192 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



But foi" those who love to watch and care for growing plants 

 there is an indescribable fascination in raising them at a season 

 when all Nature without is locked up in snow and ice. I imagine 

 that this pleasure is quite independent of the supposed profit of 

 farming under glass, and, in many cases this year, is the only 

 reward on which the owner can depend with certainty. 



There are some difficulties in the way of gardening under glass 

 which can only be overcome by constant care and watchfulness ; 

 and others that are imperfectly understood, and demand further 

 study by men of science and practical experience. 



Among the difficulties which may be overcome by care, the most 

 common are maintaining a suitable degree of temperature and 

 moisture for the plants in question ; a simple thing enough to state 

 and to give directions for, but in our fickle climate a most difficult 

 task to accomplish without a night watchman ; and who shall 

 watch the watchman ? Few greenhouses are provided with heat- 

 ing apparatus sufficient to carry a proper heat for eight or ten 

 hours during a blizzard without attention ; and a sudden fall in 

 the outer temperature of twenty or thirty degrees during the night 

 will often cause destruction with the unwary. And with some 

 plants too high a temperature is quite as injurious as too low, and 

 overheating is almost as common a fault in their management as 

 any other. 



Among the difficulties that are as yet imperfectly understood 

 are the treatment of insects and fungous diseases. The aphis is a 

 very destructive pest in greenhouses and hotbeds ; it thrives best 

 in a rather warm temperature, and attains its best development 

 when fed upon good lettuce and cucumber plants. The best 

 remedy is careful and fi'equent smoking with tobacco, and for this 

 purpose I have found that the fine tobacco dust furnishes a safer 

 and more manageable smoke than the stems or leaves. 



Another class of pests that we know less al)out are the various 

 mildews and rots of the lettuce and cucumber plants. In general 

 the best way to fight them is to begin with clean plants and a 

 clean house ; the plants being grown in fresh loam, in a hotbed 

 where none of the same species have lately been grown. Be- 

 fore setting tlie plants, fumigate the vacant greenhouse with a 

 strong sulphur smoke, which will kill every living thing ; and 

 after setting them keep them growing vigorously in a congenial 

 heat and moisture. Stunted and unhealthy plants are far more 



