The Canadian Horticultun^ 



Vol. XXXVIII 



Floral Edition 



PETERBORO, NOVEMBER, 1915 



No. 11 



The Accomplishments of a Market Gardener 



SIXTEEN years ago, there came to 

 Montreal from Naples a young 

 Italian to carve for himself a 

 place in the new world. Possessing a 

 thorough knowledge of market gar- 

 dening, a descendant, in fact, from gen- 

 erations of market gardeners, possess- 

 ing a capital of $1,000.00, a strong 

 physique and a clear brain, but with- 

 out a knowledge of either English or 

 French, he rented ten acres of land in 

 Notre Dame de Grace, now a part of 

 the City of Montreal. Three hundred 

 dollars was paid in advance for a 

 year's rent. Three hundred was 

 expended in manure, seeds, imple- 

 ments, horses, etc., and living expenses 

 came out of the balance, together with 

 such credit as he could get. This, in 

 short, is the history of the start of Pel- 

 legrino Del Sole, now the largest mar- 

 ket gardener in the Province of Que- 

 bec, if not in the Dominion of Canada. 

 To-day his vegetable farms at Mont- 

 real West comprise ninety-nine acres, 

 eighty-five of which are devoted to 

 vegetable growing, and fourteen acres 

 to apple orchard. In addition to these 

 farms, he purchased two years ago one 

 hundred and ninety acres of ideal vege- 



E. B. Luke, Montreal, Que. 



table land at St. Hubert, about eight 

 miles from Montreal, of which sixty- 

 five acres are planted to vegetables, 

 thirty-five acres to hay, and forty to 

 oats, and the balance in young orchard. 

 On this farm he has his own private 

 siding installed at a cost of two thou- 

 sand dollars, also a private telephone 

 line connecting his two places, and 

 costing five hundred dollars a year. 



Mr. Del Sole's policy has always 

 been to produce in- the largest quanti- 

 ties of the highest quality and to be in 

 a position to supply vegetables in single 

 bunches or in car load lots on any day 

 of the year. Taking more from an acre 

 than the ordinary farmer does from 

 twenty, he realizes that plant food 

 must be returned to the land in like 

 proportion, so he is a prodigious user 

 of fertilizer, using seventy to seventy- 

 five tons an acre. His manure on both 

 his farms costs him about six thousand 

 dollars a year. His method of culti- 

 vating a new piece of land, after thor- 

 oughly manuring it, is to plow the first 

 year six inches deep, the second year 

 eight inches deep, and thereafter 

 twelve inches deep, claiming the shal- 

 lower the root system until the land 



is thoroughly enriched, the quicker 

 and better the growth. Even his hay 

 field is enriched every year and broken 

 up every four or five years. The wi.s- 

 dom of this is seen from the fact that 

 last year thirty-five acres of hay net- 

 ted him two thousand two hundred dol- 

 lars, aside from that retained to feed 

 his own stock. 



The principal crops grown are celery, 

 onions, cabbage, cauliflower, cucum- 

 bers, beets, carrots, parsnips, turnips, 

 tomatoes, egg plants, pepper, spinach, 

 lettuce, Swiss chard, parsley, leeks, also 

 three acres of melons that pay from 

 .$3,000 to $4,000 gross per acre. 



Mr. Del Sole 's turnover is from sixty- 

 five to seventy-five thousand dollars a 

 year. On an average six loads a 

 day in the summer is disposed of on 

 the Bonsecours market. About one- 

 third is shipped to Quebec. Car load 

 shipments are also made to such points 

 as Halifax, N.S., and St. John, N.B. 

 Large quantities are disposed of to the 

 leading hotels and groceries in the 

 city, who are his regular customers 

 because he can always supply them, 

 growing as he does more than any 

 other twenty market gardeners in 



.\ iKiitiori of a ftelU of celery im .Mr. Del Sole's fanii tii Notre Dame lie Grace. Some of the varieties frown are Imported from France and Italy. 



