Requirements of Success in Market Gardening. — 29 



perfect development of vegetables, such as rich and warm soil, 

 southern exposure, etc. 



Second. — The market gardener near the large cities who 

 raises garden stuff in day-time, and draws his products to the 

 city, and city stable manure back to the farm, during the night, 

 leading a life of unceasing toil, in perpetual fight with competi- 

 tion, but receiving good pay for skillful management. 



Third. — The local gardener whose aim it is to fill a compara- 

 tively small demand in his immediate neighborhood. Sometimes 

 he gives his goods to grocers in near towns to sell on commis- 

 sion ; or sells to them to retail to their customers ; or he loads 

 up his wagon and peddles his crops directly to the consumer. 

 He has the advantage of cheap land, cheap help, and few expenses 

 generally, and if he is a good salesman as well as a good 

 gardener, he may do well. 



Localities near summer resorts and watering places afford 

 special chances. Many of the gardeners near such places, as for 

 instance along the beach in New Jersey, in the vicinity of Long 

 Branch, have what might be called a " soft snap " so far as mar- 

 keting is concerned. The demand for choice vegetables here is 

 reasonably large at any time, but reaches enormous proportions 

 when city people have taken up their abode amongst them, and 

 prices often rise to excessive figures just at a time when the 

 season is naturally most favorable to the production of these 

 articles. The established gardens in these sections have their 

 regular customers, and little trouble in disposing of good pro- 

 duce. The truckers or peddlers who run their vegetable wagons 

 during the bathing season, supplying their regular customers 

 (the cottagers, boarding houses and hotels), make their daily calls 

 at the gardens, and load their wagons, paying high prices for 

 produce for which in turn they charge excessive, often outrageous 

 rates to the w-^althy, city-bred consumer. Here money is plenty, 

 easily earned, and easily spent. Some of these people run 

 gardens and truck wagons in combination ; they supply the con- 

 sumer directly, charging for their own produce the high retail 

 price of the truckers ; and their profit for two months often keeps 

 them in easy circumstances for the whole year. Others sell both 

 to the regular truckers and to the grocers in the near towns ; but 

 there is seldom much difficulty encountered by the good sales- 

 man to sell what once is produced. Here, as might be expected, 

 land is high, often ^500 to ^1,000 per acre ; but considering the 

 market advantages it is much cheaper at that figure than the 

 $\o an acre clay lands of Virginia colonies, or the $}^o an acre 

 white sand plains of Central or South Jersey. 



As nearness to the house or kitchen (in this case the centre 

 of demand) is one of the first considerations in the location of the 

 home garden, so is nearness to a market with good steady 



