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is believing, I see an unusually fine specimen of a vegetable 

 product, finer than any I have ever raised, and I at once ask 

 myself why I have not equalled it. Is it for lack of the req- 

 uisite skill or effort, the right kind of soil or manure, or why 

 is it? Here in the specimen before me is a fact, visible, pal- 

 pable. The fact demonstrates a possibility. If one man has 

 raised such choice potatoes, cabbages or squashes, and this man 

 can raise them, why not I ? Thus I am forced to confess 

 my ignorance, unskillfulness or laziness, and if there is a spark 

 of ambition in me, I must resolve to go and do likewise. 



The demand for vegetables is large and increasing. The 

 population of our cities and manufacturing towns are nearly 

 all mere consumers and must be supplied. The earliest prod- 

 ucts in market bring great prices. Some cultivators make a 

 specialty of early vegetables and raise or start them under 

 glass. Dr. Fisher, of Fitchburg, supplies New York with its 

 first cucumbers and makes a handsome profit. A skillful cul- 

 tivator in this county, Levi Emery, of Lawrence, sends the 

 earliest lettuce to the same city. Taking advantage of the 

 protection from northerly winds afforded by a pine grove, he 

 also raises early tomatoes and sells his whole crop at high pri- 

 ces before the market is glutted. 



To do all this mere muscle and manure will not suffice. 

 This fact cannot be blinked out of sight. Scientific farming, 

 when spoken of synonimously with fancy farming, may excite 

 a smile or a sneer, though often with great injustice to the man 

 of large wealth who lavishes it in introducing improved stock, 

 fruits, tools and methods of husbandry, by which a whole 

 neighborhood is benefited. True science as applied to agri- 

 culture, is but the key to the secrets of nature, which no man 

 can afibrd. to despise or reject when proffered him. 



A matter of greatest concern to the cultivator of vegetable 

 crops, is the certainty of having good reliable seed, seed that 

 will germinate and prove true to the varieties intended to be 

 raised, with no other admixtures. To secure this object many 

 large cultivators raise their own seed and find their account in 



