CROPS UNDER GLASS 



59 



Mr. Work: At Boston they often go eighteen or twenty 

 inches. 



Professor Beal : So you do in a way change the soil. 

 Question: What do you do to get eighteen inches? 



Mr. Work: The point Professor Beal was making is 

 simply this : By turning the soil deeply and thoroughly each 

 year, we are practically changing it. We might say we get 

 back to the same soil once in three years. It does seem ap- 

 parent that the permanent use of soil goes hand in hand with 

 ground beds. Are you men who are growing carnations in 

 the soil year after year doing it in ground beds? 



Mr. Kilbourn : Ours are in benches. 



Professor Beal : I could not say about that. They usual- 

 ly have some sort of drainage, if they are growing in shallow 

 soil. 



Mr. Work : I take it the reason for this is that they want 

 to control the soil more than we do. Wet one week, dry the 

 next. Perhaps there are possibilities there for us. Maybe we 

 are letting our crops do too much as they please. Perhaps it 

 would be possible to control them more than we do by letting 

 them stay a little wet or a little dry. If your carnations are 

 coming on a week before Easter or Christmas, you hold them 

 down ? 



Professor Beal: Yes, but by temperature. 



Mr. Work : To what extent do you control your tempera- 

 ture, Mr. Zuck? 



Mr. Zuck : As we build, we put up several houses instead 

 of one. We can, if one crop is coming on too soon, shut off 

 the heat and hold the crop back. This matter of raised beds, 

 it seems to me, could not be practically applied to vegetables 

 except in the growing of fall tomatoes, because in growing the 

 fall tomatoes, the soil is colder than the atmosphere, which is 

 apt to cause wilt and other diseases; and if fall tomatoes were 

 grown on benches, we could control the conditions. However, 

 for winter lettuce, spring tomatoes, and cucumbers, I question 

 whether raised benches would pay. 



