No. 4.] MARKET GARDENING. 47 



at a cheaper rate. Do you know cases where it is being 

 done, say 60 miles from a market? 



Mr. Howard. I think I see a man in the audience who 

 is pretty well posted on the use of commercial fertilizers, — 

 Mr. Wheeler of Concord. I think he can answer your ques- 

 tion very satisfactorily. 



Mr. Frank Wheeler (of Concord) . We are situated on 

 the border line, and, not being able to get manure cheaply 

 enough, are obliged to use fertilizer, therefore they both 

 come in. I couldn't get along without either one. Perhaps 

 I spend more money for fertilizer than I do for manure. 

 We are not, perhaps, quite in the market-gardening busi- 

 ness as Mr. Howard is, not (][uite so fine, but we produce 

 the coarser products ; not quite so perishable as lettuce and 

 spinach, — more like sweet corn and cauliflower, and that 

 class of products. We have to use both manure and fer- 

 tilizer. Our manure costs in the neighborhood of $4 to |5 

 a cord, — nearer $5 than |4, on the average. It costs us 

 $3 a cord on the cars at Boston, and from $0.75 to $1.25 

 for freight, and then we have to haul it from 2 to o miles, 

 so that we can't see our way out of it, — unless we buy 20 

 or 30 or 40 cords a year. We use from 5 to 15 cords per 

 acre, and make up the balance with fertilizer. We can make 

 a living, and that is about all. 



Mr. Powell. I would like to ask Mi-. Howard Avhether 

 on cheaper land, say out 10 or 15 miles from the Boston 

 markets, there could not be an advantage in using lime part 

 of the time and growing clover and cow beans, and plants 

 of that character, plowing them in, and using commercial 

 fertilizer with those ? Do not these plants practically fur- 

 nish to the soil ^vhat stable manure would furnish, and at 

 very much less cost? I realize that in your situation at 

 Newton, and places of that character, land is too high, too 

 costly, to devote to the growing of green crops, because 

 time is too valuable ; but could not leguminous plants, such 

 as clover and cow beans, be used where the land is more 

 plentiful, together with commercial fertilizer, at very much 

 less cost than buying from the cities stable manure ? 



Mr. Howard. It is my opinion that it could be done, 



