TJVEXTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 257 



to another crop that you can grow here, and that is the hairy 

 vetch or the winter vetch. I am known as a crank on cover 

 crops in my own state. Nevertheless, you will pardon a per- 

 sonal allusion to the farm that I went to twenty-six years ago, 

 and which now produces from three to five dollars where it did 

 one when I went there. I am thinking of the bridge that has 

 carried me over. Then, too, a great many farmers are so sit- 

 uated that it would not be possible for them to buy manure. 

 We are located only about twenty-five miles from New York 

 City, and our markets include Newark and Brooklyn as welL 

 I claim this, friends, that by covering your soils with a legum- 

 inous cover crop, you can maintain the fertility of the soil in- 

 definitely, and take ofi:' a maximum crop, all conditions being 

 equal, every season. Aly own soil has been under plow for 

 over a hundred years, and it is producing to-day better crops 

 than when I first owned it. There is another thing which the 

 market gardener must do. If he is going to compete with his 

 neighbor the sooner he does it the better. It is the man that 

 gets there first that gets are market and the price. Hence, 

 earliness in vegetable grovN-ing is one of the principles that 

 every man must study, and he must know how to get there. 

 Most all vegetable crops need a soil rich in humus, and well 

 filled with soluble plant food. 



That brings us to the feeding proposition. The man that 

 will put all of his food for a plant in the hill that he is going 

 to plant, and set it into a space one foot in diameter, is just 

 as foolish as a man who will feed nails to a horse and expect 

 it to get fat. It is not in the right place. I think everybody 

 will agree with me on that. Where are the roots of a plant? 

 How long are they? Where are some of the practices of these 

 old-time farmers ? In some instances where are the roots ? 

 Why, not over an inch below the soil, and scattered all over the 

 surface. Where would you sow the other? Why, naturally 

 over that inch of soil. You have got to put your plant food 

 where the plant can take it up. You want to get that which 

 will hurry the plant from the start. 1 am attempting to talk 



