232 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



A city of 8,000 to 10,000 inhabitants will support a good market garden 

 with 5,000 to 8,000 feet of glass; and when the second garden of the same 

 capacity starts in on that market, down will go prices, and the third will 

 have the same influence. The city people gain by it; the gardener loses. 

 But it can not be helped. If one man has a good thing at the start, others 

 soon see it and try the same plan. 



In this particular line many fail because they have not sufficient knowl- 

 edge of the handling of glass. It requires constant and close attention 

 and is a business, we think, that can not be learned without practical 

 experience. Most men learn by beginning with a few sashes, and 

 increase the number as they get to understand the requirements of the 

 trade. But let no man deceive himself by supposing that he can attain 

 a profit by investing in glass without steady personal application. 



Commercial or market-gardening has grown to wonderful proportions 

 in the past thirty years, and in these days of keen competition the gar- 

 dener is taxed to hio utmost ingenuity to get at the most expeditious and 

 economical methods to produce tlie finest crops. Glass bears an all- 

 important relation to the business. By the use of it our northern mar- 

 kets are supplied with lettuce, parsley, radishes, green onions, cucum- 

 bers, and many other green vegetables through all of the winter months. 

 The south ships to our markets like produce that is mostly outside grown. 

 But the home-grown hot-house products always take the preference and 

 sell for the highest prices. 



RESULTS FOR THE SEASON AT THE EXPERIMENT SUB- 

 STATION. 



BY HON. T. T. LYON OF SOUTH HAVEN. 



I had hardly expected to be in attendance at this meeting, and my other 

 duties have been such that it has been impossible for me to prepare a 

 paper for the purpose, and hence I can only state, on the spur of the 

 moment, what has been done, in a short time. If there are any ques- 

 tions, it will be a pleasure to answer them. 



It will be understood that the commencement of planting the station 

 at South Haven was in advance of the purpose to use it for such a work 

 as this, hence the arrangement and the varieties that have been tested 

 there to some extent are not new, but old; and it is as well, perhaps, that 

 it should be so, because we need something about which w^e know to 

 make comparisons with those things with which we are not acquainted. 



It is the practice there to plant, as a rule, about two trees of a kind, or 

 a half dozen to a dozen plants of the small fruits, for experimental pur- 

 poses, and only that number. 



To commence with the earliest planting, the strawberry. It has been 

 the custom, so far, to set about two dozen plants of each kind, one dozen 

 being kept in hills (the runners kept entirely off) and the other dozen 

 allowed to form a matted row of the same length. The fruit from those 

 two rows has been gathered separately, each dozen by itself, and 



