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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10508, 30 July 1897, Page 6

For a considerable time experiments have been tried in several places as to the effect of the electric light on vegetation. In a recently-published work on the subject Professor Bailey asks, "Can the electric light stand (or sunlight! Can it be profitably used at night and in dull weather to beaten the growth of plants?" The questions have received greater attention in the United States than elsewhere in the world. Experiments have been made at the Cornell Experiment Station, the West Virginia Station, and by VV. W. Rawson, an extensive vegetable forcer at Boston, It is found that the electric light, both the arc and the incandescent, can be advantageously used upon lettuce to piece out the sunlight in . midwinter. In various florists' plants it also produces earlier bloom. It is usually injurious, or has only negative results, upon radishes, peas, carrots, beets,,spinach, and cauliflowers. Upon lettuce the value of the electric light in hastening maturity is emphatic. Mr. Rawson saves about a week upon each of his three winter crops by the use of three ordinary, street-lamps hong over a house 370 feet long by 33 feet wide. As Cornell the results upon lettuce have been marked in many tests, and the gains in'maturity have been as much as two i weeks. It is found in every instance that' the naked arc light—that is,»light without a a globe—hung inside the house, injures the •.plants that are within a few feet of it, and I tends to make all plants within reach of its rajs run too quickly to seed. The use of a *l«ar glass globe, however, overcomes, all i.■• injury., I The best results are to be obtained by placing the light-neither naked or sun rounded by a clear globe-i few feet above . tbe roof. An ordinary 2000 candle-power ' arc. light— ias is commonly used for street lighting—will exert a marked effect : upon lettuce for a radius of 75 to 100 feet, if the roof is clean and the framework of the house < :'is;- ; light The light may \ be allowed \to burn all I night, Incandescent lamps have the same influence as arc lights, 'i but : to'a) less Regret .It.will :be found profitable to u» the electric light for plant- , growing, If at all, only in the three or four • MMhioißidwinitr.'-, •: •. ' ■ •