148 



AN EXPERIENCE IN ELECTRO-HORTICULTURE. 



Now for my yield 14 months after planting. My 

 patch of strawberries was 30x208 feet. Of raspberries 

 there were ten rows 208 feet long. From May 20 to 

 June 20 my family of six had great heaping bowls of 

 berries three times a day. All my neighbors received a 

 mess or two, and my mother and sister, who live near, 

 said they never in all their lives had as many strawber- 

 ries as I gave them. They each own farms of more than 

 150 acres, and have as much fruit as our average farm- 

 ers. Besides all this, %io worth were sold to neighbors 

 and in town. The raspberries came in before the straw- 

 berries went out, and we had them almost a month 

 more. As we had not enough pickers, and the price 

 was not enough to hire them, we ate, canned and jammed 

 raspberries until my wife said the very smell of the 



Shaffers made her sick. With the help of a flock of 

 young chickens we managed to save them. A few 

 bunches of grapes were bagged, and gave us a taste of 

 the good things to come in that direction next year. 



I tell all this to show that no one need hold back from 

 planting a place through fear of expense. Pitch in and 

 make the expense! Of course, I would make many 

 changes were I to start again ; but if I had waited I 

 would probably not be any better prepared, and the 

 growth of the trees would be two years behind. One of 

 my neighbors, in looking over my fruits, paid me this 

 compliment : "You have more small fruits in a year and 

 a half from planting than I have ever had or ever expect 

 to have, and I've been living on my place for 20 years. — 

 Walter Stuart, D.D.S., Clark Co., Kentucky. 



AN EXPERIENCE IN ELECTO-HORTICULTURE. 



AN EVERV-DAY CORROBORATION OF SCIENTIFIC WORK. 



HAVE two greenhouses exposed to 

 an electric arc street lamp of 

 2000 candle-power, burning every 

 night and all night, situated 325 

 feet from the ends of the green- 

 houses. These houses are 16 feet 

 wide, and in each there are three 

 benches, the middle one 5 feet and the two side 

 ones 3I2 feet wide. They have a span of 10 feet 

 2 inches and 8 feet 6 inches, with 10x12 glass, and 

 are heated by hot water under the closed system, 

 each house having four 2-inch pipes overhead and 

 two under the benches. 



Between the lamp and the houses are some trees, 

 which shaded the houses until the leaves fell. One of 

 the houses was planted with Essex tomatoes, about three- 

 quarters of which were exposed to the light rays from 

 the electric lamp. These grew apparently with greater 

 thrift, were of a very dark green color, and made thick, 

 stocky, heavy vines, many measuring an inch in diam- 

 eter. The flowers were large, some measuring more 

 than a silver dollar, and quite numerous, in two instances 

 20 to the set. But the trouble was that they did not set 

 fruit to any satisfactory extent. I did not expect all to 

 set ; if a quarter of them had done so I would have been 

 satisfied. The only reason I could see for their failure 



was the electric light. I fertilized them with a brush in 

 the ordinary manner. Next I adjusted a draw-curtain 

 so as to screen the plants, and not until then did I get 

 satisfactory results. Since then I have found a larger 

 proportion of tomatoes to the cluster. 



The other house was planted with radishes on the 

 south, lettuce in the middle, and spinach on the north 

 benches. As far as Professor Bailey's experiments 

 went, mine corresponded with his ; for the plants acted 

 in the same way with me at 325 feet as they did with 

 him at less than 30. The radishes drew more to tops, 

 the lettuce grew faster than some planted the same day 

 under the same conditions, and kept at the same tem- 

 perature in another house not exposed to the lamp. I 

 will be able to market this lettuce two weeks earlier than 

 that from the dark house. I have done in this case as 

 I did in the first house, namely, adjusted a draw-curtain. 

 The spinach did not grow nor draw as fast with me as it 

 did with Professor Bailey, but the radishes did, and the 

 spinach would if given time. The curtain prevented 

 the radishes from growing to top and the spinach from 

 going to seed. But for the curtain I believe I would not 

 have been able to market one per cent, of the radishes, 

 and probably fifty per cent, were ruined. The soil of 

 both houses is a sandy loam, well enriched with stable- 

 manure. 



Orange Co., N. V. Ed. A. Lorentz. 



