Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/294

282 282 HORTICULTURE [VEGETABLES. during winter they must be raised on a slight hotbed, or in shallow boxes or pans placed in any of the glass-houses where there is a tem perature of 60 or 65. The Golden or Australian Cress is a dwarf, yellowish green, mild- flavoured sort, which is cut and eaten when a little more advanced in growth, but while still young and tender. It should be sown at intervals of a month from March onwards, the autumn sowing, for winter and spring use, being made in a sheltered situation. The Curled or Normandy Cress is a very hardy sort, of good flavour. In this, which is allowed to grow like parsley, the leaves are picked for use while young ; and, being finely cut and curled, they are well adapted for garnishing. It should be sown thinly in drills, in good soil in the open borders, in March, April, and May, and for winter and spring use at the foot of a south wall early in September, and about the middle of October. Cucum- 159. The Cucumber, Cucumis sativa, a tender annual, is cultivated ber. both for stewing and pickling, but more usually and extensively for salads. Being an annual plant, it is usually increased by seeds, but it may be readily raised from cuttings, which should consist of the tops of the leading branches, and should be planted in deep pots, half-filled with a compost of leaf-mould and sand, the pots being then covered with a pane of glass, and plunged in a brisk heat. To grow these plants successfully through the winter, a tropical heat must be maintained, for the method of doing which see p. 264. If properly heated hot- water pits or houses cannot be had, and hotbeds have to be employed, it is better not to attempt very early forcing, but to defer sowing till about the first week in February. In hotbed culture, the preparation of materials for the seed-bed, Avhich should consist of stable dung in a full state of fermentation, should be set about towards the middle of January. The dung should be turned over, well shaken, and mixed about three times at intervals of a few days. The bed should be made up in a sheltered situation open to the sun. The frame should then be set on, and the sashes kept closed till the heat rises to 85 or so, when they should be tilted to allow the steam to pass off. In a few days the surface of the bed should be covered with a layer a few inches in thickness of light soil ; and as soon as the heat of the bed ranges about 70 the seeds may be sown singly in 3-inch pots of sifted leaf-mould, with a lump of fibrous turf at the bottom for drainage, the seed being moderately pressed into the soil, and covered to the depth of about half an inch. The heat of the bed should range from 75 to 80. After germination, the plants should be placed within 6 inches of the glass. When the plants have formed two joints, the growing point should be stopped above the second joint, the succeeding young shoots being stopped above the second or third joint. Subsequently three or four of the shoots, as nearly equal in strength as possible, should be selected for principal branches, and the laterals from these should be allowed to fill out the frame and bear fruit ; they should be stopped at one or two joints above the fruit, and all weak shoots removed, being pinched off with the finger and- thumb rather than cut, to avoid loss of sap by bleeding. The cucumber is a monoecious plant, and at one time, in order to secure the swelling of the fruit, the female flowers were carefully fertilized ; but it is found that this is not necessary unless seed is required. The fruiting-bed is to be made up in the same way as the seed bed, only, as it i^ required to be more lasting, it is better to mix up tree leaves with the dung. The bed may be made up in the first week in February, and should be 4 feet high in front, and 4^ feet at back. The frame should be put on at once, and the lights or sashes kept closed till the heat has risen to the surface. If dry the dung may require watering to keep up fermentation ; if it is moist and hot it may be found necessary to make holes with a stake in the sides of the bed to moderate the heat ; but unless it rises above 85 there is no danger of its injuring the roots. A few days before the plants are introduced some hillocks of soil should be put into the frame, in order that they may become thoroughly warmed. These should be so arranged that the plant is within 6 inches of the glass. The plants themselves should be removed to the frame for a day or two before turning them out, the soil being moist, but not wet. A good medium compost may consist of two parts of turfy loam, one of peat, and one of leaf-mould, with the addition of some clean coarse sand; or of two parts turfy friable loam, two of turfy heath-mould, three of leaf-mould, and one of clean coarse sand. If the loam be of a less fibrous nature, more peat or leaf- mould or some decayed dung should be used. The bottom heat should range from 75 to 80, and the atmosphere should be kept moist, and at a temperature ranging from 70 to 80, the latter by sun-heat. An abundance of light is also essential, but in very bright sunshine a thin shading is beneficial. The water used both at the roots and at the tops should always be warmed, and, while ventilation is to be duly attended to, a cold draught should be avoided. Winter cucumbers are generally grown in small houses set apart for them (see p. 224). The seeds are sown in August, and planted out so as to become well established before the dull weather sets in. In the case of culture in houses or pits, the heat, bottom and top, is maintained by hot-water pipes or tanks, and the branches uro trained over trellises placed about a foot from the glass. The plants must in this case be run up with a single stem, till they reach the upper side of the trellis, when the leader should be stopped in order to produce the branches necessary for covering the allotted space, and these must also be stopped when fruit-bearing laterals are required. These last should be stopped at one joint beyond the fruit, till it can be seen whether or not a shoot will push from the same joint as the fruit, in which case the joint above the fruit is also to be pinched off. The hardier varieties of cucumber, especially the short prickly sorts, known as gherkins, and used for pickling, are often grown under hand-glasses, a cavity having been made in a warm situation, and filled with hot dung and a small covering of earth. In the soutliern counties of England, pickling cucumbers are sown in drills in the open ground. The earth is made fine and level, and at distances of 3^ feet, in rows 6 feet apart, shallow circular hollows are formed with the hand, a foot wide, and half an inch deep in the middle, in each of which, about the beginning of June, eight or ten seeds are deposited. When the plants appear, they are thinned out to three or four, the weakest or least healthy being rejected, and all the further attention they require is occasional cleaning and watering, according to the state of the weather. Some of the most popular varieties of the cucumber are : Spineless : Rollisson s Telegraph, Carter s Champion. White-spined: Kenyon s Improved, Empress Eugenie, Improved Man chester Prize, Latter s Victory of England. Black-tipped White-spined : Tender and True, Hamilton s Market Fa vourite, Blue Gown. Black-spined : Dr Livingstone, Henderson s Al, Weedon s Black Spine. See CUCUMBER, vol. vi. p. 687. 160. The Egg Plant, Solanum Melongena, the Aubergine or Egg Brinjal of the French, is a tender annual, native of South America p ;iut and of the tropical parts of Asia and Africa. In France it is culti vated for the fruits, which are cooked before they are eaten. The seed should be sown early in February in a warm pit, where the plants are grown till shifted into 8-inch or 10-inch pots, in well- manured soil. Manure water should be given occasionally while the fruit is swelling, about four fruits being sufficient for a plant. The French growers sow them in a brisk heat in December, or early in January, and in March plant them out four or eight in a hot- I bed with a bottom heat of from 60 to 68, the sashes being gradually more widely opened as the season advances, until they may be taken off by about the end of May. The two main branches which are allowed are pinched to induce laterals, but when the fruits are set all young shoots are taken off in order to increase their size. The brat variety is the Large Purple, which produces oblong fruit, some times reaching 6 or 7 inches in length, and 10 or 12 inches in cir cumference. The Chinese is also an oblong-fruited sort, with white fruit and more juicy flesh than some of the other sorts. The fruit of the ordinary form almost exactly resembles the egg of the domes tic fowl. 161. The Endive, Cichorium Endivia, is a hardy annual, nativi Eiidh of the northern provinces of China and other parts of Asia. As in the case of the lettuce, th e blanched hearts are used for salads and in soups. The main crop should be sown about the middle of June, on a seed-bed of light rich soil, and the early crop about the middle of May. The seeds should be scattered sparsely, that the plants may not come up in clusters. The seedlings should be transplanted into a rich soil in an open situation, at about a foot apart in rows, which for the curled-leaved sorts should be a foot asunder, and for the broad-leaved sorts 1 5 inches. When the plants have reached their maturity, the leaves are gathered up and tied together a little below the tips, and a few days later about the middle of the plant, and in two or three weeks they are found sufficiently blanched for use. For winter use the seed should be sown about the middle of July, and a little additional in August. They should be planted in the same way as the earlier crops, but it is advisable, as they approach maturity, to draw the earth quite up about the leaves. At that season, too, the plants may be advantageously planted on sloping banks of earth facing south. They may be blanched by inverting a garden pot with the drainage hole closed, or a common garden saucer 10 or 12 inches in diameter, over the centre of the plants as they grow flat on the earth. Later on they may be blanched in boxes in the mushroom -house, or in a cellar, or by using blanching pots, such as arc provided for sea-kale. The time occupied in blanching varies from ten days in summer to three weeks in winter. A suffi cient quantity to afford a supply for a week may be operated on at one time. For protection during the winter it is a good plan to plant the endive on November, at 6 or 8 inches apart, on sloping sheltered banks facing the south, covering it with litter in severe weather, but leaving it uncovered at all other times. A more certain method to obtain a supply during that season is, however, either to take up the late-sown plants before frost sets in, and to plant them in dry earth or sand in a frame, or to place a frame over them where they grow. The early winter crops are sometimes planted at