1887 



GLEANINGS IN BEf: CJULTTJUE. 



139 



kinds of celerj', and even sjave us some sam- 

 ple stalks to taste and admire the flavor. 

 No lettuce was in siglit ; but when we men- 

 tioned it he opened some round boxes not 

 unlike wooden cheese-boxes, Init smaller. 

 Each box contained perhaps a peck of let- 

 tuce. This quautity is not large enough to 

 cause it to heat, and yet when kept shut up 

 in a box in the somewhat damp and cool air 

 of the basement it kept in excellent order. 

 He mentioned several greenhouses in the 

 vicinity of Albany where lettuce was grown ; 

 but they both agreed that my best place 

 would be to goout to " Frost's.'' Afterward 

 we found lettuce for sale in the basement of 

 the very building of the Glol)e Hotel ; and 

 yet the clerk at the hotel didn't think any 

 lettuce was raised in or around Albany. 



As our bee-convention was to meet at nine 

 o'clock, I was up and had my breakfast long 

 before daylight. 1 was on the stand waiting 

 for the street-cars at the time they were to 

 start ; but after having waited for 15 minutes 

 in the cold, and no street-car made its ap- 

 pearance, I concluded to be independent and 

 go on foot, even if it was about four miles. 

 At least one of the four miles was up hill, 

 for Albany is "a city set on a hill,'" or, rath- 

 er, a sidehill. How I did enjoy that walk ! 

 The hill slopes toward the rising sun ; and 

 as his rays poured full upon me, my spirits 

 began to revive, as they always do when I 

 can go on foot, and the sun shines. I fell in 

 love with the small boys, and even with the 

 dogs and horses as I passed. I even loved 

 the saloon-keepers who stood at the doors of 

 their places of business, pretty thickly 

 sprinkled along the way ; but I did not fall 

 in love with the business they followed. 

 Finally the broad grand country landscape 

 opened before me, and here too I found 

 throngs of people busy filling their ice- 

 houses. The ice was taken from little 

 streams that had been dammed up piu'pose- 

 ly, as it seemed, to form ice-ponds. They 

 may have been carp-ponds also, for aught I 

 know. .Just beyond where these people were 

 at work I saw Frost's establishment, sur- 

 rounded with evergreens for windbreaks. 

 His greenhouses were mostly located on a 

 sidehill. There were five of them in num- 

 ber. Mr. Frost is a practical man. There is 

 nothing of the style of grandeur of Peter 

 Henderson's floral establishment to be seen 

 in Mr. Frost's gardening operations. I found 

 him at work with his boys, among the green- 

 houses. The one I first entered was full of 

 early Silesia lettuce ; and for once in my life 

 I was satisfied with the view of a real live 



lettuce-house. These houses are just about 

 as cheap as they can be gotten up ; in fact, 

 some of them had walls made by driving 

 stakes in the ground, and filling in with 

 coarse manure. On to]) of these were ordi- 

 nary greenhouse frames, with just enough 

 slant to carry off the water. They were 

 warmetl by stoves set in a hole dug in the 

 ground. In many places the glass is so low 

 that one is obliged to stoop to walk through 

 the house. This gives the advantage of get- 

 ting the glass close to the plants— a matter 

 that I have emviliasized strongly, as you will 

 remember, in Chapter X. The walks are a 

 little below the surface of the beds. In 

 many of the houses the beds are simply bank- 

 ed up as we would bank up beds in a flower- 

 garden. The house that pleased me most, 

 however, was an asparagus-house. I have 

 tried to give you a picture of it on the next 

 page. 



The size of this house is 12.") feet long by 

 40 feet in width. The walls are made of very 

 cheap material, and rise to the height of only 

 three or four feet. It is built along a hill- 

 side sloping to the south and east. Along 

 the center of the ridge is a piece of shingle 

 roof, perhaps four feet wide. This runs the 

 whole length of the building. There are 

 three rows of 3xH-foot sash each side (jf this 

 center-piece of roofing. Now, a short man 

 like myself can just walk under the center- 

 piece. If he goes out luider a sash he will 

 have to stoop a little, and the row of sash 

 next to the eaves has a pretty sharp slope 

 so as to make the low walls around the out- 

 side answer. The sash is supported by 

 stakes driven into the ground in rows the 

 whole length of the building where one sash 

 laps on to the next. These stakes are per- 

 haps six feet apart, and they are simply 

 cheap stakes split out like rails. Five com- 

 mon coal-stoves warm tiie spacious build- 

 ing. Each one is placed in a circular pit, dug 

 in the ground perhaps two feet deep, and the 

 pipes run perhaps fifty feet or more under 

 the glass before they go into the open air. 

 This takes pretty much all of the heat, with- 

 out smoke, before it goes into the open air, 

 and is economy in fuel. Now, this sash is 

 to be entirely removed as soon as warm 

 weather comes, to let the asparagus grow in 

 the natural way in the open air. In fact, 

 during the greater part of the year this as- 

 paragus-house is nothing but an asparagus- 

 bed with low walls around it. and the strip 

 of roof through the center. The asparagus, 

 however, is planted much closer than in or- 

 dinary culture. Mr. Frost told me the rows 



