SOME PHASES OF MARKET GARDENING. 65 



It is not improbable, however, that an account of the develop- 

 ment of market gardening, and of the problems with which 

 your brethren in these more western districts are brought face 

 to face, may be of some interest to you. I had hoped to tell you 

 of this personally, and perhaps receive in return some words of 

 wise counsel and consolation — some suggestions how best to 

 meet the difficulties which beset us here, and how to lift the 

 business out of the mire and ruts into which it seems to have 

 fallen during these " hard times." Circumstances and previous 

 engagements, unfortunately, compel me to entrust my own side 

 of the story to paper. 



Not Flourishing. — At the outset let me sa}^ that the business 

 here has not been flourishing for some years. Every gardener is 

 complaining. We used to have a good market in our near cities, 

 and coin money freely. Now the free coinage of silver in the 

 market garden has become a myth. The great problem before 

 us is how to manage so as to be able to continue in the business, 

 how to earn enough to cover the wages of labor, and to make a 

 bare living from the garden. 



Causes. — The causes of this unfavorable change are not far to 

 seek. It has been brought about by the general depression in the 

 values of other soil products, and aided and abetted by the con- 

 stant advice (not altogether judicious) of agricultural writers and 

 the agricultural press. I know I am not free from blame myself. 

 But look up some issues of leading eastern farm papers (the 

 '' Kural New Yorker," for instance) of half a dozen or a dozen 

 years ago. See the glowing descriptions of the results of intensive 

 culture, of the profits to be found in vegetables and fruits ; of the 

 freely reiterated statement that the eastern States were destined 

 to produce horticultural rather than agricultural products. See 

 the sensational teachings found in earlier bulletins of the New 

 York Experiment Station, and in speeches of the late director 

 (Dr. Collier) about the great profits from forced crops. Note 

 especially the glittering and tempting assertion coming from so 

 high an authority, that a quarter acre under glass would give 

 greater returns than a hundred acres of farm land, the amount 

 of $11,000 (if I remember correctly) being figured out as the 

 proceeds from one acre under glass. 



Ruinous Competition. — Then came the great slump in prices 

 of cereals, potatoes, etc. A large number of farmers who pre- 



