January 2, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



Cultural Department. 



Forcing Fruits and Vegetables Under Glass. 



T^^HE g-ardens of the country home of Mr. Pierre Lorillard, at 

 •*■ Jobstown, New Jersey, have long been famous for the 

 fruits and vegetables forced in the green-houses there. These 

 gardens contain an unbroken range of glass over 900 feet in 

 length, which is divided into many compartments to suit the 

 different crops grown in tliem. The houses of this range face 

 south, but there are others besides rimning north and south 

 from the main range. A year ago Mr. John G. Gardner, 

 formerly the gardener to Mr. Lorillard, leased these premises 

 for six years, and is now operating them as a inarket garden. 



Peaches. — In the compartments devoted to peach-growing 

 the trees are planted inside the house, and their tops are 

 spread out on trellises. While these trees are inactive in win- 

 ter, the temperature is kept constantly low, but as Peas and 

 Mushrooms are grown in them at this season, frost is excluded. 

 In some compartments Peach-trees grown in pots and tubs 

 are forced, and these trees are now (December loth) out-of- 

 doors with their pots and tubs buried in the ground. This 

 treatment serves to ripen the wood and prepare it for early 

 forcing, and it also preserves the roots from any injury by 

 frost. While frost may not injuriously affect the roots of 

 Peach-trees growing permanently in the open ground, freez- 

 ing the roots of pot or tub-bound plants, whether of Peach, 

 Plum or any other tree or plant, no matter how hardy, does 

 them no good, and possibly much harm. The green-houses 

 now emptied of these Peach-trees are used as forcing-houses 

 for Tomatoes. All 

 Peach-trees grown 

 under glass, no mat- 

 ter whether planted 

 out or grown in tubs, 

 are on Plum roots. 

 The Plum stock 

 checks the gross lux- 

 uriance of the Peach, 

 promotes the pro- 

 duction of short- 

 jointed, firm, fruit- 

 bearing wood, adds 

 vastly to the longevi- 

 ty of the tree, and, in 

 Mr. Gardner's opin- 

 ion, gives much 

 more highly flavored 

 fruit. Early Alexan- 

 der, Early Louise and 

 Early Rivers are his 



forcing. The vines occupying permanent green-house quar- 

 ters were unfastened from their trellises, and pruned or partly 

 pruned, the end of October, and then laid together in a row 

 just over where they are planted (inside the house), and here 

 boxed up securely from light or the warmth of the green- 

 house, and, at intervals of several yards, are ventilating, 

 chimney-like shafts running from the boxes up through the 

 glass roof. These vineries are now used during the winter 

 months for forcing Tomatoes and Snap Beans. 



Tomatoes. — These are forced in very large quantity; in- 

 deed all of the vineries are used as Tomato forcing houses in 

 winter. Some of the Tomato plants are grown in large pots, 

 hut the great mass of them are grown in boxes set upon the 

 stages and within about five to seven feet of the glass. The 

 variety grown is the Lorillard, which is a selection of Mr. Gard- 

 ner's. It is a smooth, even, medium sized variety with a 

 bright red skin, and the ripe fruits are firm and solid and 

 capital for shipping. The plants are raised from seed sown 

 in flats, and in order to maintain a regular succession of 

 young stock a fresh sowing is made every ten days. As soon 

 as the seedlings are big enough, they ai^'e potted singly into 

 small pots, and they are repotted into larger sizes till the 

 six-inch pot is reached, from which they are planted out in 

 the boxes. They are never planted out till after they have 

 shown one or two clusters of flower-buds, and this for a 

 reason seldom observed by cultivators — that the flower clus- 

 ters on Tomato vines all grow on one side of the vine and 

 not here and there around the vine, and it is to note the side 

 on which the blossoms appear that the plants are kept in the 

 pots so long; for in planting in the boxes the gardener is always 



careful to have the 

 flower-bearing side 

 of the vine face the 

 south. 



The boxes are of 

 rough hemlock 

 boards, and are a 

 foot deep, and about 

 two feet long by some 

 twent3'-two inches 

 wide, and as they are 

 set upon the green- 

 house stages the 

 boxes themselves are 

 bottomless. The 

 earth used is com- 

 mon garden soil and 

 well rotted manure, 

 and after the plants 

 have attained consid- 

 erable size a mulch- 



Fig. 84. — Neillia Torreyi. — See page 4, 



favored varieties 

 When the Peach and 



Nectarine trees are in bloom, in order to assist in the fertiliza- 

 tion of the flowers and set a heavy crop of fruit, Mr. Gardner 

 brings a colony of bees into the green-houses, and they do 

 the work effectually. I know from personal experience that 

 honey-bees are among the most useful agents we can employ 

 in fertilizing early-blooming plants, whether trees or herbs. 

 And I have often insisted that if our Pansy and other 

 seed-growers would keep bees in their seed-grounds they 

 could harvest much more seed than they do, and that if the 

 bees seem to ignore the special flowers in favor of more dis- 

 tant fields, they may be shut in green-houses with the flowers. 



Nectarines. — These are largely grown, both as planted-out 

 and pot plants, and Mr. Gardner favors them, as they are in 

 good demand, and the market is not nearly as well supplied 

 with them as it is with peaches. Lord Napier is his favorite 

 variety. They are on Plum stocks. The routine of their cul- 

 tivation is much the same as that of the Peach-trees. 



Strawberries. — These are forced in large quantities. They 

 are all in pots and still outside. Although he grows Elton Pine 

 (a foreign variety) a good deal, he is partial to the Sharpless, 

 as it has the constitution, the foliage and the pollen, and not 

 only sets well itself, but when grown along with other varie- 

 ties, has a capital fertilizing effect upon them, and there is no 

 l>etter variety to associate with pistillate kinds. 



Grapes. — All the permanent vines — and they occupy many 

 houses — are planted in-doors, but qm'te a number are also 

 grown in pots. Those grown in pots are for early forcing 

 mostly, and are now thoroughly ripened, pruned and buried 

 under ground out-of-doors, like ordinary Catavvbas or Rasp- 

 berries, the pots having first been plunged in a row in the 

 groimd. Here they remain at rest till a house is empty and 

 convenience permits of their being brought in-doors for 



ing of rotted manure 

 is also added. Foiu" 

 plants are set in each box — a plan in each corner. As 

 Tomato plants seldom show any flowers from the first half 

 dozen joints of the vines, in order to shorten the stems and 

 let the fruit begin from the ground, the naked part is laid 

 down and the plants at the opposite corners of the l)ox 

 cross each other — for instance, the plant set out in the 

 north-east corner of the box is layered on the ground arul 

 brought up in the south-east corner, and the one that liad 

 been planted in the south-east corner is brought up in 

 the north-east corner. The plants grown singly in large 

 pots are coiled around on the surface till the first flower joint 

 is reached. 



The vines are all kept to a single stem — that is, no branches 

 or laterals are allowed to grow — and each vine is trained up to 

 a string fastened at the corner of the box, and, running per- 

 pendicularly, to the roof of the house. The boxes are not 

 placed close against each other on the benches, but at intervals 

 of nearly two feet apart. This allows the plants to be about 

 two feet distant from each other, and admits sunshine and- a 

 free circulation of air. The plants are allowed to climb on 

 the cord as high as they will, so long as they retain short- 

 jointed, lusty vigor. The more vine, the more fruit, as 

 every third, or sometimes every foin-th, joint, has a fruit 

 cluster. 



A night temperature of 57° is maintained. Tomato plants 

 in winter are slow to set fruit without artificial assistance, but 

 Mr. Gardner finds no difficulty in securing sets on every 

 cluster. First he provides a sweet, dry atmosphere in the 

 house; then in the forenoon he takes a padded stick, and 

 goes through the plants, giving each one a sharp but gentle 

 tap to scatter the pollen. The first fruits are ripe for market 

 in about ninetv davs from the time the seed is sown. 



