MARKET GARDENERS AND THEIR COMPETITORS. 4/ 



the first crop was disposed of the second crop was anticipated by 

 telephone orders, and this has been the condition ever since. Our 

 crop has always been solicited before it was ready for market. 

 There are no other growers about Washington who are producing 

 this type of lettuce, and that which we have been growing is the 

 only product of this kind offered to the Washington trade. 



The experiences of the Cleveland and Ashtabula growers cor- 

 respond exactly with our own except that they have never felt 

 any competition between the house product and the field grown 

 product of the South because the two were very distinct in appear- 

 ance and character. The house grown product has, as I have 

 already suggested, many good points and these the dealers in the 

 markets to which the Cleveland and Ashtabula people cater have 

 been careful to keep before their customers. I do not mean by 

 this that they have talked down the southern products. It too 

 has a place in the market the same as the forcing house product, 

 but there has not been competition between the two types. The 

 forcing house product should be early, easily handled under glass, 

 of high quality, and sufficiently distinct from the field grown sorts 

 to attract attention and sell for a higher price in the market. 



This gives me an opportunity to again repeat my text that it 

 is the task of the market gardener to refine horticulture, and to 

 produce distinctive products which are not generally produced 

 by the truck farmers of the country who can, as a rule, produce 

 large quantities of the standard vegetables more cheaply than can 

 market gardeners. Instead of trying to win in a competitive 

 undertaking let us rather win our financial success by growing a 

 distinctly different type of product than that grown in the open. 



The work that we are doing at the Department of Agriculture 

 along this line has for its object furnishing the foundation on which 

 such a distinctive industry may be built up. It is our desire to 

 place the forcing industry and the field industry on different founda- 

 tions. To develop a group of varieties which are distinctive 

 forcing sorts and another group which are equally as distinctive 

 field sorts. This we believe to be the simplest way of overcoming 

 competition and maintaining both industries. We are at present 

 engaged in determining the sorts which are distinctly adapted 

 for forcing conditions. We are endeavoring to improve the quality 



