The cucumber usually trails on the ground, but it can be made to grow well in an upright position, supported by its tendrils. It thrives best in deep, loose, and rich earth, but if supplied with liquid manure it may be cultivated in old tan or brick-rubbish. An excellent soil is a sandy loam with a fourth part of rotten dung intermixed. A damp atmosphere and a temperature of from 75° to 80° Fahr., with plenty of light, are the conditions best suited to the cucumber; but it can be grown at so low a temperature as 50, o and will bear fruit at 60°; in the presence of abundant moisture a heat between 90* and 110° may be borne. Exposure to the air on cold nights is highly injurious to the plants, rendering them sickly, and rapidly producing mildew. In England cucumbers are cultivated in dung and hot-beds, also in pots, and during summer in the open fields. At Sandy in Bedfordshire the temperature of the soil of cucumber plantations is in a week or ten days raised 8° oι 10° above that of the neighbouring soil by turning in the surface-earth, and covering the ground with litter at the close of every sunny day. To promote the formation of fruit the young shoots of the cucumber should be nipped off occasionally between the thumb and finger, and should be allowed to proceed no further than the second joint beyond the fading fruitblossom. The plants are raised from both seeds and cuttings. For procuring good seed the following method has been given. A strong plant is chosen, and allowed to bear only one fruit, which, when ripe and yellow, is cut and laid by in a dry place; when it begins to rot, it is cut in pieces, the pulp is allowed to ferment, and the seeds are then washed from it with water, those which float being rejected. The seed retains its vitality for a considerable period, and that which has been kept for some years is said to produce the best fruit-bearing plants. The seed-bed for cucumbers is made 3 feet high at the back, and six inches less in front. After its preparation eight or nine days are allowed to elapse before the seed is sown. The tops of tjιe young plants are kept at a distance of 6 or 8 inches from the glass of the frame by lowering from time to time the pots in which they grow. By pinching off the leading shoot that rises at the base of the petiole, fresh shoots are made to proceed from the base of the seed-leaves; these are in their turn nipped back when the length of two joints. Plants grown in winter in frames and hot-houses are given as much light and air as possible, and care is taken not to supply them with very cold water. On account of their expense, dung-beds have been generally superseded by hot-beds for the growth of cucumbers. The cucumber is a common vegetable in all parts of India; in the cold season it is cultivated in the grain-fields, and in summer in the sandy beds and islands of rivers. In Cashmere, as in China and Persia, cucumbers and melons are grown in the lakes on floats formed by cutting through, at about 2 feet under the water, the roots of sedges, reeds, and other aquatic plants, which, being pressed together, are made to form a bed about 2 yards in breadth, and of indefinite length. The heads of the plants are next cut off, laid upon its surface, and covered with a thin coat of mud. The float is moored in its place by a stake of willow driven through it at each end,, and confervae and weeds from the bottom of the lake are piled on it in conical mounds about 2 feet in height, and 2 feet broad at the base, and having a hollow at the top filled with soft mud, in which the young cucumber and melon plants are placed. No further labour is requisite save that of gathering the fruit (Moorcroft, Journ. R. Geog. Soc., ii. p. 258).

The varieties of the common cucumber are exceedingly numerous, and constantly changing. Among the longer sorts may be mentioned Dale’s Conqueror, Blue Gown, and Hamilton’s Invincible. Though generally eaten as a salad or pickled, the cucumber is used in the preparation of various cooked dishes, and is occasionally preserved. The juice is said to be an ingredient in some pomades and cosmetics. For pickling, the young unripe fruit, or gherkins, and the Russian variety are employed. Cucumbers were much esteemed by the ancients. According to Pliny (xix. 23), the Emperor Tiberius was supplied with them daily, both in summer and winter. Naudin enumerates thirteen well-determined and eight doubtful species of the genus Cucumis. Of one of these, C. Figarei, he describes five, and of another, C. Melo, or the melon, no less than thirty varieties. Among the latter is the C. Chate of Linnaeus, the fruit of which is supposed to be the same as the kishuim or “cucumbers” of the Scriptures (Num. xi. 5; Isa. i. 8; Baruch vi. 70). Forskal describes the plant as follows :—“Stalks smooth, with rigid bristles; leaves lobed, scabrous on both sides, with obtuse angles; fruit, hairy when young, smooth when old, attenuated at both ends.” The fruit, he tells us, is common in Egypt, where it is grown in the open fields. By many a drink is prepared from it when ripe. The pulp is broken and stirred by means of a stick thrust through a hole cut at the umbilicus of the fruit; the hole is then closed with wax, and the fruit, without removing it from its stem, is buried in a little pit; after some days the pulp is found to be converted into an agreeable liquor (Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica, p. 168, 1775). Various species of Anguria, Citrullus, Coccinia, Cucurbita, Ecbalium, Luffa, Melothria, Mukia, Sicyos, Telfairia, and Trichosanthes have been referred to the genus Cucumis. The squirting cucumber, Ecbalium elaterium, the 2ικυoς αγpιoς of Theophrastus, furnishes the drug elaterium. Owing to the exmosis of the juice of the fruit through the strong cortical tissue that lines its central cavity, a pressure is accumulated sufficient to cause the severance of the fruit from its peduncle, and the consequent sudden ejection of its contents. The Cucumis serotinus of Turkey and C. Conomon of Japan are varieties of C. Melo·, the “serpent cucumber” of Central America is the species Trichosanthes colubrina.

Watkins, Art of Promoting the Growth of the Cucumber and Melon, 1824; Weeden, Practical Treatise on the Growth of Cucumbers, 1832; Hoyle, Himalayan Botany, vol. i. p. 218, 1840; Duncan, Treatise on the Culture of the Cucumber, 1841; Ayres, Cultivation of Cucumbers in Pots, 1850; Naudin, in Annal, des Sei. Nat., 4e. ser. Bot. t. xi. p. 5, 1859; Loudon, Horticulturist, ed. Robinson, 1871.