140 



The Horticuiiurist and Journal 



\\M\ 



Market Gardening. 



15Y J. M. .SMITH, GREEN BAY, WIS. 



No. 1. 



rpiIE very first question to be settled in 

 -i considering this subject is, have you a 

 market for your crops when they are raised ? 

 If yes, then have you a soil and location 

 suitable for the purpose ? A light sandy loam 

 is perhaps the best of all soils for this pur- 

 pose. You can raise as large crops upon a 

 rich heavy loam, with a clay subsoil, as you 

 can upon a light, sandy loam, and perhaps 

 with less manure, but if you are upon a heavy 

 loam and your competitor upon a light soil, 

 though you may be equally good as cultiva- 

 tors, his soil will give him from one to two 

 weeks the advantage in time. This, of course, 

 not only gives him the high prices for the 

 early crops, but it gives him the control of 

 the market. Hence your success is impossi- 

 ble, though you may have equal advantages 

 with him in every other respect. 



Let me give you a single practical illustra- 

 tion of this. A number of years since, I 

 planted my early cucumbers in a very favora- 

 ble spot, and cultivated them to the best of 

 my ability. The result was a very early, as 

 well as a fine crop of them. I put the price 

 at 37^ cents per dozen, which was low enough 

 to drive the southern ones out of the market, 

 and as no other gardener about town had any, 

 I had the market entirely to myself. This 

 lasted about ten or twelve days, when some 

 three or four other growers brought in their 

 first picking upon the same morning. The 

 price fell from ?>1\ cents to nine cents that 

 morning, and in two or three days they were 

 not worth 25 cents per bushel. The result 

 was, I made a nice profit upon my crop, while 

 I think none of the other growers realized 

 sufficient for theirs to pay for marketing them. 



Another very important consideration is the 

 location. It is far better to pay a good round 

 price for land within one mile of the market, 

 than to have the same kind of land eiven to 



you two miles away. For instance, some years 

 since a young friend of mine commenced 

 business as a gardener and a fruit grower. 

 He was situated upon the same road that I 

 am, but about twice the distance, or 2^ miles 

 from the business portion of our city. He 

 laid a out a considerable sum of money in his 

 preparations. He was a good grower, and an 

 honoi'able young man, £uid I hoped to see him 

 do well. He followed the business for two or 

 three years, but he never seemed able to find 

 a good market for his crops, and they were 

 almost constantly a drug upon his hands, while 

 my crops were always sold at a fair price. At 

 length he came to me one day and said, " I 

 am going out of vegetable growing entirely." 

 "Why so?" I asked. "Well," said he, 

 "your location gives you such an advantage, 

 that I cannot compete with you. You can be 

 in market a little earlier than I can, and what 

 is still worse, a merchant or his clerk will 

 never drive by your garden and come to mine, 

 unless you happen to be out of the things he 

 needs. The result is, that you control the 

 market, and I can only get such orders as you 

 cannot, or do not choose to fill." And this 

 was true, though I had never by any word, or 

 act of mine, made the least effort to crowd 

 him out of the market. Nor is this all. The 

 diiference of only one mile in distance will 

 make a vast diff"erence in the team work dur- 

 ing the year. If you have a good sized gar- 

 den, say of seven or eight acres, you will 

 probably need to average two trips per day 

 for nearly or quite 300 days in the year. This, 

 of course, includes the hauling of manure into 

 your garden as well as marketing your crops. 

 Here, then, is a difference of 1,200 miles in 

 one year's driving. Plence, my advice is, pay 

 a large price for land near your market, rather 

 than take land as a gift three or four miles 

 away. 



Now we come to the business of planting 

 and cultivation. I will take it for granted 

 that you are provided with at least 10 cords 

 of good manure for each acre that you propose 

 to cultivate ; and if you have 15 cords per 

 acre, all the better. I know that some farm- 

 ers will persist in farming without manure, 



