48 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



TRUCK FAEMING HAS A BRIGHT FUTUEE. 



As to the future of truck farming in western Michigan, the brightest 

 outlook is before us. Never has there been so much produce raised as the 

 demand has called for. Each year Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio draw on our 

 supply, and with the rapid growth in the population of the cities in those 

 states, and also in the increase in our home market, comes with each 

 recurring year increased demand. Cabbage, potatoes, onions, and celery 

 are always wanted in the fall in carload lots, and I expect to see in the 

 near future produce companies formed for the purpose of supplying in a 

 measure this increased demand. Hundreds of bushels of string beans 

 found a market in Chicago last summer at good prices. This year our 

 growers expect to find a great market in the World's Fair city. Between 

 Grand Rapids and Grandville on Grand river are hundreds of acres of the 

 choicest lands suitable for gardening. Barges for drawing manure can be 

 bought for the price of one good horse, and the soil is the very finest even 

 to the water's edge. These lands will very soon be utilized for gardening 

 purposes on a large scale, as they can now be purchased at a nominal 

 figure. Grand Haven is still able to produce plenty of good celery, but 

 the day must come when that city will fall off both in quality and the 

 quantity of her crop. That venerable leader, Geoege Hancock, who last 

 year had over twenty acres of celery and twenty acres of tomatoes, said the 

 subject of fertilizers was a serious one. To grow such an amount of pro- 

 duce required lots of manure. This was hard to get in Grand Haven, and 

 they, like Kalamazoo, would look to Grand Rapids for a supply of manure. 

 Thousands of loads of manure are each year burned on the dumping 

 grounds of our city that ought to find its way to barges, and thence to the 

 lands adjacent to Grand river. * 



THE STATUS AT BENTON HARBOE. 



Mr. J. N. Cunningham: Our home market, here, and the Chicago 

 market are practically one and the same. Our chief need is fertilizers — 

 they are the one thing now lacking — but these will be supplied. The 

 outlook is bright for the truck farmer in western Michigan. There is 

 certain to be an increasing demand for his products. Here at Benton 

 Harbor the two pickle factories will absorb an unlimited amount of 

 cucumbers and tomatoes. I have found that cucumbers will net SlOO per 

 acre — they have done so two seasons for me. Truck farming in Michigan 

 is really in its infancy, and the demand for its products seems practically 

 unlimited. The annual product of cucumbers, tomatoes, muskmelons, 

 potatoes, etc., grown and shipped from this place is enormous. There is 

 a daily shipment of melons for six weeks, by hundreds and thousands of 

 cases, and there is a great acreage of tomatoes planted yearly for the 

 canneries. Truck farming is a good business if rightly managed, but we 

 must learn from the Hollander to have less acres and more product. One 

 fault of the American is that he will not work so hard as the Hollander, 

 and so makes less gains. We have a great advantage here in western 



