262 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



taloupe wants sunlight. That is a great essential in growing 

 almost any kind of crop that makes sugar or starch. You 

 people know that there are some varieties of the cantaloupe 

 that are grown in the South that are better than those grown 

 here in the East, and the reason is because they have about 

 eight or nine days of sunshine every week. That is something 

 that we do not get in New Jersey or in the East. In New 

 Jersey oftentimes the sun comes out strong for a little while, 

 and then it will be foggy or cloudy, or something of that 

 kind, and that has a good deal to do with the successful rais- 

 ing of cantaloupe. With fair climatic conditions and proper 

 fertility of the soil, the crop is almost sure. There is a good 

 deal of difference between that kind of farming and the farm- 

 ing we see carried on in some places. Take, for example, as- 

 paragus. Asparagus takes no more fertility than two tons 

 of timothy hay. and yet it takes four times as much available 

 plant food. Asparagus is a crop which matures very quickly. 

 That is the reason. You are growing that crop in about sixty 

 days, and vou are mutilating the stalks every morning or every 

 other morning when it is cut. and that is done at a time when 

 there is no root growth going on, and it is all done in so 

 short a time that the plant food must be there in abundance, 

 and at just the right time. 



Another thing that must be practiced in this kind of farm- 

 ing — when you put a product before the consumer it has got 

 to be right. You have got to have good goods. You have 

 got to attract attention. Furthermore, you have got to have 

 your products palatable, you have got to have them succulent, 

 or the purchaser does not want to come back again. So in 

 raising truck garden products, let me lay down as the funda- 

 mental principles, appearance first, and then succulence, and 

 palatability as food. Now, in order to get that you have got 

 to have every miiuite of the time from the time the root gets 

 out of the seed until the fruit is ready, plant food available 

 to carry the plant along to maturity ; otherwise, you will have 



