CHAPTER XIY. 



rOECING-HOUSES FOE VEGETABLES. 



The culture of special crops, on an extensive scale, 

 is now the policy of the most successful gardeners 

 around New York, and the tendency of the entire 

 trade is gradually working in the same direction. 



For many years past there has been, in New 

 York and Boston, a large and growing demand, dur- 

 ing the Winter and Spring months, for what garden- 

 ers call, Frame Lettuce. As managed at present, 

 with bottom-heat, growing this kind of Lettuce is a 

 large, and, when properly understood, a lucrative 

 branch of gardening. 



Until recently, this Winter Lettuce was brought 

 forward in hot-beds, started in the Fall. If found 

 necessary, the manure was renewed during the Win- 

 ter, after the first or second crop had been sold, so 

 that three crops of Lettuce and one of Cucumbers 

 were, with close attention, taken off from these T)eds 

 between the first of November and' the fifteenth of 

 June. 



Within the last three years a number of forcing- 

 houses, heated by hot water, have been built in the 

 vicinity of New York, by gardeners, for the purpose 

 of growing vegetables (Lettuce, Eadishes, and Cu- 

 cumbers), during the Winter. Some of these houses 



