November 13, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



451 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building* New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1895. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article ■ — Cooperative Agriculture 451 



Autumn Color in tlie Pines Mrs. Mary Treat. 452 



The New York Cut Flower Company.— I M. B. C. 452 



New or Little-known Plants :—Berl)eris heteropoda. (With fij;ure.). . C 5. 5. 454 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 454 



Plant Notes 456 



Cultural Department : — Fern Notes William Scott. 456 



Half-hardy Shrubs G. W. O. 457 



The Winter Cantaloupe Robert P. Harris. 457 



AiTilia Veitchii — G. W. O. 457 



Cucumis dipsaceus L. H. B. 457 



Correspond ENCK : — Keeping Grapes Fresh all Winter Joint Benson, 458 



Late-flowering Golden-rods C. L. Allen. 458 



Exhibitions:— The I-ioiticultural Show in Philadelphia 458 



The Boston Chrysantiiemum Show 459 



Notes 460 



Illustration :— Berberis heteropoda. Fig. 63 455 



Cooperative Agriculture. 



HOW to make agriculture a profitable industry is the 

 problem which seems to be puzzling all the civilized 

 world. It is admitted that sound technical training is an 

 essential requirement in general agriculture as well as in 

 any of its special fields, like truck-farming, fruit-growing 

 or floriculture, but, even when the scientific knowledge 

 and the practical skill have been assured, it is only 

 by some form of combination that the highest success is 

 gained. It was thirty j^ears ago when Denmark began 

 to offer her young farmers an opportunity for technical 

 education, but it was cooperation which at last enabled 

 her dairymen to compete successfully with those of Great 

 Britain and other nations in their own homes. In this 

 country, wherever some special branch of agriculture has 

 become localized, and almost the entire population is 

 engaged in one branch of the business, a certain kind of 

 cooperation is easy. In a community devoted to the rais- 

 ing of fruit to be dried, as in Wayne County, New York, 

 large evaporators are naturally constructed, in which the 

 products of several farms can be cared for. The canning 

 factories and the vinegar and pickling factories in certain 

 sections where truck-farming prevails are other examples 

 of this sort. This is cooperative production. 



Again, we have certain associations for cooperative pur- 

 chasing, which resemble in a degree the agricultural 

 syndicates in France, which unite to buy supplies at 

 wholesale prices. The farmers in many of the towns in 

 New Jersey have proved that by uniting to buy the ingre- 

 dients of fertilizers at wholesale prices and mi.xing them at 

 home they can not only purchase the x&w material for 

 crops much more cheaply, but they are sure of getting 

 their phosphoric acid, their nitrogen and their potash in 

 such a form as they want it and of guaranteed purity. In 

 the same way feeding stuffs for farm animals are procured. 

 In France the use of commercial fertilizers has increased 

 threefold since these syndicates were founded, while the 

 price of the material has been reduced in some cases as 

 inuch as fifty per cent. The New Jersey Experiment Sta- 

 tion is ready to give expert counsel to farmers about the 

 fertilizing material they need, and the result is that cheaper 

 and better fertilizers and more of them and a more intelligent 



application of them all unite to bring an additional profit 

 to the business. 



Cooperation in marketing is another hopeful way of 

 diminishing expenses. The truck-farmers of various por- 

 tions of the south have learned to unite so that they can 

 guarantee the transportation companies a car-load every 

 day. The car is then side-tracked for the use of this com- 

 munity and they arrange to fill it so that their shipment 

 may be made at car-load prices by fast freight instead of 

 in small lots by express. In this way one of the heaviest 

 items in the market expenses is reduced to a minimum. 

 Another help in marketing is the union of the peach-growers, 

 the berry-growers, or the poultry-raisers of any commu- 

 nity into an organization which has a correspondent at the 

 leading markets with whom they are in telegraphic com- 

 munication, so that they are advised of the state of the 

 trade in everyplace which it is possible to reach vi-ith the 

 products of their farm. From the morning reports from 

 all these points the local manager is able to inform indi- 

 vidual growers how much fruit or how many spring 

 chickens will be probably demanded in Philadelphia or 

 Boston or Elmira, and the product is in this way intelli- 

 gently distributed instead of being all forwarded blindly to 

 one point, which may already be glutted. The fruit sales 

 of California growers in this city is another development of 

 this idea, and the New York Cut Flower Company, of 

 which organization a partial account is to be found in the 

 present number, attempts to save the percentages paid out 

 to commission merchants, to escape the alleged abuses of 

 the commission system and to bring the grower and con- 

 sumer into more immediate contact. 



The last number of the Contemporary Review contains an 

 elaborate discussion of this question, from which it appears 

 that these helpful organizations are much more numerous 

 and more efficiently conducted in Europe than they are in 

 this country. There are threshing syndicates in France 

 and Germany, by which the grain is taken from the straw 

 at a minimuiii cost, and a project is on foot for the pur- 

 chasing of steam-plows and other machinery for breaking 

 up the farms of an entire district so that even small culti- 

 vators can have the advantage, not only of steam-power, 

 but of such implements as rollers and drills. Already in 

 France there is much cooperation in irrigating lands, and 

 even for such special work as the burning of smudges over a 

 large area to protect vineyards from frost. One great ad- 

 vantage in cooperative selling is that the collection of any 

 product at a given point insures a large, stead}' supply, 

 and this attracts buyers and usually commands better 

 prices. This is why the agricultural syndicates of Normandy 

 get better prices for their horses and cattle and apples and 

 cider than individual producers do, and why the associa- 

 tions of Switzerland have all their fruit sold in Berlin before 

 it is gathered, and why the millions of eggs from the Dan- 

 ish societies find English buyers, and why special vegeta- 

 bles, which experience has proved to be abundant and well- 

 grown in certain districts, have always a secure market in 

 distant countries. In this country the same experience has 

 been often repeated. In the extreme northern counties of 

 New Jersey a few years ago there were scattered Peach 

 orchards, and although the fruit was sent to market in good 

 condition the sales were unsatisfactory, because nothing 

 was known of the fruit except as it dribbled slowly into the 

 market where it was at the mercy of chance bu)'ers. Now, 

 when the whole district is given over to Peach culture, 

 buyers from half a dozen states are there before the crop 

 is matured and fhake arrangements to take the entire 

 product. 



We have no space to enumerate the various ways in 

 which these large partnerships are made to help in almost 

 every department and process of agriculture, from the 

 breeding of stock to the pickling of cabbages, but as an 

 instance of the flexibility of these associations it may be 

 said that some of them employ a common lawyer on 

 a salary who gives gratuitous advice to members, and 

 when he advises proceedings or a defense the association 



