}mm^ 



The L.a«i„Kto„ Di.tHct. Ontario. Ha. Lon. «>«" Not,a a. . Gre.tVe8et.b..Growi^« Section T^^^^^^^^ one of the 



Largest in the Dominion, ha. Recently been completed by R. H. EUi., Leamington, Unt. 



often hotbeds and cold frames are placed 

 in it. In one case a permanent crop of 

 rhubarb was giving good returns an- 

 nually, in another an arrangement for 

 forcing rhubarb in spring was in use, 

 but the returns from the former method 



were larger. 



WIDE housh;s 



The tendency seems to be to build one 

 wide house to take the place of the two 

 or three of narrower widths that were 

 commonly built some fifteen years ago. 

 The day is here when wide houses are 

 being built by progressive growers. The 

 twenty feet house of a few years ago 

 is being replaced by thirty-five and forty 

 feet houses. All of the newest additions 

 to extensive greenhouse plants are be- 

 ing made with wide houses, and it is 

 evident that the wide house has come to 

 stay. It is quite common to see seventy- 

 five feet houses in course of erection, 

 and some are wider than this, running 

 as wide as one hundred and twenty-five 

 feet. 



SWING LABOR 



Growers agree that the only way to 

 overcome the labor problem is to use 

 more horse-drawn machinery in the 

 houses, and the wide house permits all 

 operations of horse cultivation. Gable 

 ends are so arranged that waggon loads 

 of manure may be hauled in as if the field 

 were simply enclosed with glass. Plows 

 and harrows are then used to cultivate. 



Wide houses are of necessity higher 

 at the ridge. This gives an increased 

 volume of air above the plants, and the 

 atmosphere will not undergo such sud- 

 den changes as in the houses which are 

 not so high. It may take somewhat 

 longer to heat the wide house, but once 

 it is heated it will be more satisfactory, 

 as the temperature changes more grad- 

 ually owing to the large volume of air. 

 Tomatoes and cucumbers suffer a check 

 cisily frorp a lowering of temperature, 

 ,ind in the wide house this condition may 

 1)0 easily prevented. 



Growers have told me everywhere that 

 it takes less fuel to heat a wide house 



than it does a range of two or three 

 narrow ones making the same width. 

 These houses also allow more light to 

 reach the plants from the increased 

 length of the sash bar and the glass sides 

 which are usually built from six to eight 

 feet above the grade lines. Full length 

 side ventilators are being used and the 

 whole side is of glass. Plants can be 

 grown close up to the side walls, and aJl 

 available spaces can be put under culti- 

 vation. The question of what is a suit- 

 able width must be answered by the 

 grower himself. Judging from houses 

 visited last summer, the prevailing width 

 seems to be seventy-five feet, but a con- 

 siderable number of forty feet houses 

 are also being built. There are very few 

 wide houses in Ontario, but they are be- 

 ginning to become more popular, and 

 growers never regret building the wide 

 house once they have it up and have ob- 

 tained a crop from it. 



The high eaves and the increased ven- 

 tilators have made the growing of cu- 

 cumbers more simple and the vines can 

 now be planted close to the eaves, as 

 there is plenty of head room. Lettuce 

 can be grown successfully on the solid 

 beds and practically no land wasted. 

 Some growers may raise the objection 

 that they may not want a house so large 

 for one crop or they may want to grow 

 two crops w^hich demand temperatures 

 which are different. This difficulty has 

 been overcome by one firm, and is ac- 

 complished by the building of partitions 

 where required. This and the arrange- 

 ment of their heating plant has given 

 them what they require and yet they have 

 the wide house. In short, the advan- 

 tages of the wide house are : 



First, atmospheric conditions can be 

 tjetter controlled. 



Second, less heat is needed in a wide 

 house. 



Third, more light is received by the 

 plants in wide houses. 



Fourth, plants grow to mgirketable 

 size without danger of a check. 

 U 



Vegetable Pests* 



A. H. MacLenoan, B.S.A., Goelph, Ont. 



Two very important troubles of the 

 market gardener are celery blight and the 

 maggots which attack onions, cabbage 

 and raddish. Late blight of celery (Sep- 

 toria Petroselim), appears first as rusty 

 brown spots on the outer leaves. These 

 gradually spread under favorable condi- 

 tions until the leaf dies. The spots will 

 also be found on the stems. A season of 

 warm, moist weather is most suitable for 

 its spread, and it will also appear in the 

 storage house. It can be prevented by 

 the use of Bordeaux mixture if applied at 

 the right season. Our work here the 

 past two years has shown that if we wish 

 to grow celery at a profit, we must spray 

 often and thoroughly. 



Cabbage, onion and radish maggots 

 are the larvae stage of two winged flies 

 almost identical in appearance. The adult 

 appears generally about May fifteenth till 

 June fifteenth. The eggs are laid close 

 to the host plant and are hatched in three 

 to ten days time. The worm which 

 batches being without wings or legs, is 

 helpless unless against its host plant. For 

 the cabbage maggot the tarred felt paper 

 disc is a sure cure. For the onion and 

 radish maggot no sure cure has been 

 found. Carbolic acid wash and kerosene 

 and sand have been used. As a Vegeta- 

 table Growers' Association we should try 

 lo have these tested commercially. In 

 each branch of the Association where the 

 crops are grown, a demonstration could 

 l>e carried on to show the results obtained 

 from such treatment. 



For early celery, for cutting in Au- 

 gust, the seed should be sown about the 

 middle of February. It should be sown 

 on a greenhouse bench, in flats or in a 

 hotbed ; if sown in a greenhouse it 

 should be on the shady side of it. — F. I'". 

 Reeves, Humber Bay, Ont. 



•Extract from a paper read at the recent con- 

 vention in Toronto of the Ontario Vegetable 

 Growers' Aflsoclation. 



