THE VALUE OF EXPERIMENTAL WORK FOR TRUCK 



FARMERS. 



T. C. JOHNSON, DIRECTOR, VIRGINIA TRUCK EXPERIMENT STATION, 

 NORFOLK, VIRGINIA. 



The work of the experiment stations has long been recog- 

 nized as of great vakie to the fruit growers, dairymen, stock- 

 men and general farmers, but the truck farmers have not, as 

 a rule, received their full share of attention. There are two 

 apparent reasons for this. The nature of the crops grown is 

 such that they occupy the ground a comparatively short period, 

 and they are usually followed b}^ other crops in quick succes- 

 sion. This renders it very difficult to conduct successfully a 

 series of fertilizer or disease-control experiments. Such experi- 

 ments on orchards and grain crops of which the plants occupy 

 the ground for a number of years, or the rotations are definitely 

 worked out, are comparatively easy, but with short-season 

 truck crops the problem is quite different. The ability to 

 shift from one crop to another tends to develop the idea of 

 solving the problems, or rather dodging them, by changing 

 the cropping system. This, of course, is not practical with 

 the orchardist or grain farmers. 



The experiment stations have not received the demands for 

 assistance from truck farmers that they have from the other 

 classes of farm workers. Accordingly, they have responded 

 to these urgent calls, and of necessity neglected the interests 

 of the truck farmers. 



But within the past few years there has been a noted 

 increase in experimental work intended to benefit the truck 

 farmers. This is especially notable in the States of Virginia, 

 New York and Illinois, and the United States Department of 

 Agriculture has, through its Department of Horticulture, been 

 conducting investigations on several phases of truck farming. 



