GREENHOUSES FOR FORCING VEGETABLES. 79 



thirty per cent, annually ; while there is but little doubt 

 that if the consumer could be reached direct, at least 

 twice that amount could be realized. 



The business is a particularly pleasant one, and is a great 

 advantage, in all respects, over the hot-bed system, as 

 one has complete control over the greenhouse tempera- 

 ture, both by night and by day, if the heating and ven- 

 tilating apparatus have been properly constructed. These 

 greenhouses are also well adapted for raising all kinds oi 

 vegetable plants. For the past six years nearly all our 

 Cabbage, Cauliflower, Lettuce and Tomato plants have 

 been raised in such greenhouses at far less expense than 

 in the old-fashioned hot-beds. When the expense of hot 

 water apparatus cannot be entertained, the same style of 

 greenhouse can be heated by the horizontal smoke flue, 

 costing little more than half as much as the hot water 

 apparatus, as the latter is about one-half of the entire 

 cost of the construction of such houses. 



FORCING CUCUMBERS. 



The wide greenhouses or forcing-houses, which we 

 have described as being used by Mr. Hudson for forcing 

 Lettuce, Radishes and Cauliflower, can also be made 

 equally available for forcing Cucumbers, either during 

 the entire winter and spring season, or to be used to suc- 

 ceed the last crops of Radishes or Lettuce in spring. If 

 wanted for the forcing of Cucumbers during the fall sea- 

 son, the seed should be sown in the greenhouse about 

 October 1st in small pots, three or four seeds in each, 

 thinning out to one strong plant. These, in thirty days, 

 will have become sufficiently strong to plant out at twenty 

 to twenty-four inches apart on the south side of the 

 bench, one row only. A trellis of galvanized iron wire 

 is marie with about a nine-inch mesh, diamond shaped. 

 This, on the middle bench, should be kept two feet from 

 the glass, but on the front bench it can only be kept one 



