THE VEGETABLE GARDEN. 347 



Mr. Gibbs : Yes, but they must get better prices than we do 

 for the products. The prices we get for the products in a normal 

 year wouldn't justify paying more than $2.00 a ton, delivered. 



Mr. Reeves : I think $2.00 a ton would be the most we could 

 pay at the prices we get in a normal year. 



Mr. Perkins : I don't think you could get much at $2.00 a 

 ton delivered. I think you have better market conditions up here 

 than they have down East. 



Mr. Rasmussen : I think we get more for our vegetables 

 than they do in the East. I visited several of the eastern gardens 

 last week or week before, and they don't get the prices we do. 

 They use lots of fertilizer and still make ends meet. I think we 

 make a mistake. They have their soil analyzed and see what it 

 lacks ; if we are going to use it we must do the same thing. We 

 can't use commercial fertilizer with too much nitrogen in it if 

 we need nothing put potash, and vice versa. I am going to have 

 the University analyze the soil to see what items we are weak in 

 and what strong, then I think we can afford to use commercial 

 fertilizer. 



Mr. Baldwin: We know very well that some crops require 

 a great deal more than others of the different ingredients and you 

 have to know for yourself if your crop needs a special amount of 

 nitrogen. You have to study the crop you are going to raise. I 

 have used a good many tons of commercial fertilizer in Connecti- 

 cut and Massachusetts and have seen it sold for $40.00 a ton, and 

 they got their money back in profits. 



Mr. Perkins : What Mr. Baldwin says is true. We have to 

 study the crop we are growing and furnish it with the necessary 

 food. A lady was telling me that she was growing Chinese vege- 

 tables, and she is selling all her products directly to the consumer, 

 cessf ul was as follows : She read up everything she could find on 

 the subject of these -Chinese vegetables and then studied each 

 individual vegetable until she arrived at a 'place where she could 

 grow them to almost perfection. I never saw such beautiful vege- 

 tables, and she is selling all her products directly to the consumer. 

 As she says, she makes a study of the individual requirements. 

 That is where we are lacking. We treat everything on the same 

 broad principle, use the same fertilizer for everything, and if the 

 crops do not turn out right we think it has something to do with 

 the seed and blame the seedsmen. 



Mr. Gibbs : Isn't it a fact that the use of a commercial fer- 

 tilizer in a dry season usually results in failure, that it requires a 

 good deal of moisture where you use a commercial fertilizer? 



Mr. Perkins : Yes, sir. 



Mr. Gibbs : I had that experience in 1910 in an onion patch. 

 The rows were sixteen rods long and Professor Haglund, who 

 was at the State Farm, tried seven different plots with commer- 

 cial fertilizer. The cost was from $10 an acre to $30 an acre, and 

 he took a plot a rod wide and sixteen rods long, a tenth of an acre. 

 The season was very dry, and the result was on that seven-tenths 



