==The greenhouse cultivation== of the Cucumber for a summer crop only is the most profitable and simple as well as the most interesting of all the methods practised.  In many gardens the houses that have been filled during the winter with Geraniums and other plants are very poorly furnished during the summer, and present a most unsightly appearance.  Now, it is a very easy matter to render them at once profitable and beautiful, for when clothed with green vines bearing handsome Cucumbers, such houses are attractive and pay their way amazingly well.  To carry out the routine properly, the house should be cleared at the end of April, the plants being removed to pits and frames.  If possible, make up the beds on slates laid close over the hot-water pipes, and use a bushel or more of soil under each light to begin with.  First lay on the slate a large seed-pan, bottom upwards, and on that a few flat tiles, and then heap up a shallow cone of nice light turfy loam.  Start the fire and shut up, and raise the heat of the empty house to 80 deg. or 90 deg. for one whole day.  The next day plant on each hillock a short stout Cucumber plant, or sow three seeds.  Proceed as advised for frame culture, keeping a temperature of 60 deg. by night and 80 deg. by day, with a rise of 5 deg. to 10 deg. during sunshine.  Ply the syringe freely, give air carefully, and use the least amount of shading possible.  It will very soon be found that by judicious management in shutting up and air-giving, the firing may be dispensed with, and then it remains only to syringe freely and train with care.  The plants should not be stopped at all, but be taken up direct to the roof and be trained out on a few wires or tarred string, in the first instance right and left, and afterwards along the rafters to meet at the ridge, and form a rich leafy arcade.  The fruits will appear in quantity, and must be thinned to prevent over-cropping.  As the plants grow, earth must be added to the hillocks until there is a continuous bed, on which a certain number of shoots may be trained where there is sufficient light for them.  It is best to begin as advised above, with the aid of fire heat to start the crop for the sake of gaining time; but if this is not convenient begin without fire heat in the last week of May, and the plants will produce fruit until the chill of autumn makes an end of them, and the house is again required for the greenhouse plants.

==Winter Cucumbers== thrive best in lean-to houses with somewhat steep roofs, as such houses are less liable to chill during cold windy weather, and they catch a maximum of the winter sunshine.  In a mild winter, Cucumbers may be grown in any kind of house that can be maintained at a suitable temperature, and the markets are supplied from rough constructions that do duty for many purposes.  But in hard weather, the steep lean-to, with bed along the front, and tank to give equable bottom heat, will prove the most serviceable, as it will neither allow snow to lodge on the glass,