GARDENING UNDER GLASS 337 



Northern cities whore wealth has accumulated and the customers for these 

 tilings live. The competition around the market gardener in the crops grown 

 in the open ground, and the competition of those in a more sunny climate 

 made it necessary for the wide awake gardener to adopt some means for get- 

 ting the advantage of his immediate neighbors and competing on somewhat 

 equal terms with those south of him, who were handicapped by long trans- 

 portation charges. So today the gardener who simply meets the local com- 

 petition, is less successful than the man who by extra skill and the use of 

 glass meets the competition of those further away in a more sunny climate, 

 and puts on his local market, products of superior excellence and in better 

 condition than those from a distance grown under natural conditions and with 

 less application of skill. For instance, the writer, even in a Southern home- 

 market, every winter sells tomatoes from the forcing house in direct competi- 

 tion with the open ground product from Florida, and gets five times the price 

 that the Florida product brings, simply because of the greater excellence 

 and superior condition of his product. For a long time this business of grow- 

 ing products under glass was confined to the immediate vicinity of the great 

 markets of the North. Only a few years ago we noted the fact that in the 

 market reports one morning the first cucumbers from the open ground in the 

 lower Gulf States were sold on the Northern market, and the same morning 

 cucumbers from a hothouse in Vermont were sold there, and the product of 

 the hothouse in that semi-arctic climate brought several times the price of 

 the Southern article. Since these products in such a climate must have been 

 produced at a great cost, and being at a considerable distance from the New 

 York market where they were sold, the thought occurred to me that there was 

 the opportunity of the grower in the Upper South no further from the market, 

 and with a milder and more sunny climate, which would allow of cheaper 

 houses, less coal and with the abounding sunshine, even in the coldest weather, 

 to compete again on better terms with his Northern competitor. 



Some time since I received a letter from a grower in the Berkshire Hills 

 of Massachusetts, saying that he was there engaged in the business of forcing 

 cucumbers in winter. He said that there he was obliged to use double-glazed 

 sashes on his house, a very expensive heating apparatus and a great deal of 

 coal, and still the business was a remunerative one. He had formed the idea 

 that in the Upper South he could find a climate better adapted to winter forc- 

 ing by reason of a milder winter and more sunshine, which would necessitate 

 less expense in construction and maintenance, while not much further to ship 

 the products than from Massachusetts to New York. I told him that there was 

 no doubt about the feasibility of the plan. The indications, therefore, are 

 that the example set by the energetic growers of New England and the North 



