Vol. LXV. No. 2944 
NEW YORK, JUNE 30, 1906. 
WEEKLY, *1.00 PER YEAR. 
MARKET GARDENING IN THE FAR NORTH. 
My experience as a market gardener lias been con¬ 
fined to an agricultural section of northern New York 
•—a county with but one city and that a small one. 
The climate is severe and the seasons short. Fruit 
growing, with the exception of some of the small fruits, 
is not a possibility except in a very few favored loca¬ 
tions, mostly in the vicinity of the St. Lawrence River. 
I cannot say I have had remarkable success in any 
one particular thing as a market gardener. Sometimes 
one thing will pay well for two or three years and 
then fizzle out, perhaps this would be righted if I had 
a better rotation of crops and my land could get an 
occasional rest in grass. I cultivate some ten acres of 
a sandy loam. I find an abundance of horse manure 
in the village at 40 cents for a load as big as one horse 
can draw. I have three thousand feet of glass devoted 
to growing Winter vegetables. I have 
grown and offer during the Winter 
Grand Rapids lettuce at the uniform 
price of $.'5.50 per 100, packed and de¬ 
livered to express office, but I have 
never been able to make the growing of 
lettuce at these figures profitable. Coal 
is from $1 to $1.25 per ton higher here 
than in Syracuse, some 125 miles dis¬ 
tant, and as the Winters are much 
colder more tons are needed per thou- 
and feet of glass, so that lettuce can be 
shipped in cheaper than it can be grown. 
Currants at one time were my most 
profitable crop considering the amount 
of land I had devoted to them. I once 
picked 12 quarts from one bush and sold 
them for $1.20, which is high-water 
mark for me for any crop grown out of 
doors, but currants do not sell as they 
used to. Tn the Spring I grow vege¬ 
table plants, mostly tomatoes. I have 
a good trade in these shipped in four- 
inch paper pots, the pots cost $0.90 per 
thousand and if I put the plants at a 
price that will give a fair profit to the 
retailer after paying express it leaves 
but a small margin to me. Your Mary¬ 
land correspondent some few months 
ago told how he made a tag board paper 
pot for growing tomato plants. I pur¬ 
chased a form from him and find it a 
success in making home-made pots. 
After the tomato plants are out of the 
greenhouses I plant chrysanthemums for 
Fall and Thanksgiving trade, but to 
move the crop in a country village I 
have to put the price at a figure that just about pays 
for the tobacco stems I burn to keep down plant lice. 
Asparagus rust has done some injury in this section; 
my bed is by no means a large one, but 1 put on manure 
with a liberal hand just after the last picking, and 
taking one year with another it is probably as profit¬ 
able crop as any, other crops bring me more money, 
perhaps, but they take much more land. I sell asparagus 
in paper bags, containing 1(4 pound per bag and retail 
at 12 cents per bag. I shall use a thousand bags this 
Spring. 
Early potatoes take more land than any one crop I 
grow. I plant early and dig early and to some extent 
skip the blight. At one time I used to plant Budlong 
ruta baga turnip seed June 1 and would have a nice lot 
of plants to set out where I had harvested my early 
potatoes. Tt was something of a job to set out so 
much land and if the weather was dry I had to hire 
boys to draw water, but it paid me well. The turnips 
would grow quick in so rich soil and be tender and 
juicy, but the land refused to grow turnips year after 
year—they finally got so they refused to grow at all. 
I try to get some crop onto the land after the potatoes 
are dug, and for the last few years I have given the 
land a good dose of grass seed and get a good crop 
of hay the next year. I once tried cow peas, and soy 
beans after potatoes, but they were a failure so far 
north. Rye is my best cover crop. The nicest, smooth¬ 
est, juiciest ruta bagas I ever grew were on a sandy 
loam where I cut a crop of clover the last week in 
June and then plowed the land at once. I used super¬ 
phosphate liberally and planted ruta bagas in rows 
three feet apart with plants about two feet apart in 
the rows. 
Tomatoes will pay fairly well in this section if given 
extra care. They seldom retail here for less than 25 
cents per peck, which tells its own story about the 
shortness of the season. Gooseberries picked green 
when grown in a limited way pay fairly well. I speak 
of this for the reason that the Carman gooseberry was 
first offered to the public this Spring by Storrs & 
Harrison Co. I have had the Carman for three or 
four years and know how good it is. 
I should have said in speaking of ruta bagas, that 
D. M. Ferry & Co. have catalogued for a year or two 
a ruta baga that is remarkable in its ability to produce 
a good smooth article under conditions that some other 
kinds would give no salable crop at all. I cannot now 
recall the name of this variety. Carrots, parsnips, 
celery, cabbage, cauliflowers, pickling onions, bunch 
onions ,sweet corn fill up the rest of my land. I had 
Golden Bantam sweet corn for the first time last year. 
It was hard to get people to make a trial of it. but 
when once they found how good it was it was hard to 
sell the other kinds. Let no home garden omit Golden 
Bantam sweet corn and Gregory’s Delicious squash 
What a squash that is! 
Where land has been in hoed crops as long as mine 
the germs of blight are everywhere. Tomatoes and 
celery crops are not what I once grew for this reason, 
A market gardener living near town can generally work 
up something of a trade in eggs to set, provided he has 
a good pen of some popular variety of fowls and does 
a little advertising in the village paper. b. m. 
St. Lawrence Co., N. Y. 
FIGHTING FROST FOR STRAWBERRIES. 
We all enjoy life on the farm, but sometimes the 
outlook is far from pleasing. Many things seem to 
go wrong with us this season. My husband has not 
been able to do any work and most of the time not 
even able to plan for others to execute. We hired a 
young man this Spring who has always lived in New 
York City and although he is quick, willing and anx¬ 
ious to do well he needs some one with him all of the 
time. 
I have had to go away for my health, and am told 
by my doctor to rest for the next four or five months. 
Tt s impossible to get anyone to help with the house¬ 
work, so we simply do the best we can. The farm 
work is away behind. Market garden¬ 
ing has been our main reliance for an 
income, but this year nothing is planted 
(May 21). yet we have had one bright 
spot to look at all of the Spring and that 
was our strawberries, about two acres, 
and they never were looking better. So, 
though doctor’s and hospital bills were 
large, we still said the berries will make 
us come out even. 
Yesterday the long rows were fairly 
white with blossom. The thermometer 
which had been in the 80’s for three 
days began to drop. At sunset it was 
62; one hour later 52; at 11 P. M.’only 
four degrees above freezing. We had 
all been in bed and asleep for a short 
time, but we hustled out quite lively. It 
was rather hard to arouse our school 
girl of 14 and one boy of 11. These 
with grandfather complete the family. 
One of us went for the hired man, who 
lives nearby; the horse was harnessed 
and brush was cut and drawn to the 
strawberry field. Dry brush and old 
boxes were soon there also, and we 
started fires at short distances apart on 
the windward side of the berries, or 
what seemed to be the windward side, 
for there was so little wind it was hard 
to know where it came from. 
1 he smoke instead of rolling over the 
plants would, a great part of the time, 
persist in going straight up in the air. 
Eack one worked hard. Even Grandpa, 
8S years old, was invited to come up jn 
the hill and help. He came readily 
enough and tended his fire the rest of the night. The 
children roasted potatoes in the ashes and claimed they 
were delicious. Hot coffee and gingerbread helped us 
along and by three o'clock we could see it was growing 
lighter in the east, but the thermometer was going 
down and before four it was two degrees below freez¬ 
ing. Each one tried to make all the smoke possible, 
but daylight showed a heavy frost on nearly all of the 
rows. The fires arc still smoking. The man of the 
house has gone to bed, used up with his efforts, for it 
was a hard night for him with his rheumatism. Break¬ 
fast is ready, after which we shall all try to have some 
sleep. We have one satisfactory thought. If the 
strawberry crop is lost we know we did all we could to 
save it. It is early yet to be sure, but I think our 
efforts were in vain. This is part of the “free and 
inlependent life of the farmer.” m. e. b. 
Connecticut. 
R. N.-Y.—We are glad to print the following note 
which shows a happier ending than was thought pos¬ 
sible the morning after the frost: 
“The strawberries which we tried to protect from 
AN EFFECTIVE AUTOMATIC MILKING MACHINE. Fig. 208 . 
