140 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



HOME FORCING OF VEGETABLES FOR WINTER USE. 



BY J. G. FRANCE. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



I do not believe that anyone who attends the sessions of the State 

 Ilorticnltnral Society and hears such talks as that given by Miss Taylor 

 about her |3,000 apple crop, or that of Mr. Fritz of his" |150 an acre 

 I)ear crop, can do so without coming to the conclusion that there is 

 money in the pursuit of the occupation of Horticulture. Doubtless 

 this inducement draws some people into the profession, but after having 

 attended the banquet last night, and hearing the speeches made there, 

 (»ne cannot but believe that the majority of the people here are engaged 

 in horticulture because they are in love with their job. If a man is 

 in love with his job he takes pride in it, and justly. The man who 

 raises strawberries, for instance, takes pride in having the earliest and 

 best berries in his neighborhood, and so it is with all horticultural 

 I>roducts. Not only is it a matter of pride for him to boast about to 

 his neighbor but it is also a matter of personal satisfaction to himself 

 (o have early fruit and fruit of fine quality for his own use. The 

 subject of my talk is the forcing of vegetables for home use, and it is 

 niy desire to give you a few facts which if acted upon may make it 

 possible for you to increase your personal satisfaction in your farm 

 products by enabling you to not only enjoy the fresh fruits of your 

 labors during the growing months of the year but also in the dead 

 of winter, and not force you to depend entirely upon the contents of 

 the tin can. 



When I speak of forcing vegetables I do not wish to be understood 

 as advocating expensive green houses. This is not at all necessary, for 

 it is something that can be done by anyone with a very small equip- 

 ment. Of course greenhouses would be essential if one were going to go 

 into vegetable forcing as a business but vegetables and some fruits may 

 be forced in a small way very satisfactorily without their use. 



You all know that plants are a lot like people, they can not work 

 all the time, but must have some rest. People take their rest during 

 a part of the day and at night. Plants take their rest during a certain 

 I tart of the year. There are some plants which, grow from seeds and 

 have their rest during the time they are in the seed condition. There 

 are other plants which grow for a season and then rest during a part of 

 the year, and then grow again and produce new crops. In this climate the 

 winter is the rest period for most plants, and it is upon this fact that 

 the principles of vegetable forcing rests. If we let a plant rest for a 

 little while and then wake it by proper conditions we may deceive it 

 into thinking that it has had its rest out, and it will grow and produce 

 a crop for us. 



The plants which I wish to take up here are very common and among 

 the easiest ones to force. The first two that I will mention are pieplant 

 and asparagus. The method of forcing these plants is similar and very 



