beds you will destroy them. If not, take a
time not very dry so as to endanger burning the roots, and burn over
your cranberry-beds, so as to consume all the vines. Next season new
vines will grow up free from worms.

CUCUMBERS.

There are quite a number of varieties. But a few only deserve attention.
The best, for all uses, is the Early Cluster, a great bearer of firm,
tender, brittle fruit. Early Frame, Long White, Turkey, and Long Green
Turkey, are rather beautiful, but not prolific varieties. Long Prickly,
is very good for pickles, and fills a cask rapidly, but is by no means
so pleasant as the Early Cluster. The Short Prickly and White Spined are
considerably used. The West India or small Gherkin is used only for
pickling, and is considered fine. But we regard all these inferior to
the Early Cluster.

_Soil_ should be made very rich with compost and vegetable mould, with a
liberal application of sand. All vines do better in a sandy soil. Plant
in the open air only after the weather has become quite warm. An effort
to get early cucumbers by early out-door planting is usually a failure;
seeds decay, or having come up, after a long while, they grow slowly,
and vines and fruit are apt to be imperfect. Six feet apart, each way,
is the best distance; and after the plants get out of the way of
insects, and become well established, two vines in each hill is better
than more: the fruit will be better and more abundant, and they will
bear much longer than when vines are left to grow very thick. They need
water in dry weather (see Watering). The first week in July is the best
time to plant for pickling. In a warm, dry climate, cucumbers do better
a little shaded, but not too much. Planted among young fruit-trees, or
in alternate rows with corn, they do well. If allowed to run up bushes
like peas, they produce more and better fruit. Forcing for an early crop
is often done, by digging a hole in the ground, two feet deep and two
feet square, and filling with hot manure, stamped down well, and covered
with six inches of fine mould. Put around a frame and cover with glass,
at an angle of thirty-five degrees to the sun. Plant one hundred seeds
on the two feet square; when they come up, put two plants in a pot, set
in a regular hotbed, and keep well watered and aired until the weather
be warm enough to transplant in the open air; then remove from the pots
without breaking the ball of earth, and plant six feet apart. Four
plant