1891.] ESSAYS. 45 



The culture of lettuce under glass is really one of the abstruse 

 sciences, and should be classed among the " learned professions," 

 as much as Law or Medicine or Divinity. If the later cyclo- 

 paedias do not so class it the bookmakers have failed in their duty. 

 They have not thoroughly canvassed all the liberal arts and 

 sciences, and properly arranged the subjects respecting which 

 they profess to treat. 



The lawyer in his study of jurisprudence, and the divine in his 

 search of the Scriptures, have the statutes inexplicably stated and 

 plainly printed language, which can usually be understood with- 

 out great difficulty. But the horticulturist, who must study and 

 conform to the laws that govern the growth of plant life, does 

 not find those laws written in legible characters on a plain, white 

 surface. His is the more recondite and profound subject. The 

 laws which he seeks to understand and the conditions of health- 

 ful plant growth, which he is himself required' now to produce 

 artificially, are as obscure as the occult properties of matter 

 itself. Those who have had the longest experience, acquired the 

 greatest skill, and achieved the largest measure of success in pro- 

 ducing artificially the necessary conditions for the growth of this 

 difficult plant, are the most frank in confessing their deficiencies. 

 After all they have learned they will assure you that there is yet 

 left ample field for years of further study and careful observa- 

 tion, by the most scientific men in charge of our agricultural ex- 

 periment stations, before all the conditions of successful growth 

 are perfectly understood. 



I confess to a feeling of much more modesty in attempting to 

 give instruction on the cultivation of lettuce by artificial heat 

 than possibly I miglit have felt immediately after attaining my 

 first partial success. But seventeen years of practical experi- 

 ence, with the prerogative of standing all the losses of many 

 expensive failures, has taught me that there was far more to 

 learn to master the business than I had conceived, even after 

 several previous years of reading and frequent and careful obser- 

 vation of the methods of our largest and most successful lettuce 

 growers around the cities of Providence, Boston and New York. 

 If I could secure correct answers to all the questions wiiich I 

 would like to propound on difficult points to be met with in the 

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