The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920, 1910-10-15
Money in Greenhouse Work for
Southern Truckers.

y WAS OUT at Grand Rapids, Mich, last week
attending the annual convention OF the
Il Greenhouse Vegetable Growers and Market
Gardeners of America, and / wished that could
have had of Southern truckers there
who are afraid to put money into glass houses.
l in one greenhouse there, 21O X 800 feet,
and all planted in cucun Gers Tor the CHRISTMAS
trade and the vines on wire trellses now six feet
high. This house covers nearly two and half
acres, and not the only one on the place.
nor the only large place visited.
And there are hundreds of these winter-forcing
establishments at Toledo, Cleveland, and Ashta-
bula in Ohio, around Rochester, n. Y, and around
Boston in New England. That men have made
fortunes ten or twelve acres OF land by TINS
intensive work in climate where the sun rarely
shines in winter, and where the mercury goes
away down below zero, shows what could be done
in the South if people once realized the i'm
portance of intensive, rather than extensive,
trucking. We have every advantage over these
growers in winter sunshine and milder tenn
perature
! saw at Cleveland, Ohio. in June, two wagons
loaded with tomatoes and cucumbers ready for
the mornings market, and they expected at least
$500 for each load and this was the last and
fourth crop out of those houses for the winter.
At Ashatabula one firm has seventy greenhouses
growing lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers, and at
lrondequoit, near Rochester, " Y, there are 200
establishments in this line of work. And the
greenhouse men have beautiful homes and ride
in their automobiles, and do not want more than
ten acres, as an average. The place mentioned
at Cleveland is twelve acres and the owner has
refused $50, 900 for it.
And yet, our Southern truckers will potter over
a lot of cloth-covered frames, and hesitate TO use
glass when the glass in the long run is far cheap
or and more profitable than cloth. At Pinehurst
~ c., any one can see how this winter forcing is
DONE for Mr.. Swinnerton there is very expert
hand at cucumber and tomato and lettuce grow
ing under glass, and he knows that they can be
grown as well and cheaper there than at Boston
where he learned the art. True. we do not need
the heated greenhouses for lettuce in the South
but do need the glass sashes on the frames &c
grow lettuce and other winter crops.
have lettuce growing in my frames thai
] expect to cut out in November and at once SOW
beets and radishes in the frames for l use the
Gouble-glazed sashes that keep out all frost ant
certain that / can get off crop Of radishei
in the winter and a crop of beets in March.
will them in alternate rows six inches apart
and when the radishes out, the beets viii
have plenty of room. Then when the beets come
off | will plant hill of cucumbers under eacl
sash and get these month ahead OF the open
ground crop.
OF course, it takes more capital to plac,
equipped with greenhouses and frames will
glass; but there is line of soil culture that pay
better profit, for, as a rule all the green
house vegetable growers North have made for
tunes at the business, and many of them on Lane
worth TO 81 an acre