MARKET GARDENING OF NEW JERSEY. 



405 



ty-five cents per ton. It contains a very 

 small proportion of lime, but owes its fer- 

 tilizing property to the potash of which, ac- 

 cording to the analysis of Professor Rogers, 

 it contains from nine to thirteen per cent. 

 Green corn is cut by the middle of July, 

 and early peaches are in perfection at the 

 end of that month, though they are gather- 

 ed prematurely ripe from old trees as early 

 as the 20th. Such are fit only for cooking, 

 but often bring a higher price than the very 

 best after they become plenty. 



Philadelphia is of course our principal 

 market, but for the earliest produce, a high- 

 er price is obtained from the agents of New 

 York marketmen, who drive a brisk busi- 

 ness every day at the railroad station in 

 Burlington, which thus becomes a market 

 to which the farmers bring their first peas, 

 tomatoes, corn, &c., with which New- York 

 is supplied a week or ten days before the 

 same produce comes in from Long Island 

 and other places in the immediate vicinity, 

 after which it is no longer an object to send 

 from here. A train of market cars leaves 

 here every evening during the season for 

 Amboy, where its freight is put on board a 

 steamboat and taken to New-York to be 

 exposed for sale at daylight next morning. 

 During the peach season, cars constructed 

 expressly for carrying that fruit, open at the 

 sides and provided with spring shelves on 

 which the baskets are placed, are attached 

 to this train. Fruit may also be sent for 

 Boston by the morning train, which arrives 

 at New-York in time for the evening boats 

 down the Sound, so that it reaches Boston 

 in twenty-four hours from the time of leav- 

 ing here. 



A market train for Philadelphia leaves 

 Burlington every morning and evening, be- 

 sides which, two steamboats leave our 

 wharf every morning, and one every eve- 



ning, for the same place, and sloops ply 

 constantly from various landings, suited to 

 the convenience of the neighboring farmers. 

 These reach Philadelphia in an hour and a 

 half, and their freights are for the most part, 

 sold on the wharves to hucksters, who retail 

 them in all parts of the city. Some far- 

 mers accompany their produce and dispose 

 of it themselves ; others send it to agents in 

 the city, or entrust it to men who go down 

 daily in the boats and make a business of 

 selling truck on commission, — a business 

 requiring much experience, skill and preci- 

 sion, in disposing of the various lots to the 

 best advantage, keeping the separate ac- 

 counts for the different owners, and having 

 a careful lookout for the baskets, — the theft 

 of which, among marketmen, seems to re- 

 flect no more upon a man's character for 

 honesty, than cheating in a horse trade. 

 The basket holds, — or ought to hold, — three 

 pecks, and is the measure by which almost 

 every species of truck is sold. 



Prices of course vary according to the 

 season and the quality of the articles. I 

 have known five dollars paid for a basket of 

 tomatoes, — the first of the season, — and 

 three weeks later, have seen the same quan- 

 tity sold at 125 cents. In fact, it is only the 

 earliest produce which pays ; and I have 

 seen cart loads of the most delicious nutmeg 

 melons, given to hogs, when a purchaser 

 could not be found at 12^ cents per bushel. 



Watermelons are sold by the hundred, 

 and range from $3 to $20 per hundred. 

 Strawberries are picked by women and chil- 

 dren in little square boxes, holding a pint 

 each. A cent a box is paid for picking, 

 and the fruit sells at three to six cents per 

 box. 



As yet there has been comparatively little 

 attention paid to the cultivation — and none 

 whatever to the forcing — of choice fruits, 



