DREER’S VEGETABLES UNDER GLASS. 31 
A great advantage of such houses as these, in addition 
to points already noted, is the ease with which they can be 
thrown open to the weather in summer. Mr. Esher, for 
instance, grew a crop of celery (close planted so as to be self- 
bleaching) in the beds of his forcing house during the sum- 
mer of 1896; and another user of such a house testifies that 
stripping the house of its glass in the summer makes it safe 
to employ the same soil for at least two years, whereas in 
a near-by house that is permanently covered with glass he 
finds it necessary to change the soil every year in order to 
escape disease. 
The two gardeners referred to in this chapter (Messrs. 
Esher and Reichner) are both located within convenient reach 
of the great wholesale markets of Philadelphia. Their prin- 
cipal crops are radishes, lettuce, cauliflower, beets, water 
cress, mint, &c. They also grow rhubarb in the winter sea- 
son, but in greenhouses of a different pattern, having plat- 
forms or staging under which the rhubarb roots are placed. 
THE SUCCESSION OF Crops. In the sash-covered forc- 
ing houses just described the winter’s work begins in Sep- 
tember, from the 15th to the 2oth, before the glass is put on. 
The beds are made ready and sowed with Cardinal Globe 
and White Box radish. Lettuce seed is started in an outside 
bed, and brought into the houses later. Water Cress (Dreer’s 
Erfurt) is sowed in October, and Snow Storm cauliflower 
about the first of November. 
For cultural directions concerning these and other win- 
ter vegetables the reader is referred to the subsequent pages 
of this book, where each is briefly treated under its respec- 
tive name. 
Mr. Esher’s main reliance is the radish, of which he 
expects three crops always, and sometimes gets four crops. 
Houses of this description are particularly adapted to the 
radish, lettuce, beet and cauliflower, and are recommended 
to gardeners whose markets demand any of these crops. 
