No. 4.] MARKET GARDENING. 75 



clover, but part of the seeding failed to satisfy us, and we 

 broke it up and sowed rye. Another manure factory on the 

 farm is a four-acre swamp, which I will venture to say has 

 not paid for its taxes in the past ten years. We regard that 

 swamp as a bank. We believe that all the neighbors on 

 higher ground have been chipping in each year a little bit of 

 their fertility, which has run down hill and gathered for us 

 in that swamp. One of the neighbors said that he hauled 

 several loads of muck out of the swamp one spring and put 

 it directly upon the corn field, and nearly killed his corn. I 

 did not doubt that in the least. I can take raw crushed 

 oats, and kill the baby with a single tablespoonful. If, 

 however, we cook these oats and let them simmer and stew 

 fifteen hours until they are soft as mucilage, we can build 

 bone and brain in the baby without any trouble. The muck 

 or plant food in that swamp needs cooking, just as your raw 

 phosphate rock needs to be softened or dissolved with acid 

 before you care to put it on your ground. We haul load 

 after load of that muck to a high point on the farm, and mix 

 it with our stable manure and basic slag, and let it ferment 

 or cook all through the winter. Usually by spring it is soft 

 and fine, and in just the right condition to broadcast over 

 the crimson clover for a crop of sweet corn. These two 

 manure factories mean an end to the need of stable manure 

 for supplying vegetable matter. 



Of course I understand perfectly that this sort of farming 

 may look like very small business to you men of large 

 operations, who are close to town and who command 

 abundant capital and labor. With due respect for you, I 

 want to say that your large operations have driven us to 

 throw oft* the yoke of stable manure and to concentrate our 

 labor upon the crops that may be best grown without it. I 

 have no doubt that you grow^ larger crops per acre than we 

 do, but I believe that ours are produced at as low a cost per 

 unit, and in addition to that I will say that we have neither 

 the capital nor the ability to handle your large operations. 

 Our little place back among the hills gives us a home and 

 holds a family together. It is a pleasure to think that one 

 is slowly gaining where others have failed ; and if you big 

 men with your large operations are able to get any better, 



