FORCING RHUBARB AND ASPARAGUS
We had little more than settled on the farm when I read an article in some farm paper about forcing rhubarb in a dark cellar. There was a lot of rhubarb in the garden, and a lot of room in the cellar. Several roots were dug up and packed in one corner of the section we kept for vegetables, but as the article had not mentioned that any heat was necessary, and that it was necessary to expel all light, the venture was not a success, for there was a window in the wall near the chosen corner, which allowed the light to shine right on the roots, and the temperature was much too cold. There were dozens of spindly little stalks, with large green leaves at their ends, but nothing worthy the name of pie-plant.
However, before the following winter I had secured technical knowledge and vicarious experience, to start on. The window was boarded up, and two lanterns were kept burning near the roots. We had rhubarb charlotte and rhubarb pies, and stewed rhubarb for breakfast, just as often as we liked, from December until March, and what is more to the purpose, we sold eighty-two dollars’ worth.
After we built the mushroom-cellar, a section was partitioned off for rhubarb and asparagus, and both became profitable adjuncts to our winter income. One great advantage about both of these crops for home use is that there is no necessity to use manure or any great amount of moisture, and for that reason there is no objectionable odour to sift through into the living-rooms.
Naturally, when large quantities are to be raised for market, it is better to have a special room for work, but even that does not necessitate any serious outlay. A neighbour built a house twenty-eight feet long on the dugout plan, on a side-hill at the back of his house; just boarded up the front and ends with rough slabs, which cost him two dollars and fifty cents. Three rolls of tar-paper, at one dollar and ten cents each, were used to exclude light and draft. Stove-pipe cost another two dollars. He had an old stove, but even if he had had to buy one, it would only have meant another eight or ten dollars, and the first crop brought him in one hundred and thirty dollars.
There is often some old building around a farm which can be utilised for this work, but if there is no hillside or building available, it is better to excavate to a depth of three feet, making the house about nine feet wide and as long as you like. This will allow a two-foot path through the middle, and a little more than three feet on each side, in which to store the roots. Side-walls need be only a foot above the ground, but it is best to have a peaked roof, the centre of which is three and a half feet above ground, so that there will be plenty of headroom in the centre of the house.
Place a door at one end, with an extension shed and storm door beyond it, unless the house can be built adjoining some shed or outbuilding into which the door may open. Cover the ends and roof with tar-paper, and bank the sides up with earth. Then in the centre of the house make a pit, about two feet below the floor and large enough for a stove to stand in, and run the pipe from a double elbow to each end of the house.
The reason for making the pit for the stove to stand in is to get the pipe as near the ground as possible. It is possible to do without the stove if the floor of the house is covered with manure and a goodly supply is packed around the sides of the house, but as that would be more expensive and much more laborious, I advise you to adopt the stove plan, especially as it involves none of the harrowing niceties usually attached to running hothouse heating apparatus, there being no water-pipes to freeze or injury to crops if the fire happens to run down or even go out altogether. My neighbour, who built the house on the side hill, tells me that he had no coal-stove at first, and used the kerosene cooking-stove from his summer kitchen.
Having decided where and what quantity is to be raised next winter, the preliminary work must be begun at once. If you have a lot of old roots in the garden, dig up the greater number just as soon as it is possible to put a spade in the ground, and cut the roots into good-sized chunks, being careful to leave from two to four eyes (embryo buds, which are unmistakable) in each clump.