36 



The Weekly Florists' Review^ 



OcTOBEn 13, 1910. 



Vegetable Forcing. 



CUCUMBEBS AND TOMATOES. 



Can cucumbers and tomatoes be grown 

 as a spring crop following lettuce on 

 benches, or must they have more soil 

 than the six inches used for lettuce? 

 What varieties of tomatoes and cukes 

 are best for this? J. T. 



Yes, you can follow your winter let- 

 tuce with either cukes or tomatoes, but 

 six inches of soil is hardly enough. I 

 have grown a fine crop of cukes in beds 

 four to four and one-half feet wide and 

 eight inches of soil after it had been 

 in lettuce all winter. The beds were 

 only six inches deep, but I put a 1x2 

 strip on edge and nailed it on the side 

 boards, so as to make the sides eight 

 inches instead of six. Then I put a 

 heavy coat of manure on the lettuce 

 soil and worked it all over. This still 

 left room for an inch of soil later; so 

 in the latter part of April I put on 

 another 1-inch top-dressing of rich soil, 

 nearly half manure. 



Tomatoes I treat the same way, but 

 do not use quite so much manure, and 

 I am careful to have half rotted manure 

 for the tomatoes. For cukes I generally 

 use fresh manure and lots of it. 



While it is possible to grow tomatoes 

 and cucumbers in the same house, it is 

 never advisable, because they like dif- 

 ferent temperatures and atmospheric 

 conditions. For instance, tomatoes like 

 a fairly good supply of water on the 

 soil, but not on the foliage, which is 

 better off if never wet. They also like 

 a rather dry atmosphere and a tempera- 

 ture several degrees below that of cu- 

 cumbers. Cucumbers like plenty of 

 water and a damp atmosphere, and they 

 need occasional syringing under the fo- 

 liage to keep down such insect enemies 

 as red spider and thrips. It also ben- 

 efits the cucumber plants to have fre- 

 quent spraying of the foliage in bright, 

 warm weather. Cucumbers seem to do 

 best in a temperature of 68 degrees at 

 night, 75 degrees on cloudy days and 

 85 to 90 degrees on the brightest, warm 

 days, when there is plenty of ventila- 

 tion on the houses. Tomatoes should 

 have a night temperature between 60 

 and 65 degrees, on cloudy days 65 to 

 70 degrees and on bright days 75 to 

 80 degrees. 



So the conditions are decidedly differ- 

 ent for the two crops. If you have 

 separate houses you can treat each as 

 suits them best, but if your houses are 

 connected or all in one it would not be 

 entirely satisfactory, as one crop or the 

 other, possibly both, would be living 

 under unfavorable conditions and would 

 probably be so weakened as to be likely 

 to fall a prey to any diseases to which 

 they might be exposed. A high tem- 

 perature with the ventilators closed is 

 poor treatment; several degrees more 

 heat can be added if there is good ven- 

 tilation than would be advisable with 

 the vents closed or nearly so. 



It is hard to say what are the best 

 varieties of any kind of vegetable, be- 

 cause the different markets ffivor differ- 

 ent varieties. For instance, pink to- 

 matoes are more in demand than red 

 in some markets; in others the pink 

 ones are not wanted, the bright red 

 being preferred. For winter forcing 

 the pink ones are seldom grown, al- 

 though Livingston's Beauty, an old 



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pink variety, does well and is hard to 

 beat for yield. Of the red varieties, 

 Comet seems to be grown more than 

 any other. It is prolific, but hardly as 

 good for size or shape as some of our 

 other varieties. Livingston's Stone 

 forces well and is large and productive, 

 with fruit that is smooth and of good 

 shape. If a little earlier it would dis- 

 place Comet quickly. 



Langdon's Improved Earliana tomato 

 is good and may soon take first place. 

 It is decidedly better than the old Ear- 

 liana, which is the most productive and 

 the earliest of all large tomatoes, but 

 entirely too much of the fruit comes 

 rough and misshapen. This improved 

 strain of Earliana is perfectly smooth. 

 It originated with P. & H. Langdon, 

 of Constable, N. Y., and was dissemi- 

 nated last winter. 



Of cucumbers there are no end of dif- 

 ferent forcing strains of the White 

 Spine type. Almost any that are adver- 

 tised for forcing are all right, but do 

 not use common garden stock. The 

 Boston Forcing strain is most commonly 

 used, but others are just as good. The 

 long English type is to be avoided, on 

 account of not selling well, although it 

 is extra long, easy to grow and prolific. 

 The Davis Perfect, a half-breed or cross, 

 is giving excellent satisfaction with 

 some growers, but others do not like it. 

 This is due not so much to the differ- 

 ence in localities as to the difference in 

 growers. The best way for each grower 

 is to grow mostly one variety, which 

 has proved satisfactory generally, and 

 experiment with only a few plants of 

 those varieties of uncertain value. 



H. G. 



CELERY FOR CHRISTMAS. 



I want to grow some late celery and 

 wish to know whether it can be grown 

 in a greenhouse that is covered with 

 oiled paper. Which is better for grow- 

 ing celery, benches or solid beds? I 

 am located in southern Tennessee and 

 should like to have the crop ready 

 about Christmas. I have good sized 

 plants. C. M. W. 



I have never had any experience 

 with houses where oiled paper is used 

 instead of glass, although I used to 

 have a good many hotbed sashes, or 

 frames the size of sashes, covered with 

 muslin and then oiled. 



I have much doubt about your being 

 able to got a satisfactory crop of 

 celery for Christmas if grown entirely 

 under oiled paper. If you could grow 

 it in the open air from now on for 

 several weeks, and then set up some 

 protection to keep it from injurv 

 through freezing weather, you ought 



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Vegetable Plants 



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to get it for Christmas, as you are far 

 enough south to get a good growth 

 still this fall and celery stands a good 

 deal of cold. 



Solid beds would be better than 

 raised benches. H. G. 



ST. LOUIS. 



The Market. 



The market last week showed great 

 improvement as to quality of stock in 

 roses and carnations, but the retail 

 trade was not as brisk as it might have 

 been, as the weather was somewhat un- 

 favorable. However, there seems to be 

 plenty of funeral work to make up, but 

 aside from this they state there is lit- 

 tle doing. The wholesalers clean up 

 fairly well each day, but there is not 

 so much coming in now. 



Prices have stiffened up a little on 

 carnations and these are cleaning up 

 daily at $3 per hundred. Chrysanthe- 

 mums are coming in and move freely, 



