242 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



question they asked him was whether he had thoroughbred Jerseys. 

 He had to say, no. But he thought he had common cows just as good. 

 Another person took milk there a whole week on trial, left it 

 there, without charge, my man saw the milk sitting in the same 

 ice chest. First day there was a lot of it used, the next day less, 

 and at the end of the week the visiting can was gone. The market 

 wants quality and cleanliness, it will hunt it rather than not get 

 it. These points in my farming I aimed at to get the most feeding 

 qualities into all my crops, hay, corn silage and bedding. There 

 was no manure too good for my soil, no feed too good for my dairy 

 animals, and no milk too good for the market. I fed the best, 

 bred the best and sold the best I possibly could. Farming was a 

 joy to me, and I found it most profitable when I practically did 

 what I have told you in this address, turned my old farm barn 

 into a factory, and was then long, as Wall Street says, both on 

 the acre and the market. 



SOME ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PRACTICE OF 



MARKET GARDENING. 



BY Prof. K. L. Watts, State College, Pa. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen and Institute Workers of 

 Pennsylvania: I am afforded peculiar pleasure in having the op- 

 portunity of addressing a meeting of this character, held in the 

 very center of one of the world's finest markets, and upon a subject 

 of greatest commercial importance to the entire state. 



With the mere mention of truck farming and the market gardening, 

 we naturally think of Long Island, New Jersey, the Baltimore dis- 

 trict, Boston and vicinity', Norfolk and other sections which have 

 established a reputation for extensive and intensive vegetable farm- 

 ing. We think of these districts as being unusually well adapted 

 to the growing of garden crops; of their methods as being the best, 

 and of their gardeners as well advanced in the science and practice 

 of market gardening. But how al)out our own Staff*? Where does 

 Pennsylvania rank in the value of garden products? Is there any- 

 thing in the garden operations? Is there anything in the gardening 

 operation of this State to excite pride? Over |15,0()(),()()0 worth of 

 vegetables, including the potato, are produced annually in Pennsyl- 

 vania. Only one other state, New York, makes a better showing. 

 Peo])le have little to say about the gardening operations of Penn- 

 sylvania, yet, the State ranks second in the commercial importance 

 of the vegetables produced. 



The value of miscellaneous vegetables per acre is higher in Penn- 

 sylvania than in most other states. The average value per acre in 

 Ohio in 1899 was |o8.64; in New Jersey |0C.25; in Michigan $G9.17; 

 in New York |73.;j5, while in Pennsylvania it was |89.32. The 

 greatest value per acre in any one county of the United States 

 is in Middlesex county, Massachusetts, where the average was 

 $164. Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, takes second rank, the 



