FARMERS' INSTITUTES. Ill 



blocked, and an occasional hole made in the tile, say, every twenty feet 

 to apply water either from a hose or watering pot. It is also well to lay. 

 the tile on a slight grade in order to draw ofE any surplus water there 

 may be after the soil has taken up all it can. This also provides against 

 careless watering. Crops take less water, less care in applying it; it 

 lessens the possibility of fungous diseases, and increases production. 



Another thing that has contributed more perhaps to the development 

 of this business than all else is the complete evolution of the greenhouse 

 itself. 



PROGRESS OF THE METHOD. 



The progress made in constructing vegetable houses has been chiefly 

 along the following lines: 



1. Greater ease and economy in construction and durability. 2. Bet- 

 ter arrangements for light, heat, and ventilation. Many of the modern 

 vegetable houses are constructed entirely withont benches, and where a 

 site can be selected, say, against a bank or side hill, having a slope to the 

 south, they are much better without them. 



It is needless here to enter into details about the various methods of 

 heating, but it is enough to say that greenhouses are heated cheaper and 

 better than ever before, and what seems more encouraging to us in Michi- 

 gan is that there is being found in several parts of the State a cheap kind 

 of coal that is adapted for the purpose. Horticultural builders through- 

 out the country stand ready to furnish all the information needed on any 

 system of heating, or any style of a house, and its probable cost, by giv- 

 ing dimensions, location, and purposes intended,. 



There is nothing new or mysterious about this work; nothing but what 

 any ordinary intelligent man can do, in short it is simply an extension of 

 the vegetable business besides having at least some of the following feat- 

 ures: Competition is not so keen. Only men of experience and judgment 

 are likely to succeed. It places fresh vegetables on the market at a time 

 of the year when they can't be got in any other way, as in the case of 

 cauliflower and celery in the months of May and June. 



Unless the average man now in the business seeks to supply the home 

 markets of the future v^ith fresh vegetables grown in this or some other 

 way, during the winter and spring months, we fear his prospects are any- 

 thing but encouraging. 



The possession of our markets for so long a time, by goods brought 

 from the south, is detrimental to home growers, as it is claimed the pub- 

 lic taste for a certain vegetable has been satisfied by the southern prod- 

 uct, before the home crop is fit to use. And if we are to have a contin- 

 uation of dry seasons, it is with the aid of the telephone, cold storage, 

 increased facilities for transportation, that wealthy individuals, or 

 corporations, owning large tracts of rich bottom lands, will seek to sup- 

 ply the great bulk of the vegetables required to supply the city markets, 

 especially during the summer months. The collection of any product at 

 a given point in this way insures a large steady supply, and this attracts 

 buyers and usually produces better prices. But with the individual, we 

 have reached a point in this, as in many other things, where the more a 

 man raises the worse off he is. It is quality, not quantity; it is brains 

 with the aid of muscle that tells with him. 



