GROWING VEGETABLES.ON THE MUCK LANDS 
Pauxt Worx 
Superintendent and Instructor, Department of Vegetable Gardening, Cornell 
University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
Though in some sections muck lands have 
been utilized for vegetable production for 
several decades, it is only recently that their 
usefulness has been generally recognized. In 
most places the swamp on the farm has been 
regarded as a dead loss. Of late years the 
movements of vegetable products have ceased 
to be exclusively from warmer to cooler 
climates. The states which supply early 
vegetables to the northern cities find that 
they cannot produce certain crops for their own use in summer and 
fall. Accordingly, they must look to other sections. 
For the crops which prefer a cool season, the muck lands have 
proved to be peculiarly adapted, and a large share of the onions, 
celery and head lettuce which are used in summer, fall, and early 
winter are grown on these soils. Other crops are grown to a 
lesser extent, but greater diversification is being practiced every 
year. Among the additional crops are spinach — chiefly for can- 
ning — beets, carrots, cauliflower, potatoes — chiefly for seed — 
and to some extent cabbage. It is often said that the latter is not 
solid when grown on muck, but some growers have attained ex- 
cellent results. 
Muck land that is fully developed is usually held at high 
valuations. In some sections areas have changed hanus at as 
much as five or six hundred dollars an acre. Rents as high as 
seventy dollars per acre per annum have been recorded. But 
muck land can be purchased at much lower figures, and one who is 
seeking a location should cast about for an investment where the 
interest charge will not be so high. It is necessary to exercise 
caution to avoid areas that are distant from railroad, or in which 
the soil is for any one of several reasons unproductive, or where 
the cost of reclamation would prove excessive. 
[1246] 
