MARKET GARDENERS AND THEIR COMPETITORS. 43 



garden. There is usually some side line or refinement of each crop 

 which is better adapted to the conditions of the market garden 

 than the truck farm. 



Tomatoes are an important crop, not only with the truck farm- 

 ers of the South but with those of Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, and 

 New York, where immense quantities are annually produced for 

 canneries. The early southern crop comes into competition with 

 the spring crop under glass to a considerable extent, but the Cleve- 

 land and Ashtabula growers maintain that this competition is not 

 destructive. The house grown product outsells the southern field 

 product in the same market. The growers have seen to it that 

 their customers were taught to discriminate between the vine 

 ripened house grown product and that ripened in transit from the 

 southern fields. They are further fortifying their industry by 

 growing under glass special types of tomatoes not produced in 

 the field. The house grown product differs in color, size, texture, 

 and flavor. These points of difference are carefully pointed out 

 as the reason for the higher price. This is perfectly legitimate. 

 There is a place for the southern product in the market, but it 

 should not be a competitor of the house grown fruit. If it is it is 

 because the market has not yet become discriminating. A little 

 educational work on tomatoes is needed in that market, and that is 

 the grower's task. 



Let us consider the cucumber situation. This crop is extensively 

 grown by truck farmers both in frames and as a field crop. The 

 season of the frame crop overlaps that of the northern forcing 

 house product to some extent, but as it costs a great deal to produce 

 the frame crop and as it only overlaps the house crop for a short 

 period it is not a formidable competitor; but why be content to 

 have it a competitor at all? We have based our whole cucumber 

 forcing industry outside the New Orleans district on the White 

 Spine, the great American field type of cucumber. Why not make 

 the cucumber forcing industry distinctive as it is in England. If 

 the English sorts do not suit our markets make new ones that fit 

 American conditions, but which are as distinctive as are the English 

 forcing type. This will solve the problem of competition once and 

 for all. I have never thought the White Spine the ideal forcing 

 cucumber. It shows its age in the market too soon. It is too 



