62 MARKET NURSERY WORK 



grown alone, but some little risks are justifiable to expedience 

 provided the results are sufficient set-off against the premium. 

 We have ourselves consistently accepted such risks. We have 

 almost filled the border in a peach house every December with 

 large clumps of helleborus, denuded of nearly all their foliage, 

 and these occupied the space for from six to eight weeks. During 

 that time they were occasionally sprinkled, but never watered. 



Along the edge of the same border we have grown a row of 

 French beans, year after year, sowing them in March when the 

 house was first heated, and finishing them off in June. The 

 treatment necessary to keep the red spider from the peaches 

 served also to keep the beans clean, so that no harm was done 

 that way. At times we have packed the house with boxes of 

 ornatus and daffodils, and though this occupied space but for 

 a short time, it was a more than justifiable use of the house 

 in its results. 



In a late vinery we once ventured to grow potatoes, but 

 relinquished that because although the cultivation of the border 

 benefited the vines, we found it impossible to lift the potatoes 

 without damage to the roots at the most critical time of their 

 work. One year we grew a row of green peas in the same vinery, 

 but were warned off this by mildew. We now make use of it 

 first for boxes of tulips and then for boxes of Spanish iris, neither 

 of which stand there for a longer period than six weeks. 



One other crop has done well with us in this late vinery, and 

 that is one of Malmaison carnations, for which we rigged up a 

 temporary stage. The vinery is lofty and the conditions 

 appeared to suit the carnation to perfection. 



The early vineries have likewise been used to bring forward 

 bulbs, strawberries, ferns, liliums, arums, rhubarb, seakale, 

 and mustard and cress, so far as we could discover without any 

 detriment to the vines and certainly with advantage to the 

 exchequer. That being so, we cannot lightly condemn practices 

 which we follow ourselves and which we have proved to be 

 profitable. Practical experience has proved them to be at times 

 necessary to the carrying on of the business, for there have been 

 times when upkeep has depended upon the ready money these 

 catch crops brought in. 



