CHAPTER IV. 



REQUIREMENTS OF SUCCESS IN MARKET 

 GARDENING. 



SELECTION OF SOIL AND LOCATION. 



" Look before you leap." 



iHILE the home gardener must take the cir- 

 cumstances as he finds them, and try to make 

 the most of opportunities ready-made for 

 him, the prospective gardener " for profit 

 only " cannot safely do so. He must select 

 the most favorable conditions, or run the risk 

 of seeing his proud business structure tumble 

 down, and his high anticipations wrecked at 

 the very start. It will not do for him to select a location most 

 favorable to the production of perfect vegetables, if such loca- 

 tion has no market for them. Of the two considerations, that of 

 market opportunity stands first. Before locating anywhere with 

 the intent of growing garden vegetables for money, the near 

 markets need the closest study. The difficulty often encountered 

 of putting stuff already produced on a paying market, and to 

 turn it into cash, is the chief cause of failure with many other- 

 wise good gardeners. Vast quantities of choice vegetables are 

 left to spoil every season simply for want of a local demand for 

 them. The great cities, as a rule, are well supplied with the pro- 

 ducts of the garden by growers near by, and the competition 

 there is large, often ruinous, at least to the extravagant hopes of 

 the shipper ; hence the dependence on distant city markets to be 

 reached through the instrumentality of express companies and 

 railroads as carriers, is not often justified except in case of the 

 early southern products, and of such vegetables as tomatoes, 

 onions, sweet potatoes, melons and others that are grown in the 

 farm garden (truck farm) on an extensive scale. 



The growers of vegetables for market may be divided into 

 three classes, as follows, viz. : 



First. — The southern truck farmer who grows early stuff for 



northern markets. His location must be selected with especial 



regard to his railroad connections with the principal city markets, 



nearness to station, and the conditions favorable to earliness and 



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