i5th January, A. D. 1891. 



ESSAY 



BY 



STILLMAN H. RECORD, A.M., of Worcester. 

 Theme: — The Culture of Lettuce and Cucuvibers under Glass. 



Perhaps there is no garden vegetable grown for our markets 

 that requires less skill when raised in open culture than lettuce, 

 for it will grow in almost any good garden soil, and, in open air, 

 is seldom injured by disease. But when grown under glass by 

 artificial heat, I know of no vegetable that requires more skill, or 

 a longer apprenticeship to acquire that skill necessary for suc- 

 cessful culture, than does the lettuce plant. I know of successful 

 market gardeners after forty-five years of practical experience in 

 its culture, declare their belief that a crop of good lettuce forced 

 under glass is simply the result of "good luck," because while 

 growing three and four crops per year they say they can get 

 only about one good crop in the course of four years. Another 

 lettuce grower, though younger in years, yet the largest lettuce 

 grower in New England and probably the largest in America, 

 says, that the same treatment never produces the same result 

 twice in succession. Explanation of these varying and seeming- 

 ly hap-hazard results, is probably found in the fact, that the cul- 

 ture of plants under glass requires nearly all the conditions for 

 successful growth to be produced artificially, and these conditions, 

 particularly in the case of the lettuce plant, are so numerous, 

 and so obscure, that finite man, even after years of careful 

 observation and practice is not quite equal to the task of bring- 

 ing about uniform results, though he may attain partial and 

 varying success. 



