79o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
November 30 
should be of 1^-inch steam pipe rather than of wood, 
will depend entirely on the width of the house. They 
should, if possible, be so placed that the posts sup¬ 
porting them may be at the edges of the walks. 
The size of the house will, of course, depend on the 
extent of one’s business. In general, however, mod¬ 
erately large houses are more satisfactory and more 
economically managed than are small ones. Only in 
rare cases would 1 suggest a house less than 20 feet 
wide; many prefer 25 feet. In either case, the form 
known as “ three-quarter span,” with the long slope 
facing the south, should be used. 
In forcing lettuce, solid beds are usually regarded 
as preferable to raised benches, as but little bottom 
heat is required, and the shallow body of earth on 
the latter necessitates more care in watering. The 
advantage of raised benches is mainly in bringing 
the plants near the glass. The same result may be 
obtained by having the walls of the house low, and 
digging out the walks to give head room; or by 
building up walls of brick or plank, and constructing 
solid beds of the desired height. In any case, the 
beds should be so arranged that good drainage is se¬ 
cured. Some growers do away with the raised beds 
entirely, growing the plants on the level surface, 8 or 
10 feet from the glass, using single planks for walks. 
The best growers renew the soil every year, using a 
liberal amount of fresh stable manure to give mild 
bottom heat. 
The hot-water pipes may be arranged under the 
walks, or along the walls, or may be entirely over¬ 
head. It is well to have some of the pipes near the 
glass to aid in more quickly melting the snow. If a 
house be intended simply for lettuce and radishes, 
fewer pipes are needed than if for more general work; 
but it is always well to have an abundance of radiat¬ 
ing surface, and in mild weather, to close the valves 
in some of the pipes. In general, to maintain a tem¬ 
perature of (50 degrees F.—which is about 10 degrees 
too high for lettuce—a radiating surface of one square 
foot to about three square feet of glass, will be 
required. 
To determine theamouDt of pipe necessary, divide 
the number of square feet of glass in the house by 
three. Now, if 2-inch pipe be used, multiply the above 
result by 1.6, since 1.6 linear foot of this sized pipe 
is required to give one foot of surface. To the result 
thus obtained, it is well to add something to provide 
for emergencies, and to heat the walls which were 
not taken into account in the above computation. To 
be specific: A three-quarter span house, 20 by 100 
feet, would contain, approximately, 2,300 feet of 
glass. We would have, then, 2,300-^3=787 as the 
radiating surface, and 767x1.6=1,227 as the length of 
two-inch pipe required, if the walls are left out of 
consideration. In practice, I would increase the 
amount to 1,500 feet. 
A diagram of the house we use for growing lettuce 
is shown at Fig. 252. If desired, the lower bench 
might be replaced by a solid bed, and the pipes placed 
along the front and guarded by a screen. Valuable 
suggestions concerning the building and piping of 
greenhouses may be found in Taft’s “Greenhouse 
Construction,” which may be obtained through The 
R. N.-Y. Price, $1.50. 
Most of the work in sub-irrigation has been done 
on raised benches with water-tight bottoms. The 
most common method followed is that of placing lines 
of perforated gas pipe, or of small drain tile along 
the benches, about 2% feet apart and six inches below 
the surface. At one end is placed an upright tile or 
pipe, by means of which the others ai-e filled at will. 
No water is then allowed on the soil, except that 
passing through the holes of the pipe or at the joints 
of the tile. 
We have, to a limited extent, used tile in a solid 
bed. Both our own experience and that of others 
who have practiced sub-irrigation, would indicate 
that the method is specially valuable in growing let¬ 
tuce—particularly the cabbage lettuces, such as Tennis 
Ball. The soil is kept more uniformly moist, and 
there is less trouble from mildew as the heads begin 
to form. w. M. MUNSON. 
Maine State College. 
CHILD HELP ON THE FARM. 
There is no place in the world where child help is 
so useful and available as on the farm. God has so 
ordered it that children grow up best where other 
products grow. They are healthiest, and I think 
happiest, growing up with calves and colts and lambs 
and chickens, with the grass and corn and farm crops. 
Children need the fresh, sweet air of the country, 
need the room, the opportunity to run and shout and 
climb and make lots of noise without troubling folks. 
They need nice clean earth to play on and with. The 
earth in cities is filled with microbes, especially that 
which is not covered with pavement and buildings, 
and in old and thickly settled cities, the earth cannot 
be moved without gauging more or less sickness in the 
vicinity. While country earth is life-giving, city 
earth is death-dealing. The death rate per thousand 
of children under five years old, is 91 in the cities and 
38 in the country, for white people, the colored rate 
going up to 176 in the cities, and being about the same 
as for whites in the country. 
The farm and garden are the only places which fur¬ 
nish healthful work suitable for children. It is almost 
impossible to find anything in a city, even in a 
suburban city or large town, for a child to do. So long 
as city children are in the kindergarten and school, 
they are kept busy, but when school is out and dur¬ 
ing vacations, it is hard to keep boys, especially, from 
the evils which idleness begets. But on a farm where 
the healthy child is running about all day, how many 
steps he can save other persons. There are chickens 
and calves to feed, wood and chips to bring in, many 
PUTTING ON THE GREENHOUSE PLATE. Fig. 251. 
little chores to do, which take the time of men and 
women, and can be just as well done by children. 
Of course there is danger of some people putting too 
much work upon children, but there is danger, too, 
of not giving them work enough. If overwork is 
harmful, idleness is demoralizing. My own children 
have all their lessons at home, they do some work 
each day, and then enjoy playtime thoroughly. 
These children say that they like to work, would 
rather work than not, and while I have to spend some 
time with their lessons, (their mother teaches the 
younger ones), they more than make it up in the help 
they give. 
I find tools and children a wonderfully effective 
combination. Last spring I arranged the Cutaway 
harrow so that a child could not get hurt by falling 
in front, weighted it and made a foot rest. Then our 
ten-year-old boy harrowed over eight acres. A two- 
section smoothing harx-ow drawn by one horse which 
was ridden by a girl eight years old, went over the 
corn and potatoes. There is no play which this girl 
eujoys better than horseback riding, and she rode to 
do much of the planting and cultivating. In haying, 
the children are a great help, especially in loading 
and unloading. There are four old enough to help in 
this, but the oldest girl is her mother’s helper, and 
does very little outside work The ten-year-old boy 
stands on the load, drives the horses and treads, while 
I pitch on, and two younger children rake after. In 
unloading, the same boy stands on the load, some¬ 
thing he took into his own head to do without my 
thinking of his being able to do it. He handles the 
double harpoon hay fork, the little girl rides the 
horse, and I mow away. When we filled the silo, this 
boy hooked the slings on to the trip hook which I use 
in place of the hay fork on the same rig. I stood in 
the silo with the trip rope, and dumped and laid the 
corn. In this way the hay fork rig and children save 
a hired man’s wages, and lots of hard work. 
Some parents are so particular as to how their work is 
done, and so afraid that the children will not do work 
just right, that they do not dare to let the children do 
anything. The only way in which children can learn 
to do things right, is to keep trying. Children differ 
so much that it is wholly impossible to lay down any 
harfi and fast rules. They need to play and most of 
them will get play enough. They will often contrive 
to make play of work, and so get as much enjoyment 
from it as from play. Care must be taken that they 
do not overdo. Some are ambitious, and will tax 
their strength too much. Children generally do much 
better when an older person is with them to keep 
them straight. 
Children who have nothing to do but contrive mis¬ 
chief, will form bad habits as a rule. If they are 
kept busy a part of the time, they will enjoy their 
play hours much better. Habits of industry are 
worth more than a fortune. j. w. newton. 
MULCHING STRAWBERRIES-WHY AND HOW. 
I use branches of evergreen trees to protect straw¬ 
berry plants from the severe trial to which (although 
perfectly hardy) they are subjected in March, when 
there is often hard freezing at night followed 
by a complete thaw-out during the day (for the days 
are then as long and the sun as high and strong as in 
the latter part of September^. The ground freezes 
fast to the collar of the plant, and low down, because 
of the contraction by cold. As the soil warms in the 
sunshine, it expands (rises), and the plant must rise 
with it. But the plant does not sink back after the 
thaw, as the soil does, because of its want of gravity, 
and because of its roots sustaining it. Two or three 
repetitions of this process draw the roots up or snap 
them off, and they appear in part above the surface, 
where, if they remain, they dry up and the plant 
perishes; but if pressed into the soil and quite covered 
soon after their exposure, the plant may live, but 
with greatly reduced root power. 
Snow is the best protection for the evergreen leaves 
of the strawberry, as it is of wheat. It admits some 
light to the leaves, and a circulation of air, as long as 
the snow has no air-tight crust of ice on its surface. 
A thin coating of leaves on the surface of the snow 
will protect it from melting rapidly in the spring sun¬ 
shine. Every dweller on a farm has noticed in March, 
how much longer the snow lies under a mere sprink¬ 
ling of straw or other litter. The lesson from this is 
to cover the first good layer of snow on a strawberry 
bed about Christmas or later with litter. Evergieen 
spray which we prune about every third year from 
the arbor vitae screens which shelter our beds from 
drying winds, are then most easily put on and again 
removed, and Iook the best ; but we prefer tree leaves 
which we rake up as soon as they fall and while 
damp, so as to pack well in large corn or clothes bas¬ 
kets, and carry them into a heap near the beds. The 
heap is covered to keep the leaves from getting wet 
and freezing together. After the first good snow 
we wait till another good snow is commencing, 
and then, with a fork, they are easily carried and 
spread while the air is calm. The falling snow holds 
them down in place, no matter how the wind may 
blow. 
These leaves do a double service—a treble one, in¬ 
deed—and that is the reason for preferring them to the 
neater, handier, prettier evergreen spray. In the 
spring, we draw them off the plants where necessary, 
into the spaces between, and there they choke down 
seedling weeds, retain the moisture which is so essen¬ 
tial for producing large, bright berries, and they 
eventually decay into the best of plant food. There 
are beds here which have been treated in this way 
for 15 years; they have produced well every year, and 
the young plants left on them after the annual thin¬ 
ning in August areas vigorous and healthy and full of 
promise as any of the two-year planted beds, with a 
minimum of trouble—no digging ; almost no weeding; 
very little replanting ; and the surface of the natur¬ 
ally heavy, loamy soil becomes mellower and more 
easily stirred every season, as the leaf-mold on it in¬ 
creases in amount. w. G. w. 
WINTERING PLANTS IN CELLARS. 
About all country homes, many plants are used for 
beautifying the grounds in summer, which it is de¬ 
sired to keep over winter for further use. The old- 
fashioned farmhouse cellar, where there is no fire, 
can be used to keep many a plant, many more varie¬ 
ties, in fact, than are usually considered as fit for the 
situation. The old style farmhouse cellar had but an 
earth floor ; the modern one has a cement one. Either 
one, or even the modern cellar with a heater in it, 
will do very well. I have had experience with all 
three kinds, and have carried through the winter 
safely a large collection of plants. Plants require 
absolute rest, when in a cellar. In the case of bed¬ 
ding geraniums, for instance, should the cellar be 
slightly damp, they will do very well with no cover¬ 
ing of the root at all ; but it is a neater and safer way 
to cut the plants back about one-half, place them 
close together in a shallow box, and fill in about 
them with nearly dry earth. As there would be no 
evaporation, no water would be required all winter. 
The following plants can be treated in the same way: 
