404 



MARKET GARDENING OF NEW JERSEY. 



tales such culture hy the ease with which i confess. He complains of the practice of 



it is worked, but is extremely favorable to 

 the early ripening of ail kinds of vegeta- 

 bles, enabling us to send our produce to 

 market ten days earlier than our neighbors, 

 on the opposite side of the Delaware river, 

 who do not therefore, attempt to compete 

 with us, but devote their farms to grain and 

 grazing. 



The first labor of the season on a " truck 

 farm" — every species of kitchen garden pro- 

 duce being known here under the general 

 name of " truck" — is the making of hot- 

 beds, which is done about the middle of 

 February, and in which are planted toma- 

 toes, egg plants and cabbages, and at a 

 later season, sweet potatoes and peppers. 

 Peas are planted as soon as the ground can 

 be plowed, which is generally the last of 

 February, or first of March, and green peas 

 are picked at the end of May, at which 

 time strawberries also are ripe. Tomato 

 plants are set out in the field about May 

 10th. The soil must be sandy, and is pre- 

 pared by plowing and striking out in cross 

 furrows, three feet apart, at each crossing 

 of which, a shovel full of stable manure is 

 thrown, and a hill raised over it, in which 

 the plant is set. Ripe tomatoes are picked 

 early in July. The first truck sent to mar- 

 ket is asparagus, of which there are fields 

 in this vicinity containing twenty acres, the 

 cutting of which, employs many hands, and 

 was described to me by a laborer, as " the 

 back-achinges^ work he knowed of." The 

 cutting commences about the 10th of April, 

 and is done with a long knife made with a 

 shoulder in the blade close to the handle, 

 with which the stem is cut five or six inches 

 under ground. And here let me notice an 

 article on the culture of asparagus, in the 

 first number of the Horticulturist, by " T. 

 B. of New-York ;" — formidable initials to 

 differ from on the subject of gardening, I 



most marketmen, of cutting asparagus when 

 it is one or two inches high, — when they 

 have "two inches of what grows above 

 ground, and four or six of what grows be- 

 low" — which he adds is " as tough as a 

 stick." This is perfectly true, and if the 

 stem is allowed to get two inches above 

 ground before it is cut, it is certainly better, 

 as he says, to wait till it is five or six inches 

 high, and then cut it even with the ground. 

 But it is also true, that the part which is 

 under ground is tender and delicious, up to 

 the moment that it appears above the ground, 

 in accordance with the theory Avhioh go- 

 verns all plants, that no woody fibre can 

 form in the stem till the first rudiment of a 

 leaf is formed and begins to perform its 

 functions.* Now the asparagus being a 

 plant of very rapid growth, would very soon 

 form too heavy a top for the tender stem 

 under ground to support, were it not that 

 nature has enabled it to form woody fibre 

 with proportionate rapidity, from the mo- 

 ment its head appears above ground, — pre- 

 vious to which there existed no necessity 

 for it. If therefore it is cut, as is the prac- 

 tice here, the moment it shows itself, — the 

 white stem, — which by the time it is two 

 inches high is hard and tough, will be found 

 perfectly tender and delicious. But to re- 

 turn from this digression. Early potatoes 

 are planted about the middle of March, and 

 a prevailing opinion, amounting in some 

 minds to a superstition, has fixed upon St. 

 Patrick's day (17th March,) as the lucky 

 time to commit that seed to the ground. 

 Potatoes are invariably planted in drills and 

 manured with stable manure or marl, which 

 is abundant, and preferred by many to any 

 other manure. It is obtained from the pits 

 at twenty-five cents per wagon load, or de- 

 livered in Burlington from sloops, at seven- 



* Vide Lindley's Horticulture— page 22. 



