FORCED RHUBARB 131 



an hour can be obtained, as against the thirty or forty 

 miles an hour which ordinary goods trains, having no 

 automatic continuous brake, may not exceed. 



It is forced rhubarb that constitutes the Leeds district 

 speciality. Known there altogether for some forty 

 years, the growing of it on a substantial scale was first 

 resorted to more recently, not only because of the falling 

 prices of ordinary agricultural crops, but also because 

 of the increasing competition which market-gardeners 

 in the immediate neighbourhood of Leeds were meeting 

 with from others more favourably situated as regarded 

 the rental of their land. The Leeds growers found 

 it desirable, in the circumstances, to get a better- 

 paying crop, and there were various conditions that 

 favoured the growing of forced rhubarb, either by itself 

 or in combination with other produce. 



The method adopted by the growers is to plant 

 the rhubarb roots in the open first of all, and leave 

 them there for two, if not for three, years, without any of 

 the leaves being plucked. Then when the leaves have 

 entirely died down the roots are either ploughed or dug 

 up and carried into sheds varying in size, but often 

 100 feet long and 30 feet wide. They are planted 

 thickly in these sheds; which are quite dark when the 

 doors are closed, and are artificially heated, while 

 the atmosphere is kept at the requisite degree of 

 moisture. At the end of five or six weeks, in an ordinary 

 course, the rhubarb is ready for plucking ; but within 

 certain limits the growth can be hastened or retarded 

 by either increasing or decreasing the heat to suit 

 market conditions. 



The special advantages possessed by the Leeds 

 growers were found to be : (a) that the soil was par- 

 ticularly favourable to rhubarb cultivation ; (6) that the 

 neighbourhood of a large city allowed of the great 



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