FORCING OF LETTUCE 



CHAPTER XXXI 



VEGETABLES UNDER GLASS— FORCING OF LETTUCE 



Treatment of Lettuce and How to Keep a Constant Supply — Soil for 



Vegetable House— Distance— Temperature— Airing— Feeding- 



Watering— Diseases — Varieties of Lettuce for 



Growing Under Glass 



PROBABLY all establishments make provision for vegetables. Where 

 fruit is grown out of season, there will also be accommodations for 

 the Winter crop of vegetables, which are just as essential as the fruit. 

 The two crops will work in harmony, and no establishment is complete unless 

 it can produce a liberal supply of vegetables at all seasons of the year. There 

 is always a brisk demand for these products of the soil and commercial groweis 

 have long since undertaken to satisfy it all the year round. During the past 

 few years mammoth houses have been built for this purpose. Fifteen or twenty 

 years ago such structures would have been considered mere folly. I am not 

 in a position to state the exact increase in this line of hothouse work, but I know 

 that its growth has been phenomenal, a convincing proof that the consumers' 

 •demands yearly grow larger and larger. While the Northern grov\er has to 

 compete with the Southern outdoor product, the latter cannot compare in qual- 

 ity with that emanating from houses especially built for the purpose. 



I do not class vegetables as a luxury, but rather as a necessity of life, and it 

 is not an expensive undertaking to grow them. The requirements in fuel are 

 trifling when compared with those of many of our exotic houses, the temperatures 

 needed being entirely difl'erent. Much credit is due to the commercial grower 

 for advancing and popularizing the indoor product, which is sent to the open 

 market where the consumer may see and appreciate its standard of excellence. 

 Private establishments have probably been growing vegetables and salads ever 

 since greenhouses came into use, but these are not, as a rule, sent to market. 

 This private industry, therefore, has had little effect in educating consumers in 

 general to appreciate the hothouse product. Artificial market gardening brings 

 in fair returns, aside from providing steady labor for a large number of hands. 

 Many years ago it was thought necessary to have the salad growing up near the 

 glass, but we now know from experience that some of the best results are ob- 

 tained in the enormous houses built especially for the purpose of vegetable 

 .culture. 



