1889 



({LEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



415 



SPECIAL DEPARTMENT FOR A. I. ROOT, AND HIS 

 FRIENDS WHO LOVE TO RAISE CROPS. 



MARKET-OAlJDENINU AT THIS DATE. 



fplll E present year, 188!), just now seems 

 T to bid fair to give the working classes 

 £ every thing in the way of garden and 

 farm produce at lower prices than 

 have been seen before for a long time. 

 We have had an abundance of almost every 

 thing all winter. Apples sold until the first 

 of May for from 25 to 40 cents a bushel. Ex- 

 cellent dry beans sold lower than for many 

 years, and we have bad beautiful eclipse 

 beets on our wagon all winter at only 15 

 cents a peck ; and this 7th of May I should 

 be very glad indeed to sell 100 bushels at 15 

 cents a bushel. We have had nice cabbage 

 all winter long for about a cent a pound. 

 Toward the first of May good solid heads 

 ran up to 5 cents a pound. We have beauti- 

 ful solid heads of red cabbage, even now ; 

 and I wonder if anybody else has noticed 

 that red cabbage keeps perfectly sound bet- 

 ter than any of the white kinds. I should 

 consider it an acquisition if 1 could have a 

 white cabbage as hard and solid as the red, 

 and that would keep so until the following 

 May. We also have carrots on our wagon 

 that were raised last year. Celery has been 

 sold at 10 cents a pound all winter, and we 

 have some now growing in the greenhouse. 

 We have sold lettuce every day in the year. 

 There is a very fair demand for it now at 15 

 cents a pound. Onions have been a drug, 

 and there are said to be 1000 bushels in our 

 vicinity now, without a purchaser. We 

 have sold parsnips every day all winter un- 

 til up to the first of May, and now we are 

 lugging them out of the cellar and feeding 

 them to the Jersey cow. Potatoes, 1 am 

 told, are given away in our vicinity. We 

 now get 30 cents a' bushel for Snowflakes, 

 with the sprouts broken off. Salsify has 

 been about like parsnips, only we get 5 cents 

 a pound for it where we got only one for 

 parsnips. Spinach still brings 10 cents a 

 pound, and we have for the first time suc- 

 ceded in wintering it over nicely. It was 

 sown so early last fall that it was fit to use 

 before winter set in. We have sold it all 

 winter ; and although it had no mulching 

 at all, the injury done by frost was very lit- 

 tle. Just now the wintered - over plants 

 have made a large fleshy stalk just above 

 the root. In gathering it we cut it just be- 

 low the ground, then wash it and place it in 

 the basket with the root part uppermost ; 

 and the reddish pink of the root and stalk 

 makes it very attractive. This fleshy part 

 is also very rich and delicious. Spinach 

 has found a permanent place in our Medina 

 markets. We succeeded in having good 

 winter squashes until sometime in February. 

 Tomatoes of our own canning sell very well 

 the year round. We save our tomato seed 

 from the tomatoes that are canned ; that is, 

 we pick the choicest specimens of fruit, pre- 

 pare them just as we do for canning, then 

 scrape out all the seeds, saving them, and 

 canning toe other part. By this means we 

 kill two birds with one stone. The seeds 

 give us a profit, and the tomato sells for 



enough to pay the expense of canning and 

 gathering the fruit. The great canning 

 factories, however, have reduced the cost of 

 canning to so low a figure, that, were it not 

 for the seeds we save, I am not sure that we 

 could compete with them. Turnips are also 

 on our wagon, but they sell pretty slowly. 



Now r during this season of great plenty 

 there are three things of which we have not 

 had enough, and that have brought and 

 still bring excellent prices. These three 

 things are asparagus, radishes, and lettuce. 

 Last spring, for the first time we sowed 

 some seeds of the Palmetto asparagus with 

 a view of selling plants. We have had a 

 good trade in the plants, and I am greatly 

 surprised to find them sending up remarka- 

 bly strong shoots even before our oldest as- 

 paragus. In fact, I had decided that, if one 

 did not care any thing about the vigor of the 

 plants, lie might have asparagus for the ta- 

 ble from the seed sown the season before. 

 Well, in the Orchard and Garden for May I 

 find the following : 



"I have sold good average asparagus, one year 

 from the sowing of the seed." 



Of course, the ground must be up to the 

 highest state of fertility. Our seed was 

 sown on a strip of ground that I had manur- 

 ed up specially for strawberries. It was a 

 sandy loam on the creek bottom. What 

 made me think it would raise good aspara- 

 gus was that some remarkably fine shoots 

 came up along the creek before the ground 

 was cleared up at all. I do not know that I 

 ever saw or heard of asparagus being a drug 

 in any market. Very likely it will be, how- 

 ever, very soon, especially after what 1 have 

 said here about it. 



The finest radishes we ever raised were 

 from seed purchased of Stokes & Johnson, 

 of Philadelphia. It was Wood's Early 

 Frame. Every seed produced a nice-shaped 

 radish. The seed was planted in the open 

 air, in a spot protected by our buildings. I 

 think it was sown about the middle of March 

 All insects were kept from troubling by the 

 use of lime and guano, as mentioned last 

 month. 



To supply the demand for lettuce, we are 

 obliged to gather our Boston Market a little 

 before it makes any nice head. 



We find the following in the Orchard, and 

 Garden, in regard to Henderson's dwarf 

 lima bean : 



W T e have already spoken highly of the new dwarf 

 lima bean. We did not speak by the catalogue, but 

 by practical experience, for it was grown here last 

 year. Its chief merit, aside from its bush habit, is 

 its earliness, and almost its only drawback the 

 small size of the beans themselves. In quality 

 they are not a whit behind the old sort, but are iii 

 fact rather better. Having secured the habit in the 

 earliness, two important points for Northern cul- 

 ture, our cultivators will not be long in gaining size 

 for it. 



It seems we are going to have at least a 

 few of Kumerle's dwarf lima beans, as the 

 following note from our jovial friend Liv- 

 ingston (the man who has given us so 

 many nice new tomatoes) indicates : 



Mr. Root:— Have you found any one to reduce 

 your surplus of gold by sending you that ounce of 

 Kumerle's dwarf lima beans? If not, we may ac- 

 commodate you if our grower has not already 

 sprouted the beans. We were fortunate enough to 



