io6 



THE NORFOLK TRUCKERS IN MIDWINTER. 



ing time. It gives earlier berries and it keeps them 

 clear. Some growers use pine needles for mulch in ad- 

 dition to the grass. Strawberries are not uniformly 

 profitable. Many times only the first pickings bring 

 acceptable prices and the latter part of the crop may not 



Fig. 5. A Winter Cabbage Field. 



be picked. Seven and eight cents per quart " back " is 

 considered a good return, by which is meant that this 

 amount is returned to the grower after the expenses of 

 packages, transportation and marketing are deducted. 

 Two cents per quart is paid for the picking. 



Of potatoes, Mr. Ballentine grows only Early Rose 

 and Early Hebron (Early Beauty of Hebron). 



The management of this great truck farm, as of any 

 other large business, demands constant and close atten- 

 tion. The owner has now passed his allotted three- 

 score years and ten, and yet he looks after the details 

 of the business with the enthusiasm of one forty years 

 his junior. Valuable property here and there, in the 

 city as well as out, has passed into his hands. He tells 

 me that his expenses on the truck farm for the year just 

 closing were $30,000, and his income $50,000 : and he 

 values his farm of 500 acres at $150,000. And with all 

 his getting he has got understanding of the true purpose 

 and use of riches, and he has taken care that other gen- 

 erations shall have reason to hold his work in grateful 

 remembrance. 



Mr. Ballentine seems to regard his success as due to 

 three factor — economy, diligence and manure. I need 

 to speak only of the last. His first choice is stable ma- 

 nure. This he buys in Norfolk at from 50 cents to $1 

 per cart-load, and a cart-load is about 30 bushels. 

 It is hauled from two to three miles. If the ground is 

 not ready to receive the manure it is dumped in large 

 piles and composted ; and from these reservoirs the ma- 

 terial is distributed as fast as the land is free. He pre- 

 fers composted manure to the fresh, but the labor of 

 rehandling it is considerable. He likes to apply forty 

 loads to the acre and to use commercial fertilizer be- 

 sides, but it cannot be had in sufficient quantity to go 

 far at such rate. He has applied to spinage thirty loads 

 of manure and 1,200 pounds of ground fish, composted 

 together, to the acre, with profitable results. Guano 

 has been a favorite fertilizer, and last year he used 250 

 tons. Aside from all this he uses freely the best con- 



centrated fertilizers. The soil, as elsewhere about Nor- 

 folk, is a mellow sandy loam, and it responds quickly to 

 every extra attention. 



Nearly all the labor upon the farm is performed by 

 negroes, both men and women being employed. A few 

 month hands are sometimes employed, for from $15 to 

 $18 per month, with household rations furnished. But 

 commonly the hands work only by the day, for which 

 they are paid from 60 to 75 cents and board themselves; 

 and a day's work in the middle and southern states 

 usually means from sun till sun. Buildings are an un- 

 important feature upon these farms, especially upon 

 those which are owned by men of southern birth. Fig. 6 

 shows the main wagon sheds and store-houses upon Mr. 

 Ballentine's farm. He also has a cooper-shop in which 

 he makes all his barrels. He likes the patent ventilated 

 barrels, and some of them are cheaper than the home- 

 made ones, but they do not find favor in the New York 

 market. This great truck farm is a broad and fence- 

 less stretch of level lands, bounded upon the farther 

 borders by tangles of underbrush and pretty forests of 

 slender pines, and intersected here and there by narrow 

 and ditch-bordered roads. 



For ten miles along the Western Branch beyond 

 Portsmouth, the land is all devoted to truck gardening. 

 One of the leading growers in this section is Richard 

 Cox, Sr., of whom I have already spoken. He still 

 thinks that many of the New Jersey methods are profit- 

 able at Norfolk, and he has abundant reason, for his 

 farm of 180 acres returned him $15, 000 clear last season. 

 This was about half of the total income ; i88g was a 

 bad year, however, and many truckers lost heavily, Mr. 

 Cox among the rest. Last year, 10,000 bushels of pota- 

 toes returned him $10,000. He began digging the last 

 of May and continued until the first of July. Mr. Cox 

 grows a variety of crops, although his main dependence 

 is upon potatoes, strawberries, spinage and cabbages. 

 He uses mild hot-beds in which to start cabbages, beets 

 and tomatoes. His cabbages were growing in the hot. 

 beds when I visited him, and they will be put into the 

 field in February. The crop is surer if started under 

 glass, for occasionally a hard winter will kill or seriously 

 injure those standing afield. Peas are sown from the 

 middle of December until March. The early sowings 

 are sometimes destroyed by the cold. This was the 



Fig. 6. The Barn and Sheds. 



case with those sown late in last December. The cold 

 weather of Christmas time — when about a half inch of 

 snow fell in Norfolk — caused the peas to rot in the 

 ground. Sweet potatoes are somewhat grown, as are 



