1883.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



269 



The noise of the guns of the Revolution had 

 hardly died away, when in 1784 the first seed es- 

 tablishment in America was founded at Philadel- 

 phia by David Landreth ; seven acres then being 

 considered an area quite sufficient to meet the 

 demand for seeds and plants. The originator of 

 that enterprise laid the foundation so solidly that 

 his grandsons to-day continue the business, now 

 in its one hundred and first year 1 



At various intervals other seed firms have 

 sprung into existence, in Philadelphia, till now 

 there are in this city eight or nine well-known 

 firms. Thus Philadelphia to-day holds, as it 

 always has, the preeminence in the seed business 

 — leading all other cities in the Union both in the 

 aggregate of seeds sold and, better still, in quality 

 of stock — due to its situation amidst countless 

 market gardeners, a culture inaugurated by the 

 early Swedish colonists, whose descendants to-day 

 follow the pursuits of their fathers ; constituting the 

 most discriminating class of market-gardeners to 

 be found anywhere. 



In a horticultural sense Philadelphia has always 

 been famous—for many years the largest city and 

 the most wealthy — people of means and leisure 

 were attracted to it as a most agreeable residence ; 

 and thus were reared those old historic country 

 homes which, circling round, lent such a charm 

 that no praises were too high for the lips and pens 

 •of men famous during the last century — Washing- 

 ton, the poet Moore, Lafayette, Talleyrand, Baron 

 Steuben and Louis Philippe. 



Situated on the fertile banks of the DelawaVe, 

 .the city is surrounded in every direction by mar- 

 ket-gardens — we should say market-farms, to better 

 illustrate the extent — the chain extending over 

 Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Mary- 

 land. Soils under summer sun producing vegeta- 

 bles of the semi-tropics as well as of the more tem- 

 perate zones, pouring into the city's markets a rich 

 return for seeds distributed, each farmer on the 

 constant watch for some accidental development, 

 or sport of nature as it is termed, exceedmg its 

 parent in earliness of maturity, weight, color, 

 form or flavor. None of the markets of Europe 

 present such a range of esculent foods as do these 

 of Philadelphia. In England the only good vege- 

 tables are the blanched sprouts of perennial 

 plants, and potatoes, turnips, cauliflowers, lettuce 

 and cabbage, the three latter full of slugs. Their 

 peas are tough, beans stringy, tomatoes flavorless, 

 melons squashy, vegetable marrows miserable. 



Nowhere in the world is such an acreage of 

 vegetable farmers as those looking to Philadelphia 

 for their seed supplies. The southern half of New 

 Jersey is in proper rotation almost all devoted to 

 trucking, and this section comprises three million 

 acres of land. One and one-third million acres 

 including all Delaware and the Eastern Shore 

 counties of Maryland forms the peach growing pe- 

 ninsula, at the base of which stands Philadelphia, 

 and IS as largely devoted to trucking as to peach 

 growing. To this add the countless vegetable 

 growers in the four Pennsylvania counties adjacent 

 to Philadelphia, and we have an area of five mil- 

 lion acres of land suitable for vegetable farming 

 and on a very large part of which the business is 



pursued, practically and profitably. The vegeta- 

 ble crops are varied in themselves, and are alter- 

 nated with fruit, grain and grass, the rotation 

 bringing around in proper time the culture in 

 truck of nearly the entire acreage. Southern New 

 Jersey has been called the " vegetable garden " of 

 the L'uion. It possesses everything to insure suc- 

 cess, soil, climate, natural fertilizers, almost limit- 

 less rail and water communications to almost 

 limitless markets. The system of diversified agri- 

 cultures as carried on in Jersey has transformed 

 the peninsula portion of the State from a wilder- 

 ness of piney barrens to almost an unbroken truck 

 patch. Esculent vegetables, fruits, berries, grapes 

 and wine making, and now every indication of 

 successful sugar making, affording a system of 

 culture broad enough to ensure success, let the 

 climatic fluctuations of the seasons be what they 

 may. 



It may not be out of place to briefly refer to the 

 developing pursuits of sugar making from the 

 cane of early amber and early orange sorghum, 

 and as an example of what can be done by the 

 market-gardeners of New Jersey, Prof. Cook, of 

 the New Jersey Agricultural State Board, reports 

 that " One field of twenty acres, produced over 

 252 tons, from which were derived 24,060 pounds 

 of salable sugar and 14,000 gallons of best quality 

 syrup. The total yield of sugar as returned was 

 319,944 pounds, to which is to be added 40,000 

 gallons of dense syrup, worth at wholesale thirty- 

 eight cents a gallon. The purity of the juice was 

 remarkable, the co-efficient of purity of single 

 canes being as high as ninety-two per cent while 

 the average was at no time, less than eighty one." 



The appellation " Jerseymen " is indeed synony- 

 mous with market-gardener, so general is that 

 pursuit in the State. Hundreds of thousands of 

 tons of vegetables grown from the seed distributed 

 from Philadelphia, never enter that city even in 

 transit; they are sent by steamer and sailing vessel 

 to the ports on our Northern and Eastern coasts. 

 New York to Halifax, and by rail to the cities of the 

 West. Immense quantities of tomatoes and sugar 

 corn are canned to be shipped to the uttermost 

 parts ; and to illustrate will here state that 1,100,000 

 bushels of tomatoes were sealed up into cans in 

 the State of New Jersey alone, and in Delaware, 

 Maryland and Pennsylvania 1,477,000 bushels ; 

 again. New Jersey puts up an immense quantity of 

 salted green pickles, Burlington county alone salt- 

 ing over 100,000 bushels — incredible some might 

 say, but nevertheless correct. One grower and 

 canner of sugar corn in Maryland plants 2500 

 acres annually, sealing and distributing the crop 

 wherever commerce extends. The product known 

 equally well at Hammerfest, the most northern 

 city in the world, as at Cape Town the most 

 southern. 



Horticulture, one of the most important of the 

 domestic and refining arts, first among other 

 specialties comprehends the growth of esculent 

 vegetables, has, it will be perceived, so extended 

 as to require large areas of farm lands, and it 

 is difficult now to distinguish between the Hor- 

 ticulturist and the Agriculturist — some market- 

 gardeners cultivating up to seven hundred acres. 



