DREER’S VEGETABLES UNDER GLASS. 41 
employed, and are all run at the same time. The time 
required to give the ground a thorough soaking is about 
thirty minutes. The amount of water used in that time is 
about 15,000 gallons. 
The cost of this system of irrigation is not great. The 
whole acre of ground thus supplied with moisture is made 
productive up to its fullest capacity, no matter how dry the 
weather may be in early spring. 
Lying immediately on the warm side of a great vegetable 
forcing house (partly shown in the picture), with deep, rich, 
mellow soil, this border was the largest and most successful 
thing of the kind noted in our 1896 observations. 
The economy of construction, the uniform way in which 
the water is applied to every portion of the ground, and the 
ease with which it is managed, are the principal points in its 
favor. 
No matter how careful a man may be with hose or 
watering pot, he will give some parts of the ground more 
water than other parts ; but a mechanical sprinkler, operating 
uniformly at many points, will almost equal the clouds them- 
selves in the even distribution of steadily falling drops of 
water. 
The supply of water for such a system of irrigation may 
come from a tank, from a force-pump, or from a street main. 
The plan is feasible and economical, and tends to reduce out- 
of-doors gardening to an exact science. 
The possibilities of pleasure in winter work under glass 
are as great as the possibilities of profit. 
