TRUCK' FARMING. 587 



therefore, exiiaustecl comparatively very early in the winter, so much so 

 as to encourage large importations from Europe. In cousequeiice ot 

 this universal scarcity of vegetables the spring shipments of truck met 

 an urgent demand and prices ruled unusually high. The .^ ear was also 

 otherwise an exceptionally favorable one, fortune seeming to smile upon 

 trnck farming, for the season had been very propitious for the pro(luc- 

 tion of bountiful crops of excellent quality. Widely circulated reports of 

 these facts gave rise to the so-called " boom" in truck farming, exciting 

 the cotton planters to embark in the industry more extensively than was 

 prudent, in most cases without any experience. Unfortunately, too, for 

 the venture, the highly unfavorable season of 1883, combined with the 

 reasons above mentioned, to cause a very general failure, but few of the 

 planters having realized satisfactory returns. 



SOIL AND ITS PREPARATION. 



1^0 truck farmer will achieve any considerable success unless he 

 avails himself of all the means in his power to produce crops of the 

 highest attainable qualitj^ as well as satisfactory quantity. He must 

 not only have a good soil and render it highly fertile, but he will have 

 to put it in a condition of agricultural excellence by perfect drainage, 

 judicious plowing, harrowing, and stirring with the smaller implements 

 of tillage during cultivation, so as to render it mellow and aerated in 

 order that as large a percentage, not only of whatever plant-food in 

 the form of fertilizers he intrusts to it, but also what is already stored 

 in it, may become arvailable during the entire growth of his crops. He 

 ipay commit to his land an abundance of all the elements of i)lant-food, 

 but unless well i)repared by drainage and the implements of tillage, as 

 far as practical results are concerned, it will be too sterile to produce 

 remunerative crops, because it holds too much in an insoluble, unavail- 

 able condition to promote crop growth. It is principally the surface 

 soil that supplies vegetables with foocl, and the farmer should remember 

 that with every inch he adds to his enriched soil he gains per acre an 

 enormous body (6,272,040 cubic inches), with its content of mineral ingre- 

 dients, increasing its capacity of gathering, retaining, and rendering up 

 plant food, besides encouraging a deeper penetration of the roots to find 

 and absorb moisture during drought. Only loose, friable soil absorbs the 

 moisture of dews, especially below the surface, and ammonia, carbonic 

 and nitric acids from the atmosphere to any extent. Tillage may, there- 

 fore, be considered equivalent to manuring, inasmuch as it renders the 

 soil not only fit to absorb elements of fertility from the atmosphere, but 

 also brings into availability those already existing in it. The character 

 of the soil will naturally affect the advisability or extent of deep plow- 

 ing. Too much of a hard, tenacious clay should not be turned up to 

 deteriorate the physical quality of the surface, and thus endanger its 

 fitness as a good seed bed. A soil is heavy, in the language of the 

 farmer, when it offers considerable resistance to the implements of till- 

 age in consequence of its consistency or tenacity, and not on account of 

 its weight or specific gravity. Thus clay is " heavy," although it weighs 

 26 pounds less than sand to the cubic foot, while sand is the light soil 

 of the farm. Humus, however, is light in both respects. The weight 

 of sand, clay, and humus, in a naturally moist condition, is, respectively, 

 141, 115, and 81 pounds per cubic foot. 



The relations of these three constituents of every fertile soil to heat 

 and moisture are of the highest importance to agriculture. The tabic 

 below shows how they are comparatively affected by these agents, and 



