th of Cucumbers, by stating, that a forcing house, a pit, and a common
frame, present the means of bringing this fruit to its perfection,
equally, one with the other, provided that a course of cultivation
suitable to the structure, is followed out; the comparative merits of
each, depend not so much on the nature of the results which may be
obtained by adopting them, as on the facilities they afford for the
attainment of those results.

The use of the common frame, and the ordinary hotbed of fermenting manure,
nevertheless involves these difficulties:--the fermentation is liable to
become excessive, and that in a very rapid manner, and also to decline as
rapidly; the heat, when declining, cannot be speedily restored in
unpropitious weather; it is materially checked in its action, by that
particular state of the weather, which renders its efficient action most
essential; it involves almost an infinitude of labour; and after all, it
is uncertain in its action: when such difficulties as these, are overcome,
Cucumbers can be grown to perfection, on dung beds, assisted by the common
garden frame and sash.

The brick pit, when heated by fermenting manure, presents difficulties of
the same nature with the preceeding, though in a less powerful degree: but
when these structures are heated by means of hot water, in any of its
various modes of application, there need be no irregularity, nor
uncertainty in its action; because the supply of the elements of vegetable
developement, and of the agents by whose aid they are applied, may, to a
very great extent, go on uninterruptedly.

A forcing house, whilst it secures all the advantages which are presented
by a pit, combines with these, some important points which are peculiarly
its own: by adopting a pit, we provide a structure of which Cucumbers
manifest their approval, by thriving equally as well as in their more
ancient location on a dung bed; but further than this, a pit enables us to
dispense with much of the labour, and all the filth, and the uncertainty
which are consequent on the use of fermenting manure as a means of keeping
up the temperature in which they are grown. In a small forcing house,
besides these advantages being secured, all the operations of care and
culture, can be performed just when they become necessary, without
exposing the tender foliage of plants which have been submitted to an
artificially elevated temperature, to the chilling influence of cold air,
which