File:Burpee's farm annual - garden, farm, and flower seeds (1886) (19887488714).jpg

Title: Burpee's farm annual : garden, farm, and flower seeds
Identifier: burpeesfarmannua1886watl (find matches)
Year: 1886 (1880s)
Authors: W. Atlee Burpee Company; Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection
Subjects: Nursery stock Pennsylvania Philadelphia Catalogs; Flowers Pennsylvania Catalogs; Vegetables Pennsylvania Catalogs; Seeds Pennsylvania Catalogs
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : W. Atlee Burpee Co.
Contributing Library: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library
Digitizing Sponsor: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library

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Text Appearing Before Image:
W. ATLEE BURPEE & CO., PHILADELPHIA. NEW GIANT PERA CUCUMBER.
Text Appearing After Image:
^IA^^^ PEM(!ueuMBEi^ We regard this as one of the choicest novelties it has ever been our good fortune to introduce. We obtained three years ago ^ a few of the seeds from Dr. R. P. Harris, S of this city, who sent for them through a friend to Turkey. The first year we grew them in Delaware County, Penna., and were much pleased with their superb rpiality. Selecting seed from the very finest specimens, we grew them the next season in New Jersey and on Long Island. Having again, in 1884, made a critical .se- lection of stock seed, we grew the past season a magnificent crop, and now have the pleasure of offering for sale seed of the fittest cucumber for table use ever introduced. The vines are very vigorous in growth, with dark-green, luxuriant foliage. We find in our note-book under Sept. 17th, 1885, when nearly all other cucumbers had died, "the vines, even to-day, are still vigorous." The Giant Pera is a most prolific variety, our field of them being the most thickly covered of any Long Cucum- bers we have ever grown. The cucumbers are set early, near the hill, and very close together. The illustration given herewith was accurately engraved from two cucumbers, of avera<::;e size^ that grew only tzuo itiches apart,—one of these cucumbers measured eighteen inches and the other seventeen inches in length. Their round circumference was wyi and 10^ inches respectively. As shown in the illustration, the cucumbers uniformly grow very smooth and straight, the skin is a beautiful medium green, perfectly smooth, free from spines, and retaining its clear green color untd nearly ripe, when the skin becomes of a leathery-brown color. They are very thick through, perfectly round, full at the blossom end, and of equal diameter throughout, except that they taper a little at the stem end. The green cucumbers are fit to eat at any stage, the llesh is entirely zu/iite, very clear, peculiarly crisp, tender and brit- tle, with very few seeds and free from the obnoxious "green cucumber taste." The seed cavity is remarkably small, and the seeds are so slow to form, that even large cucumbers, twelve to fifteen inches in length and three inches in diameter, are still equally as firm and crisp as smaller specimens, the seeds being yet almost unformed. A mature Giant Pera eighteen to twenty-two inches long will hardly give as much seed as a small, short green cucumber. We have tested the Giant Pera Cucumber thoroughly the past three years, and can honestly recommend it as the largest and best Long Green Cucumber in cultivation. No other variety grows so large and no other variety is so handsome in appearance, M'hile we are sure all our friends will unite with us in saying that no other cucumbers have so delicious a flavor when sliced and eaten with vinegar. We want every lover of cucumbers to try the Giant Pera. Per pkt. 15 cts.; 4 pkts. for 50 cts.

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