No. 4.] MARKET GARDENING. 9 



ing the old-time hoe and replaciug it with a Planet Junior 

 or Iron Age hand cultivator. The most successful raisers of 

 high-quality vegetables take no chances on seeds. They care- 

 fully select and perfect the strains of vegetables which they 

 find have the highest quality and are pleasing in shape and 

 uniform in size. They learned long ago not to pin their faith 

 to the quack medicines of agriculture ; hence they use chem- 

 ical fertilizers in exceedingly small quantities, if at all, rely- 

 ing absolutely on nature's gi-eat preventer of abandoned farms, 

 -^ humus or decaying vegetable matter ; and of this they raise 

 every pound possible, keeping horses, cows, pigs and chickens 

 for the extremely valuable animal waste ; and hence the milk, 

 the pork, the poultry and the eggs are practically "velvet," 

 or an extra source of profit. 



The follower of agriculture alone has a real home. No 

 other walk in life affords the opportunity for man and wife to 

 be real partners, to work together and rejoice with all sincerity 

 in the season's successes, and to bear each other up when the 

 season proves unfavorable for some of their crops ; to have 

 with them children, and see them gain in health, strength 

 and self-reliance as only country children can gain these prime 

 necessities of the truly hapjw life. 



Regarding j^lant life we are beginning to learn something, 

 but regarding how or why plants grow we absolutely know as 

 little to-day as we do regarding the beginning and end of ani- 

 mal life. Common sense, keen observation and scientific 

 investigation have taught us much ; yet many things once con- 

 sidered definitely settled have been apparently proven abso- 

 lutely erroneous. Analysis of plants in chemical laboratories 

 has proven that they contain many things. Minerals of many 

 kinds are found, and gases likewise. The items found most 

 often in greatest quantities are nitrogen, potash and phos- 

 phoric acid ; hence various compounds of these items have been 

 manufactured and sold to agriculturists as cure-alls, as the 

 only thing necessary; and from this mistaken commercial 

 policy have developed many changes in agricultural methods, 

 the greater part of them extremely beneficial, yet many of 

 them frightfully disastrous, — for minerals and chemicals 

 alone cannot support plant life, nor will the seed germinate 



