REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATION 



Information Available for the Vegetable Grower 

 THE Gardener and the Experiment Station 



T. Greiner, Chairman, La Salle, New York 



The impression seems to prevail in some quarters that the pro- 

 duction of field and garden crops is a simple matter of preparing the 

 soil, planting, tilling, and harvesting, and that anybody can safely 

 engage in it without special preparation or training. Before a person 

 can establish himself as a blacksmith, as a grocer, as a barber, or as 

 any other tradesman, he must go through a course of apprentice- 

 ship. The man who wants to be a successful soil tiller needs this 

 apprenticeship even more than tradespeople or professionals. This 

 is especially true of the producer of garden crops. The culture of 

 cereals and tree fruits has been more and more approaching the 

 status of an exact science. The factors are mostly known, and the 

 requirements are comparatively simple. In gardening, however, 

 we meet with a great many unknown factors. Our crops are far 

 more varied, and of great difference in character and requirements. 

 They are vastly more exacting as regards environment, and far 

 more easily influenced by conditions of soil, climate, season, and 

 others. Last year we had a world-wide shortage of the potato crop, 

 especially the earlies, likewise of the pea crop, and yet we can only 

 guess what was the real cause or causes of these partial failures or 

 what we could have done to head them off. 



The first thing, then, for anyone who wishes to engage, or has 

 already engaged in the production of vegetables as a source of income, 

 is to hunt up and study all the information available to him on his 

 special branch of business, and this even if he, being a young man, 

 takes a course of apprenticeship by hiring out to a professional 

 gardener. And when we look the field over, we ^411 find a vast 

 amount of literature available. There are books and treatises, 

 and bulletins, without number, both on general market gardening 

 and on special crops, or special phases of the business. 



