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POSSIBILITIES OF MUCK SOIL 



radish, asparagus, and spinach. These ten crops can be added to 

 the three, making thirteen instead of three, if you care to grow them. 



I want this meeting to be very open. I am not going to take 

 up any of these crops in rotation. I don't want to talk on any par- 

 ticular crop, unless I know someone is interested. 



Mr. Cook: I suggest we talk about spinach. 



SPINACH 



Mr. Greffrath: We are told that we can grow a better crop of 

 spinach — that is what the canning people tell us — on muck land soil 

 than any other, for two reasons. It grows very rapidly, and I don't 

 think that the maggot attacks it as much as it does on sand. But 

 one of the great reasons why canneries prefer spinach on muck land 

 soil is that there is absolutely no grit in it when canned. That is 

 something they have got to get rid of. Every canner says, "If I can 

 get it grown on muck, I want it." If a little of the muck does get 

 into the spinach, it is so near the same color you can't detect it, and 

 nobody knows he has it. 



The Spinach usually is sold by the hamper in hot weather, at 

 high prices. I have known it to sell at $1.25 for a half barrel hamper 

 that we use for shipping lettuce. There is always a demand for it 

 at canneries, providing you have made arrangements with them 

 beforehand. Last year quite a number of acres were sown, and 

 after it was grown the canners came in and wished to contract it. 

 The first contract was made on the basis of sixteen dollars, then 

 eighteen, and some sold at twenty dollars per ton. This is for 

 spinach as cut from the field. 



The quickest way to harvest is to take a Planet Junior or Iron 

 Age cultivator, with which it is possible to cut two rows at once, 

 having one blade run under each row. One man will cut as much as 

 two men can rake. About six rows are raked into a windrow. Then 

 it is forked into a celery crate, and loaded into a car. So the harvest- 

 ing is very simple and very rapid. About five men will load a car in 

 ten hours in very good order. We pack our crates just as full as we 

 can providing the distance we have to ship is not very far. Into a 

 celery crate we put close to one hundred pounds. A lettuce hamper 

 properly packed for market is supposed to weigh about twenty 

 pounds. We have shipped spinach as far as Adams, New York. 

 The first car shipped there was five days on the road, and it arrived 

 in good condition. But it is not safe to ship to any place that far 



