548 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



MARKET GAEDENING 



By M. H. McCALLUM, WerneraviUe, Pa. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Geittlemen, and Fellow Institute 

 Workers: It skives me an exceptional pleasure this afternoon to speak 

 upon the subject that has been assio:ned me, namely, market f?ar- 

 dening. While I cannot upon this subject give vent to my greatest 

 enthusiasm along agricultural lines, yet I have always had a great 

 interest in the growing of vegetables, and a good reason, no doubt, 

 is the fact that T was born in the vegetable garden, brought up there, 

 and have ever lived there, and the end seems not yet. The subject 

 is an immense field and T shall consider briefly only some of the out- 

 croppings with an eye single to the interest of the market gardener. 



If the man who believes that in agriculture the best opening lies 

 along the line of market gardening he should recognize early the 

 importance of adding to what he already knows, whatever scien- 

 tific knowledge and training he may be able to secure. It is hardly 

 necessary to say that the chief object of every gardener is to make 

 money. But in gardening as in every other business the most suc- 

 cessful are those usually who have best knowledge of their under- 

 taking. The more advanced and complete are his ideas the more 

 successful will be his work. The more he knows the more he can do. 

 We need forethought in all lines of agriculture, but when we are 

 wanting in this respect in the market warden we fail most wretch- 

 edly, for the market gardener must show more knowledge, care and 

 attention than does the general farmer who ra'ses only the staple 

 crops. The most successful market gardeners are men of high and 

 definite purposes and are never satisfied with ordinary results. 

 They are men who read and they are men who think. Market garden- 

 ing can be made a very delightful, profitable, and all desirable vo 

 cation, but on the other hand it can be made and is made by many 

 these days a slavish life of drudgery — men and women eking out 

 a wretched existence, simply, either because they are not putting 

 brains into what they are doing, or by force of habit have no desire 

 for recreation or self-preservation. It has been said by a successful 

 tiller of the soil that a man should be so resourceful as to be able 

 to spend one day of the week sitting on the fence and watching his 

 cro}>s grow, and by another who adds that that day should not only 

 be Sunday either, but a week day as well, and i>erhaps they are 

 right. Anyway. I believe a great need of the average gradener to- 

 day is more and better knowledge of the principles underlying suc- 

 cessful gardening, the use of scientific facts and the result of the 

 experience and investigation of other gardeners and experiment 

 stations. 



One of the sim])le things in the practice of the gardener that is 

 invaluable is tlie keeping of a diary, and from this diary kept from 

 year to year formulate a calendar or record of time of planting and 

 seeding the various crops. The farmer has but a few crops to plant 



