124 WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



are to stand up on the haul to market. Of others 

 that may be ripened it can be said the processes 

 of chemical change and decay start the minute 

 they are plucked or uprooted. Of these the most 

 spectacular is sweet corn. They tell me that two 

 hours after it is picked ninety per cent of its sugar 

 has turned to starch. 



I wish I could speak of the miracles we have 

 wrought in hotbed and greenhouse but alas I can 

 not. It is said land under glass is fifty times 

 more productive of money crops than open 

 ground. I can believe it. Glass is certainly the solu- 

 tion of the raw winter greens problem. For with 

 no more than the two-sash hotbed in which we 

 start tomato, pepper, and other seedlings, we 

 can eke out the fall lettuce supply until after 

 Christmas. 



Closely allied to the garden is the orchard. 

 There is indeed a twilight zone of vegetation not 

 readily assignable to one or the other. What is 

 rhubarb: a fruit or a vegetable? Or need we not 

 debate such niceties? Strawberries, rhubarb, and 

 such cane fruits as raspberries, blackberries, cur- 

 rants, and gooseberries are usually assigned space 

 in the vegetable garden. Save when they are set 

 out in rows and cultivated like vegetables, grapes 

 usually occupy a somewhat snooty position in an 

 arbor of their own, between garden and orchard. 

 For the rest, here in the latitude of Philadelphia, 



