60 



QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 



Grass Seed 

 Prescription s 



Heredity. 



Variability. 



Market 

 Gardening. 



Cucumber 

 Salting. 



ties positively adapted to different localities, for soils even on adjoining 

 fields frequently vary so much as to require an entire change in the varie- 

 ties and proportions. How much more difficult to prescribe for unknown 

 soils, some perhaps a thousand miles away. The geological constitution, 

 rainfall, drainage, altitude and objects sought, whether for hay or graz- 

 ing, all need to be studied. The best guide is the experience of others in 

 one's location, but even that is often misleading, for we have grown grand 

 crops of Timothy and Clover in a section of a Southern State, where the 

 farmers seldom saved any hay, trusting almost entirely to corn fodder — 

 of course there were no barnyards worthy of the name in that locality. 



350. Q. Is there much dependence to be placed in heredity ? 



A. While heredity is a well-marked principle in vegetable life, there is 

 a constant tendency to depart from established forms, sometimes for the 

 better, oftener for the worse, for reversion is generally downward in the 

 scale of excellence. The reversion may be in the form of a wild sport, or 

 a distinct reproduction from a late or a very remote ancestor. Were it 

 not for heredity the seed growers' labors would be in vain, but fortunately 

 the man who finds a good thing in the greenhouse, flower garden, or veg- 

 etable garden, or in the field, can seize upon it, and by the aid of heredity 

 fix, after a time, its valuable qualities for the benefit of all. But it may 

 be well to say he meets with many instances of curious reversion to orig- 

 inal types. 



351. Q. Can the Market Gardener do anything to prevent variation 

 from true types ? 



A. No. Every experienced seed grower knows that the purest crops 

 will sometimes develop the wildest sports ; for instance, a crop of cabbage 

 of apparently absolute purity may produce a few plants like collards, the 

 result alone of reversion. The seed grower is powerless to prevent this 

 natural physiological freak, and the gardener who knows anything of 

 seed production and vegetable variability deals more rationally with the 

 seedsman than he who knows nothing of such matters, but thinks nature 

 should produce plants all as much alike as nickels from the mint. 



352. Q. What is the value of the Market Gardening industry in the 

 United States ? 



A. Upward of $100,000,000 is invested in this industry, the annual pro- 

 ducts reaching a value of over $75,000,000, the product of over half a 

 million acres of laud. The annual expenditures for fertilizers being 

 $10,000,000, the number of hands employed being 250,000. The number 

 of horses and mules employed being 75,800. The value of the imple- 

 ments used being $8,971,000. In tlie Philadelphia district, which includes 

 Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, there are employed 70,000 

 men at an average cost for daily wages of $1.19 ; the annual production 

 being of the value of $21,000,000. 



353. Q. What is the extent of cucumber pickling? 



A. While gardeners may have some idea of the extent of cucumber 

 culture for sale as a vegetable, little is known about the development of 



