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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



September, 1906 



Plant Specialists 



By George Ethelbert Walsh 



HE owner of a few acres of suburban or 

 country land achieves more as a plant spe- 

 cialist than as a cultivator of general crops — 

 gains more financially, at least, and profits 

 more in practical experience as a rule. As- 

 suming that the tendency is toward special- 

 ism in modern industrial life, it may be taken for granted 

 that similar experience is met with in plant-culture. The 

 adaptation of particular crops to particular soils and cli- 

 mates has built up thriving communities of farmers and 

 market-gardeners who are in the strictest sense agricultural 

 specialists. It is only necessary to mention the popularity 

 of Kalamazoo celery, the Rocky Ford muskmelons, Con- 

 necticut white onions, and Oyster Bay asparagus to demon- 

 strate the financial value of this method of adaptation. 



One of the most interesting and successful methods of spe- 

 cializing in plant culture is a branch of the nursery business 

 which supplies the market with seedling vegetables in the 

 early spring. Very few amateurs and professional growers 

 have the time and facilities for starting their seeds in boxes 

 and cold frames for field culture. Yet if they do not do 

 this, they must either purchase them by the dozen or hundred 

 in the market or expect to find their field crops so late that 

 no reasonable prices can be obtained for them. Millions 

 of plants are purchased in the early spring for field and gar- 

 den transplanting, and the gardeners who raise them are the 

 plant specialists. 



There is always a demand in the spring for seedling let- 

 tuce, tomato, cauliflower, cabbage, pepper, and other garden 

 plants. These are purchased all the svay from ten cents a 

 dozen or fifty cents a hundred up to twenty-five cents a 

 dozen and five dollars a hundred. The prices depend upon 

 the season, the variety of plants, and the general condition 

 of the young seedlings. In order to secure orders and good 

 prices, the grower must be a specialist, and therefore he can- 

 not raise more than a few different kinds of plants success- 

 fully. His lettuce must be famous as the best in the region; 

 his tomatoes popular because of earliness and sturdiness of 

 growth; his cabbages remarkable for their size and quality. 

 It is usually better to make a reputation for raising one 

 vegetable superior to all others than to be known as one 

 who grows "fairly good" seedling plants. 



To illustrate, a woman gardener chose cabbages as her 

 special crop because the soil appeared eminently adapted to 

 their perfect growth. She took an old conservatory facing 

 south for her greenhouse, and with a good coal-stove she 

 kept the place warm enough in February and March to 

 raise her seeds. Her first sowing was made early in Febru- 

 ary, and every ten days new boxes were started until the 

 middle of April. This supplied the demand for early cab- 

 bages, and late in May she started seed for late crops. She 

 selected the best Danish cabbage seeds, and her plants 

 brought nearly double the quotations for ordinary domestic 

 cabbage plants. In the markets choice Danish seed cab- 

 bages would often sell at $25 per ton wholesale when do- 

 mestic white and red cabbages are quoted at $10 to $15 per 

 ton. It required only a little comparison of prices to con- 

 vince customers that it paid them better to purchase her 

 guaranteed Danish seed cabbages instead of the common do- 

 mestic stock. 



After having established her reputation for choice Dan- 

 ish seed cabbages, this enterprising woman took up onions. 



There was money to be made in raising onion "sets." She 

 found that most of the onions raised either for garden or 

 field culture were of the ordinary kind, the same that had 

 been raised in the locality for years. She sent for special 

 seed to the different onion-growing centers. She tried some 

 of the seeds herself before attempting to sell sets for trans- 

 planting. The average yield of onions in her locality had 

 been from 200 to 300 bushels per acre. In her little ex- 

 perimental garden she raised choice onions at the rate of 

 500 bushels per acre. That was not enough. She tried 

 the Prizetaker, one of the best field onions, and brought her 

 crop up to 800 bushels an acre. Then she raised plants for 

 the market, using as her argument the yield of her little 

 experimental garden. Studying the agricultural returns of 

 the different State Colleges, she found that crops of 1,200 

 to 1,300 bushels of onions had been raised on an acre. She 

 purchased seed of the Gibraltar onions, and made her su- 

 preme effort. Her little garden yielded at the rate of a 

 thousand bushels per acre. That was a revelation to the 

 gardeners of her locality, and many came to visit her model 

 garden. 



There was no difficulty in selling all the onion sets for 

 transplanting she could raise the next spring. Her price for 

 the sets was doubled, but she sold all she could raise. She 

 exerted herself to secure the choicest seed, and in raising the 

 plants to perfection, for she had a reputation to sustain. Of 

 the hundreds of sets sold none of them showed a yield of a 

 thousand bushels per acre, but the average yield was be- 

 tween 600 and 700 to the acre. Certainly no one grumbled 

 at that, for the yield was nearly double what had been 

 raised on the farms in the past. 



The plant specialist must, as may be surmised from the 

 above, always be a little in the lead — must, in fact, never let 

 customers quite catch up. When certain plants have been 

 introduced and raised to perfection, it is time to be studying 

 the value and possibilities of something newer. When cus- 

 tomers discover "the trick," as it were, they will no longer 

 patronize the plant specialist. Fortunately for the latter 

 conditions of market demand, cultural methods, and popu- 

 larity of certain varieties, are always changing and shifting, 

 and there is something new every year. But quality and 

 merit must go with newness. Freaks and novelties without 

 genuine merit are to be avoided. They kill the business of 

 a plant specialist. Try experimentally every new variety 

 before offering the plants to customers. If you can not make 

 them a success it is pretty certain that others can not in gen- 

 eral field culture. 



Most crops of this nature are started indoors in boxes 

 or flats in February and March, transplanted in their boxes 

 to cold frames later, and finally, if not sold beforehand, 

 shifted to the open frames in the garden. Tomatoes, pep- 

 pers and egg-plants are usually sold in dozen boxes or loose 

 by the hundred. Two crops — an early and late one — 

 should be raised, and the interim is devoted to experimental 

 tests with new seeds in the outdoor garden where every con- 

 dition for perfect development is supplied. From this ex- 

 perimental garden comes most of the practical information 

 which makes for success. Such a garden should be at least 

 half an acre or more in extent, and in one season upward 

 of twenty different varieties of new seeds can be tested. A 

 space five by five feet is sufficient for a test bed for one kind 

 of plant. The soil may require replacing. 



