1866.] 
AMERICAN AORICULTURIST. 
91 
I 
slonally have the thermometer from 5 to 10 be- 
low zero for a day or two together, yet in all 
our time we have never used mats, shutters, or 
any covering except llic glass, and I do not 
think we lose more than two percent, of our 
plants. Some may think that the raising of 
plants in this manner must involve considerable 
trouble, but when they are informed that the 
cabbage and lettuce plants so raised and jilanted 
out in 5Iarch or April, not unfrequently bring a 
thousand dollars per acre befni'e the middle of 
July, gi^'ing us time to follow up with celery 
for a second crop, it will be seen that the prac- 
tice is not unjirofitable. 
But we have not yet done with the use of the 
sashes ; to make them still available, spare 
boxes or frames must be made, in all respects 
similar to those in use for the cabbage plants. 
These frames should be covered up <luring win- 
ter with straw or leaves in depth sufficient to 
keep the ground from freezing, so that thej' 
may be got at and be in jiroper condition to be 
planted with lettuce by the end of February or 1st 
of March. By this time the weather is always 
mild enough to allow the sashes to be taken otf 
from the cabbage and lettuce plants, and they 
are now transferred to the spare frames to cover 
and forward the lettuce. Under each sash we 
plant tifty lettuce plants, having the ground 
first well enriched by digging in about 3 inches 
of well rotted manure. The management of the 
lettnce for heading is in all j-espects similar to 
that used in preserving the plants in winter; 
the only thing to be attended to, being to give 
abundance of air, and on the occasion of rain to 
remove the sashes entirely, so that the ground 
may receive a good soaking, which will tend to 
promote a more rapid and luxuriant growth. 
The crop is fit for market in about six weeks 
from time of planting, which is ahva3-s two or 
three weeks sooner than that from the open 
groimd. The average price for all planted is 
abont $4 per hundred at wholesale, so that 
again with little trouble our crop gives us $3 
per sash in sis -weeks. 
I believe this second vise of the sash is not 
practisetl outside of this district, most gardeners 
having the opinion that the T\inter plants of 
cauliflower, cabbage or lettuce, would be injured 
by their complete exposure to the ^veathcr at 
as early a date as the first of Xarch. In fact, 
here we have still a few old fogies among us, 
whose timidity or obstinacy in this matter pre- 
vents them from making this use of their sashes, 
and thereby causing them an annual loss of i|3 
per sash, and as some of them have over a 
thousand sashes, the loss is of some magnitude. 
In ni}' own practice, I have made my glass do 
double duty in this way for fifteen years ; the 
number when I first started being fifty, increas- 
mg to thc*present time, when I have in use fif- 
teen hundred sashes. Yet in all that time I 
have only once got my plants (so exposed) in- 
jured, and then only a limited number, which I 
had neglected to sufficiently harden by airiu". 
"We have still another use of the sashes to de- 
tail. Onr lettuce being cut out by middle of 
May, we then plant five or six seeds of the Im- 
proved White Spine Cucumber in the centre of 
each sash. At that season they come up at 
once, protected by the covering at night. The 
sashes are left on until the middle of June, when 
the crop begins to be sold. The manage- 
ment of the cucumber crop as regards ailing, is 
hardly different from that of the lettuce, except 
in its early stage of growth it requires to be kept 
warmer ; being a tropical plant, it is very impa- 
tient of being cMUed, but in warm daysaii-ing 
should never be neglected, or the concentration 
of the sun's rays on the glass would raise the 
temperature to an extent to injure, if not en- 
tirely destroy the crop. This third use of the 
sashes I have never 3'et made so profitable as 
the second, although always sufficiently so to 
make it well worth the labor. 
There are a few men here who make a busi- 
ness from the use of sashes only, having no 
ground except that occupied by the frames.* In 
this way the winter crop of cauliflower or cab- 
bage plants are sold at an average of $3 per 
sash, in March or April ; the lettuce at $2 per 
sash in May, and the cucumbers at $1 per sash 
in June, making an average of $6 per sash for 
the season ; and it must be remembered that 
these are wholesale prices, and that too in the 
market of New York, where there is great com- 
petition. There is no doubt that in hundreds 
of cities and towns of the Union the same use 
of sashes would double or treble these results. 
Cotton Planting by Northern Men. 
There has been a great mystery thrown about 
cotton culture by some of the writers on the 
subject, and this is in some measure seen in the 
only manual on that subject, by Turner. (See 
Book-List.) The fact is, cotton is just as easy 
to cultivate as corn, and nothing like so hard to 
grow as tobacco. 
It needs a deep, well-worked soil, moderate 
enrichment, and clean culture. It is a hard)', 
vigorous plant, bearing almost any amount of 
neglect if it gets a good start, and even when 
quite small — a mere seed-leaf plant — is no more 
delicate than beans. Were the planting left 
altogether to unthinking workers, (no one know- 
ing whether one seed in twenty would grow, or 
that all would not,) they would be very likely to 
drop handfuls of seed where a dozen would 
answer, or scatter them in the drill as if they 
were distributing a fertilizer. This they did, 
and it is no wonder that the puny crowded 
plants, left weeks without being thinned out, 
convinced " Massa " that he had a very delicate 
and tender plant (or weed, as they call the cotton 
plant at the South) to deal with. 
The land should be such as is capable of good 
tilth — that is, such as will become somewhat 
mellow, at least friable when well plowed and 
harrowed. Very light sandy land is unsuitable, 
unless it be compacted by a considerable amount 
of vegetable matter, as a sod of young grass 
and clover, the growth of the fall and winter, 
and such land may be well plowed in the spring 
and not in autumn, in order that this vegetable 
growth may be secured. On ordinary loams 
the plowing ought to be done in the winter to 
save time, but with good plows, put down quite 
as deep or a little deeper than former tillage has 
gone, spring plowing will do equ.ally well. If 
possible, follow the plow with a sub-soil plow, 
running once in each furrow, for the cotton 
plant sends down a strong tap-root into the 
subsoil, and it is desirable that the way should 
be opened, especially in compact soils. The 
ground being plowed and harrowed, and allowed 
to settle awhile, a short time before planting it 
is marked ofl' in squares, or ridged for seeding. 
Should the land be in poor heart and stable 
manure or compost be at hand, this shoidd be 
spread and plowed in at the first plowing as for 
corn ; in fact, the soil should receive much the 
same treatment as for a corn crop, bearing in 
mind always, that while corn is a very rank 
feeder and will bear any amount of manure, 
cottoa is apt to run to leaf and stalk and not to 
fruit if too much stimulated. If manuring is to 
be done in the drill, the drills should be opened 
full four inches deep, the compost spread evenly 
and then covered by a broad surface furrow cast 
from each side upon it, forming a flat ridge 
upon which to plant the seed. Any good com- 
post will be available here, such as bone dust, 
ashes, cotton seed (which h is been fermented 
to prevent germination), gua:io, superphosphate, 
etc., cither alone, or such a mixture as one has 
made by mingling with vegetable mold or soil 
to secure even distribution. 
The seed should be tested before planting, in 
order to know with some accuracy what per- 
centage of it 'Will germinate. To do this, count 
out ten parcels of 100 seeds each and sow them 
in cigar boxes or similar things, sinking them in 
the warm earth on the south side of a white'' 
fence or wall, in JIarch or early in April ; cover 
them with a board in case of soaking rains, but 
give them the benefit of all the sunshine. It is 
very important to have a good sort, but it is still 
more so to have seed that will grow, and new 
comers will be very likely to be imposed upon. 
The distance at which the rows should be, 
varies as much as does the distance at which we 
plant corn at the North, and it depends upon 
the strength of the soil and the length and 
moistness of the season. The beginner must be 
guided, more or less as his judgment dictates, 
by the customs of the country. The aim is, to 
have the plants when they get their growth, 
cover the ground, and interleck on all sides 
somewhat, but not enough to prevent getting 
about amongst them easily. On some land they 
will do this if planted 4 feet each way, while in 
other places the rows are three feet apart and 
the plants 15 to 20 inches in the rows. Only 
one plant is left in a place, though half a dozen 
or more seeds are planted. The planting may 
be done by any good corn planter, if the land is 
cultivated flat, but if in ridges or " beds," the 
seed must be dropped by hand, or with the hand 
corn planter, which, if the seed is clean, and es- 
pecially if soaked in brine or urine and rolled in 
plaster or lime, will work very well. Poorly 
ginned seed, which is covered with fur, must of 
necessity be dropped by hand. 
The planting ought to be done, as a general 
rule, in April, though good crops are often 
made if planting be delayed until Maj'. The 
plants ought to get a good start before hot 
weather, for the drouths do not check them, if 
the tap-roots are well down in the moist subsoil. 
As soon as the plants appear, the field should 
be gone over, and any grass or weeds close to 
the plants taken out, and the plants themselves 
thinned to about three in each place. The grass 
will soon start and must be kept down at all 
hazards. There are seedling grasses, which 
during the moist weather of spring start up with 
white clover everywhere that the soil is bro- 
ken, and are very damagitig to auj' crop. We 
advise the use of good steel-toothed cultivators, 
followed by sharp, light bladed hoes. Light har- 
rows would do good service also, especially the 
polo harrow, and indeed any of the imple- 
ments for corn would answer well for cotton. 
The principle is the same, viz.: Clean Culture. \ 
Our own prejudices are much in favor of flat f 
culture on dry land ; and where hands are scarce, 
we surely would plant so as to run the plow 
and cultivator each way. Each time it is 
plowed or tilled by horses, it should be gone 
over with hand lioes, to make sure that plants 
_are not covered up and that grass is not left 
among them. After the first or second hoeing, as 
the ciise may be, only one plant is left in a place, 
