GARDENING UNDER GLASS 347 



can well afford to give the entire winter frames to. These are early beets 

 and radishes. On warm and sheltered borders the seed of the Chinese Rose 

 Colored radish can be sown here in late September, and with a slight cover 

 of strawy manure as the weather gets cold, the crop can be marketed all 

 through January, as we did the present season. In fact, our last radishes of 

 this kind were sold from the open ground in February, and were still in good 

 condition for use. But for the best trade the more tender, forcing radishes 

 are far better, and these must have the protection of the sashs and mats; we 

 use the turnip rooted varieties entirely for the frames. Having a frame from 

 which a crop of lettuce has been cut for the Christmas market, we give a light 

 application of nitrogenous fertilizer, generally of nitrate of soda, and sow the 

 radishes and beets in rows ten inches apart, and as soon as up, thin them to an 

 inch or two apart for the radishes and three for the beets ; we use the Crosby 

 Egyptian beet for frame sowing. Air is given in all sunny weather and the 

 bed kept clean of weeds with hand weeders. Frost must be rigidly excluded 

 by banking the outside of the frames and by covering with mats during cold 

 nights, and in this climate there is no great difficulty in entirely excluding 

 frost from a cold frame. If the seeds are sown the first of January, the 

 radish crop should be ready to pull by the time the beets badly need thinning, 

 and the thinned out beets are transplanted to take their place, so that the en- 

 tire frame is then beets ; and this beet crop should be ready to bunch the latter 

 part of March. All of these practices and dates are for the central part of 

 North Carolina, and further south the practice would be somewhat modified ; 

 but there is no section north of Florida where the sashes of glass will not be 

 more profitable than the poor substitute of plant cloth, which rarely excludes 

 frost in cold weather and is a makeshift at best. 



The later uses for the sashes, so long as the nights are cool, have been sug- 

 gested in the setting of cucumber plants under the sashes; a further late and 

 summer use for the frames can be made with the o plant, and tomato. 

 When the tomatoes are transplanted to the open ground, which here is usually 

 in early April, the nights are still cool and it is too early to trust the tender 

 egg plants outside. We have these grown in pots in the greenhouse, so as to 

 have by this time very large plants in four-inch pots. Some tomato plants 

 are potted in the same way and kept near the glass to keep them short and 

 stout. Two egg plants are then set under each sash and under others one 

 tomato plant is set to each sash. Of course the sun is now warm and the 

 plants will need little protection in daylight, but the sashes are run over them 

 at night, to keep up the rapid growth, till finally the plants crowd against 

 the glass, the nights get warm and they are turned loose. In the fat soil of 

 the lettuce frames the plants attain a luxuriance far greater than in the gen- 



