VEGETABLES UNDER GLASS. 191 



The vegetables mostly forced for market at present are, in their 

 order of importance, lettuce, cucumbers, radishes, dandelions, 

 beets and beet-greens, parsley, mint, and cress. Mushrooms are 

 also largely forced, but not under glass ; dark pits are used for 

 this purpose. 



Lettuce is by far the most largely grown and used of all the 

 forced vegetables. Most of the greenhouses produce two or three 

 successive crops of lettuce each winter, followed by a crop of 

 cucumbers in spring and summer. 



The immensely increased use of lettuce and other forced vege- 

 tables has kept pace with the supply until this winter ; the general 

 depression of business, with a large number of unemployed men 

 who usually buy such delicacies when earning good wages,^ 

 together with the unusually good condition in which southern 

 lettuce has arrived in the New York market, has combined to 

 force the price temporarily below the cost of production. But a 

 reaction has already begun, and it is not unlikely that there will 

 be seasons of scarcity and high prices in the future, though it is 

 hardly probable that the average prices will be as high as hereto- 

 fore. And it is not desirable that they should be ; for there is 

 nothing that contributes so surely to the health of a family as a 

 liberal use of freshly grown salads, and they should be sold at 

 prices that will bring them within the reach of people of moderate 

 means. At all events let us hope that the increased use of lettuce 

 and cucumbers is not an index of debasing luxury, such as caused 

 the decay and ruin of the Roman Empire, but is a sign, rather, of 

 the appreciation among the common people of the healthful effect 

 of the free use of fresh vegetables. 



The care of greenhouses and hotbeds demands constant atten- 

 tion, especially the greenhouses. One of our humorous market 

 gardeners once said, in enumerating the advantages derived from 

 them, that they furnish a safe retreat at night for the head of the 

 family, during periods of domestic strife ; and also a convenient 

 excuse for staying away from church, since they always need 

 airing at the time of morning services. Joking aside, they cer- 

 tainly demand most constant attention both day and night for 

 seven days of every week, and a little neglect will quickly convert 

 a promising and valuable crop into a sickening mass of frozen or 

 scorched rubbish. 



