The affinities of this order, are chiefly with _Loasaceæ_, and _Onagraceæ_; with the former it agrees in its inferior unilocular fruit, having a parietal placentæ, and with the latter, in its definite perigynous stamens, single style, and exalbuminous seeds. It has also some affinity with _Passifloraceæ_, and _Papayaceæ_, in the nature of the fruit, and with _Aristolochiaceæ_, in its twining habit, and inferior ovarium. M. Auguste St. Hiliare, also regards it as being related to _Campanulaceæ_, in the perigynous insertion of the stamens, the single style with several stigmas, the inferior ovarium, and in the quinary division of the floral envelope, in connection with the ternary division of the fruit.