342 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



Southern Head lettuce, when well grown, usually brings $5 per barrel 

 in December,, while the same quality of lettuce will usually, in March, bring 

 $10 per barrel. Some of the more thoughtful growers are finding out that 

 lettuce of fine quality, shipped in neat boxes, will bring a better price than 

 that shipped in barrels, as it gets to market in better shape. Those, who grow 

 only the March crop claim that this one crop brings them about $3,000 per 

 acre of frames, and they all admit that with glass sashes they can produce 

 a finer quality of lettuce and have less danger of loss from unusual cold or 

 snow than under the cloth, but they hesitate to expend the $4,000 it requires 

 to cover an acre with glass frames. I have endeavored to show our growers 

 that in the long run their cloth covered frames are the more costly of the 

 two, for sashes made of cypress timber and kept well painted will be good for 

 twenty years, while the cloth must be renewed at least once in two years, and 

 sometimes lasts but a season ; so that the extra price gotten for lettuce grown 

 under glass, will in a few years make good the difference in first cost, and, in 

 fact, will pay at once. To test the matter I built and planted a considerable 

 area in glass frames the past fall, and planted them in Big Boston lettuce. 

 By the middle of February I had sold lettuce for double the cost of the 

 frames, and had the sashes ready to produce spring crops of radishes and 

 beets, and to harden off my early tomato plants. In other words, counting 

 the area covered with glass by the acre, I had in these few months sold lettuce 

 at the rate of $7,260 per acre. Since an acre can be covered solid with glass 

 sashes for $4,000 it would seem to be a good business proposition to use the 

 glass in place of the cloth, especially as a second crop from same sashes will 

 be ready in March. The disadvantages of the cloth covered frames are sev- 

 eral. When the weather is cold, even when the sun shines, the cloth must be 

 kept on, and the partial shade draws the plants and makes them less sturdy. 

 If snow happens to fall it must be hurriedly gotten off or serious damage 

 will result, and as a cold wave usually follows a snow storm, the frames are 

 then protected only by the thin cloth. With glass ashes, when the sun shines, 

 no matter how low the mercury may be, a little air will be given and the 

 bright sunshine makes the plants grow stout and sturdy, and prevents at- 

 tacks of rot that the close air under cloth may favor. Then, when snow falls, 

 we let it lie on the glass as an efficient protection from the following cold. 

 My lettuce grown under sashes was sold without expense, to grocerymen who 

 sent their wagons to my place for it daily, and paid $1 per dozen heads for 

 it. Grown on a larger scale, of course, I would have to take the chances of 

 the larger Northern markets, as the other growers do; but still, with the 

 superior product packed in neat crates or carriers, it would be sold by the 

 dozen in direct competition with the hothouse lettuce of the Boston growers, 



