GROWING GARDEN CROPS. 167 



Nebraska has just as many good garden acres as any other state. 

 Carloads upon carloads of vegetables and small fruit are shipped into 

 Nebraska right where the land is adapted to the growing of these prod- 

 ucts. Many a man, if he would put his individuality into it, could make 

 vegetable growing pay in this State. 



The man who has the natural instinct and who studies to know the 

 adaptation of crops in his locality, how to prepare the land, how to plant, 

 what varieties to grow, when to cultivate, harvesting, marketing, storing 

 for winter, will make good anywhere so long as there are hungry people 

 and the cost of living increases. Such a man has opportunities far beyond 

 the average man, but as soon as some of the important parts of the busi- 

 ness have to be turned over to the hired help the "stuff's all off." 



It takes just as much care to market a crop as it does to grow it. I 

 have always taken the liberty and claimed the right to make the price 

 on my own stuff direct to consumers. With merchants, I do the same. 

 During my fourteen years of experience in this locality I have come in 

 contact with only one merchant who held the selfish idea that he ought 

 to make both prices for me — on what I was selling as well as on what I 

 was buying. He and I did not do business very long. 



It is always well to consider the season when stuff is produced. I 

 have received from 22 cents up to $3 per bushel for potatoes; for cabbage, 

 from 1 cent per pound up to 5 cents per pound; for tomatoes, from 1 

 cent up to 1214 cents per pound; for early turnips, from % ct. up to 3 

 cents per pound; for small fruits, from $1.25 per crate up to $3.50 per 

 crate. In some seasons prices go to the extreme both ways. 



A general market is the home grower's protection. Free mail deliv- 

 ery brings us the daily market reports on all produce. I have never sold 

 potatoes at 5 cents per pound to farmers, nor tomatoes at 12 1/^ cents per 

 pound. These extreme prices are always charged retail stores and 

 were copied from St. Joseph and Omaha markets. The home grower, 

 the man who makes a specialty in growing his stuff for the early market 

 or in an "off" year when the average garden fails, should get the benefit 

 of it. 



The point I want to make clear is this: If my vegetables or small 

 fruit in off seasons come to market in just as good condition and of just 

 as good quality and fresher than that shipped in from a distance, why 

 should it not be worth as much to the merchant or consumer? The old 

 saying is that "the early bird catches the worm." This may be truly 

 applied in growing stuff for .the early market ten or twelve days ahead of 

 the rush. This gives the home grower, the specialist, a corner on any- 

 thing that is shipped in. 



The home grower who wishes to produce early vegetables will find 

 that it will pay him to keep his soil rich and use some nitrate of soda to 

 force the crops along. There are three reasons for this: First, it gets 

 the crops to early market when prices are high; second, it gets the crop 

 out of the way of dry weather; and third, out of the way of insect pests. 

 Since boyhood I have been taught by practical experience to bring plant 



