Eastern Ontario Vegetable Groovers Organize 



HAVING spent a fiw days among 

 market gardeners in some of the 

 leading vegetable growing sections 

 of Ivastcm Ontario for the ])urpose of 

 organizing branches of the Ontario 

 Vegetable Growers' Association, a brief 

 outline of my trip may be of interest. 

 Associations were formed at Ottawa, 

 Kingston and Napanee. 



I arrived at Napanee on March 23 

 and hunted up the vegetable growers. 

 There are not many market gardeners 

 here, but there are a large number of 

 farmers engaged in growing vegetables 

 for the canning factory. These men I 

 found to be nursing a very sore griev- 

 ance. The canning factory has been 

 running only one season, and I was in- 

 formed that about the middle of the 

 tomato season, at the heaviest picking, 

 the factory refused to accept deUvery. 

 These growers had no other outlet for 

 their crop. One grower told me he 

 turned his cows into his tomato patch; 

 others allowed them to rot on the 

 ground. I believe the factory people 

 claim that since it was their first season 

 their plant was in a partly unfinished 

 state, and the crop came in faster than 

 they could handle it. This year, with 

 a completed plant and better equip- 

 ment, they expect no trouble. How- 

 ever, the loss last year seems to have 

 fallen entirely on the growers (as usual), 

 their contracts with the factory appar- 

 ently allowing them no redress, and it 

 is not surprising that some of them are 

 feeling disgusted. 



I met a number of the growers at 

 the town hall, and after talking matters 

 over and explaining the objects of the 

 Ontario Vegetable Growers' Association, 

 they organized a branch and elected Mr. 

 Vandebogart president; Mr. Thompson 

 vice-president, and E. M. Sherman 

 secretary-treasurer. 



At Kingston I found that several 

 were engaged in market gardening, 

 growing vegetables for the Kingston 

 market. Almost all decided to come 

 in with us. I held two meetings to 

 discuss the matter with them. At the 

 second, for which Mayor Mowat, of 

 Kingston, very kindly permitted us the 

 use of his private office in the city build- 

 ings, a branch association was formed, 

 with Robt. Bushell, of Wilhamsburg, 

 president; Richard Baiden, of Ports- 

 mouth, vice-president, and C. H. Adair, 

 of Cataraqui, secretary-treasurer. 



Ottawa came next in order for organ- 

 ization. The growers have plenty of 

 greenhouses. I visited several of them, 

 including those of Robt. Bailey and H. 

 C. Fentteman, of Ottawa South, and 

 Frank Williams, of Billings Bridge. 

 Mr. Fentteman was cutting cucumbers. 

 White Spine, March 29. He showed 

 me an arrangement of angle iron on his 



Thomas Del-worth, "Weston. Ontario 



greenhouse plate for the bottom pane 

 of glass to butt against, preventing 

 splitting by ice, that 1 consider an ex- 

 cellent device. 



At Mr. Williams' I saw the largest 

 greenhouse devoted to growing lettuce 

 I had seen since leaving Toronto. He 

 has a large house, 40 x 150 feet, and two 

 others slightly smaller. The large house 

 and one of the smaller ones are in lettuce, 

 and the other devoted to bedding plants. 

 The lettuce is Grand Rapids grown, 

 mostly on solid benches, producing a 

 first-class article. 



Mr. Williams is a noted grower of 

 the famous Montreal Nutmeg melon — 

 that aristocrat among melons that so 

 many have tried in vain to produce 

 satisfactorily. He kindly explained to 

 me his system of handling them ; first 

 starting the plants in berry boxes in 

 the greenhouse, then setting them out 

 in the field and putting cold frames over 

 them until settled warm weather, then 

 removing the frames and letting them 

 run. Some of these melons are sold in 

 Ottawa and some shipped to the U.S., 

 and some to Toronto, selUng for about 

 four times the price of our local-grown 

 melons. I am not an expert melon 

 grower, but my own impression is that 

 the extraordinary quality in flavor for 

 which these melons are so famous is 

 more a matter of soil and location than 

 variety or method of culture, though 

 the latter probably have something to 

 do with it. 



Before leaving Ottawa we held a 

 meeting in the Market Hall, at which a 

 branch association was formed, with 

 Mr. Williams president; Mr. Fentteman 

 vice-president, and T. Mockett, of 

 Billings Bridge, secretary-treasurer. 



From Ottawa I went to Montreal, 

 Mr. Williams, the newly-elected presi- 

 dent of th^ Ottawa branch, accompany- 

 ing me. While in Ottawa I met Mr. 

 Monk, M.P. for Jacques Cartier, who, 

 with his usual kindness and courtesy, 

 gave me a letter of introduction to Mr. 

 Camille L€gar6, Cote des Neiges, Mon- 

 treal, one of the largest growers of 

 greenhouse vegetables in Canada. His 

 greenhouses were a revelation. I had 

 heard of them at home, but "the 

 half had not been told." Mr. L^gar6 

 was away when we arrived, but his son 

 showed us around the place. 



The first range of houses we entered 

 comprised 13, each 20 by 125 feet, 

 built en bloc. The outside walls were 

 about seven feet high, centre gutters 

 about the same from the ground, allow- 

 ing free and open passage from house 

 to house, \}4 inch pipe puriins and 

 supports, and one inch pipe cross-ties 

 connected with the purHns by Ts, and 

 drawn together in the centre by R and 

 H couplings, preventing spreading and 



J 



avoiding the necessity of ridge supports. 

 Hot water heating, overhead flow, prin- 

 cipally 3}4 and 4 inch is used, with 

 underbench returns mostly two inch. 

 Ventilators at the ridge are mostly 

 King apparatus. 



Two of these houses were filled with 

 parsley; two were devoted to flowers, 

 chiefly carnations; one or two were 

 filled' with watercress, radish, etc. The 

 rest, or fully half the range, were in 

 lettuce, .some on raised and some on 

 solid benches. Everything looked fine. 

 The next range, comprising two houses, 

 50 by 200 feet, and 50 by 250 feet, re- 

 spectively, was entirely devoted to let- 

 tuce, all grown on solid benches or, 

 more correctly speaking, no benches at 

 all. The crop was simply planted on the J 

 level ground. These immense houses 

 are built end to end, allowing them to 

 be detached at the sides, the walls being 

 built high enough to allow of a row of 

 sash ventilators being built in them. A 

 row of large ventilators at the ridge 

 completed the ventilating arrangements, 

 those at the ridge being operated by an 

 apparatus worked by an endless wire 

 cable. 



The lettuce grown in these houses is 

 Grand Rapids, planted about seven 

 inches apart. Some of it was being cut 

 and packed while we were there. It 

 was about 15 or 16 inches high, with 

 large, heavy heads, quality excellent in 

 every way, selling, I believe, for 60 to 

 80 cents per dozen wholesale in Mon- 

 treal. 



As we were finishing our inspection 

 Mr. L^gard returned and gave us a very 

 cordial welcome. The main object of 

 our visit to Montreal was to induce the 

 Montreal and Quebec growers to form 

 an association for themselves on some- 

 what the same lines as ours in Ontario. 

 We discussed the matter with Mr. L^- 

 gar6 at length, and he was confident 

 that something can be done in the 

 matter about September. 



Getting back to general discussion 

 again, Mr. L^gar^ informed us that he 

 planned to erect about 25,000 feet more 

 glass this summer, and as Mr. Williams 

 is planning a new range of houses, too. 

 we were very soon all knee deep in a 

 discussion of different methods of con- 

 struction. 



The concensus of opinion seems to be 

 that while raised benches mav suit 

 very well for winter months, yet, to 

 produce a first-class article of head let- 

 tuce, even of the Grand Rapids variety, 

 solid ones are much the best. At each 

 of the points I visited the growers 

 showed great interest in the work that 

 is being done by the Ontario Vegetable 

 Growers' Association, and were surprised 

 to hear what the association already has 

 accomplished. 



