44 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



perishable for the effort it costs. The ideal forcing "cuke" is 

 one which can be marketed as soon as large enough regardless of 

 its age; one which remains a long time on the plant without ripen- 

 ing and one which does not age quickly in the market. 



Our growers and market men tell us that the English fruit does 

 not take in our markets. How do they know? Has the market 

 ever been tested? So far as I know the only market in the United 

 States to which these fruits are offered is New Orleans and there 

 they sell readily. Is not this suggestion worth our consideration? 

 We think it is and have set as one of our tasks the finding of a 

 sort which possesses these desirable qualities. 



But everyone has been impatient lest I forget lettuce, the great 

 forcing crop of America, and Boston the market which has set the 

 standard for this crop. Boston gardeners have adopted as their 

 forcing sort the variety which thrives best in the open. Perhaps 

 this is the result of chance, but I dare say that the evolution of 

 Big Boston or Hittinger's Belmont Forcing lead along a line of an- 

 cestors that came first from the open into frames and hotbed and 

 finally into the forcing house. To begin with it was the best and 

 toughest outdoor lettuce. It is not a child of the greenhouse ex- 

 cept by adoption. In growing it in the field the southern growers 

 are only taking advantage of the sorts and markets which you have 

 for years been preparing for them. As long as there was no field 

 crop in Florida and no frame crop about Wilmington, Newburne, 

 and Norfolk this dual type lettuce was satisfactory. It served the 

 gardener better than two sorts, one distinctly a forcing variety 

 and the other a special outdoor sort. But conditions have changed 

 and with the change a new problem is presented to those growing 

 lettuce under glass. 



The problem as I see it is that of finding a special sort for each 

 particular purpose. Since we have prepared a dual purpose 

 lettuce which thrives equally well in the open and under glass, if 

 we are to continue the cultivation of this sort under glass, it must 

 take on some distinctive mark or character when so grown which 

 cannot he acquired in the open. 



We have reached the stage in our plant work which was reached 

 many years ago in animal industry. We have, as it were, need for 

 a milk producing breed and a butter producing breed. In the 



