608 EEPOKT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



Whatever may have been the discouraging effects of the last two 

 seasons of failure, the successes of the preceding- years have created such 

 a demand for favorable locations in the vicinity of the coast cities as to 

 enhance the value of land very materially ; thus such laud in the neigh- 

 borhood of Savannah has increased within the last fourteen years 150 

 per cent, in value. 



As an evidence of the effect of season upon the success of truck farm- 

 ing I may here mention that, while for the last two wet years it hardly 

 paid the labor to pick egg-plants, a farmer near Savannah netted in 

 New York $600, in 1882, from the crop of 1^ acres. 



CAUSES OF FAILURE AND lilPEDUMENTS TO GENERAL SUCCESS. 



In no profession, industry, or calling is success so often dependent 

 upon contingencies entirely beyond the control of its votaries as in 

 agriculture, and, in consequence of the perishable nature of its produce, 

 this applies with greatest force to truck Jarming, because they have to 

 be marketed at a distance from the place of growth. This necessity 

 involves all the vicissitudes and dangers incident to delay and trans- 

 portation. The very unfavorable seasons of the two past years were 

 the only providential causes, and against the changes and injuries of 

 the •weather the competent farmer can only pit a determination to reap 

 a profit "when next he may be blessed with a fairer season. Unfavora- 

 ble weather may not only very materially diminish the total yield, but, 

 more disastrous still to the prospects of the truck farmer, it may endow 

 his produce with a nature so unstable as entirely to destroy its carrying 

 capacity. This is exactly what occurred during the last two crop years. 

 The very wet weather prevailing nearly over the entire South during 

 the growth and maturity of the vegetables, so filled them with super- 

 abundant moisture as to impart to them a tendency to decay, and most 

 of such shipments arrived in bad order. 



Other circumstances being favorable, so long as stock, generally, of 

 good quality is placed upon the Northern markets sales are apt to be 

 satisfactory, but as soon as inferior stuff is thrown upon them, prices 

 suddenly fall on all alike, hardly ever to revive during the entire sea- 

 son. The disastrous effects of these so to say water-logged and readily 

 decaying shipments upon the market may then be readily appreciated. 



In enumerating the causes of failure I am confining myself strictly to 

 truck farming as an industry. While believing that a few favorably 

 located cotton planters, possessing the necessary degree of experience, 

 judgment, and carefulness, might have made money with certain vege- 

 tables during a favorable season, I only allude here to their failures in 

 experimental truck farming by stating that the general quality of their 

 shipments, inferior in every respect, was one of the chief causes of the 

 common result. Good quality being essential to success, no satisfac- 

 tory returns could reasonably have been expected from a crop of Irish 

 potatoes manured with 200 pounds guano per acre, for instance, and 

 probably on poor land at that. The farmer gathered of all sizes and 

 qualities 50 barrels from 7 acres, or 7.1 barrels per acre,, while with ade- 

 quate manuring from CO to 100 barrels is the satisfactory yield per acre 

 of merchantable stock. In another case a farmer reported that he had 

 shipped 30 crates of green apples " because his hogs wouldn't eat them." 



Failure was then only attributable to overproduction as applied to 

 superabundance of stock of inferior quality. 



Among all the difficulties and drawbacks appertaining to truck farm- 

 ing, perhaps the one which most frequently has been considered to bear 

 with greatest weight upon the industry is the unreliability and dishon- 

 °.sty of commission men. W^ith what degree of justice the charge i-^ 



