1008 . 
TITtC RURAL NEW-YORKER 
LJ11) 
WASHING AND BUNCHING VEGETABLES; 
Header (No Address ).—Please tell me a 
pood way to handle the washing and bunch¬ 
ing part of a truck garden. I have small 
capital and want a system that Is eco¬ 
nomical as well as good. I)o gardeners hire 
bunching of radishes, onions, asparagus, 
etc., done hy the dozen? What Is usually 
paid per dozen? Do the bunchers do the 
washing? I am gardening about five acres, 
and will have to have some of this work 
done, and do not know what is a fair wage. 
I should like to minimize cost and labor. 
The receptacle in which vegetables 
are washed should first be deep, un¬ 
less on has a long trough and plenty 
of water. More truck can he washed 
in a barrel than in several tubs of the 
same diameter and only half the 
height. Some large market gardeners 
wash a large amount of stuff in a hogs¬ 
head of water. The value of this ex¬ 
treme depth is that it allows a large 
amount of dirt to be deposited which 
the movement of the water at the sur¬ 
face does not again roil up; while a 
little dirt in a tub of half the height 
would require to have the water fre¬ 
quently changed. A platform should be 
made to stand upon, and benches also 
arranged for. We do our washing out 
of doors in warm weather, where we 
have our barrel upon a platform be¬ 
neath a tree and benches on two sides. 
We have town water and a hydrant. 
The barrel is emptied by simply tipping 
over .and washing out with the hose 
when it is set up and refilled for the 
next time. It is hardly right making 
prices for preparing truck for market 
for other localities. Help generally 
want the local wages, and the price paid 
must be such that whatever the work is, 
if they work industriously they can 
earn the amount, or else there is dis¬ 
satisfaction and perhaps no help when 
most it is needed. For instance, if the 
nature of the work is such that a helper 
cannot make a fair wage if working by 
the job I generally pay more. When 
berries are getting scarce I pay a cent 
or two more a box. Many large grow- 
eis contract for the season, and the 
pay it withheld until the end, but small 
growers cannot be so independent, or 
such has been my experience. For tying 
radishes, onions, baets, etc., many 
market gardeners use raffia instead of 
string. It is not so liable to cut 
the foliage. f. t. jenks. 
Rhode Island. 
The regular help with me have al¬ 
ways done the bunching. I have never 
heard of this kind of work being done 
by the dozen bunches, and can give 
no idea as to what would be a fair 
price, dhe market gardener generally 
has one or more boys in his employ¬ 
ment, and if they arc faithful they are 
the ones to set at this kind of work. 
A good lather is half a shave, and 
vegetables carefully washed and 
bunched are half sold. The vegetables 
1 wash and bunch are asparagus, salsify, 
early beets, carrots, radishes. ] also 
wash string beans and peas if the pods 
are dirty, also green tomatoes; perhaps 
a few other things. This work is done 
in a tank in the boiler room connected 
with the greenhouse. The washing 
tank is made of galvanized iron, of a 
size big enough for the work to be done, 
with racks at each end to allow the 
water from the washed vegetables to 
drain back into the tank. The radishes 
are first bunched and then washed, the 
other vegetables washed and then 
bunched. For a brush I sometimes use a 
homemade article of broom corn, round 
in shape and as thick as a man’s wrist; 
sometimes I use a brush purchased at 
the stores. With good brushes and a 
little experience this kind of work can 
be done very rapidly if everything is 
convenient. 
In the diagram of boiler room a is 
boiler room floor; b, hot water boiler in 
cellar; c, smoke stack; d, expansion 
tank; e, hot water pipe from boiler to 
expansion tank; f, support for expan¬ 
sion tank; g, hot water pipe with faucet 
from expansion tank to washing sink; 
h, washing sink; m, draining rack; i, 
cold water faucet and pipe from village 
water works. b. 
New York. 
The most important part of the truck 
business is not the growing, but the 
proper preparation of the crop for the 
market wagon after it is grown. Where 
a man has a family of partially grown¬ 
up children and a wife who is capable 
and willing to drill them into this work 
(I am personally acquainted with sev¬ 
eral mothers of this kind) such a gar¬ 
dener had comparatively easy sailing, but 
in the absence of both the problem is 
not so easily solved. Some very suc¬ 
cessful truck: farmers near Cleveland, 
Ohio, engage men who have wives and 
large families of children; many such 
families live there, usually foreigners. 
Every morning the gardener sends a 
team to town that brings this family out 
on the farm, and takes them back home 
again in the evening. This family he 
engages to work by the day, for what¬ 
ever price they can agree upon (the 
family boarding themselves). The 
father, together with a son, gathers from 
the field and brings to the wash house 
the vegetables that are to be got ready 
for the next day’s load; here the mother 
takes charge and with the assistance of 
the rest of the family washes and 
bunches and prepares the stuff, and 
when sufficient is ready, loads the 
wagon ready for the market men. This 
method is preferable to hiring the work 
done by the dozen or by the basket; 
it is done better and the stuff is put up 
more attractive. When you put up your 
stuff for market, bear in mind that, 
whether you sell to the grocer, or to 
the housekeeper herself, in both cases 
the woman does the buying eventually 
for the kitchen. It is her likes and dis¬ 
likes you have to cater to 
We do not tie up and bunch as much 
as I would like to, not having sufficient 
help. To get a load ready my son 
gathers the vegetables from the field; l 
wash and clean them. A daughter that 
teaches school and lives in town in 
Winter comes home in Summer to 
spend her vacation!?) on the farm. 
With the assistance of a younger sister, 
she' Tloes the tying and bunching. You 
would be astonished to see the big load 
those nimble fingers put up in a day. A 
good portion of our root crops, such as 
beets, parsnips, carrots. Chinese radish, 
turnips and other stuff, we put up and 
sell in half-bushel baskets (I sell to 
grocers only). After carefully trimming 
both roots and tops, I wash them in a 
simple but effective way. We use 
wooden lard tubs that we get for 10 
cents apiece from grocers; they hold a 
half-bushel basket of roots with plenty 
of water. They are deep and narrow. 
With a broom that is no longer useful 
in the house, I push up and down among 
the roots in the tub, thus rubbing them 
together, washing them on the same 
principle that one hand washes the 
other. From this tub they are trans¬ 
ferred to another tub of clean water 
and go through the same operation as 
before. Do I dump them into the 
market basket “any old way?” No; 
every vegetable, root or fruit, has a best 
side, and in putting up a basket 1 turn 
the best side to the world. Don’t mis¬ 
understand me; every specimen in that 
basket must be right from top to bot¬ 
tom, or I would soon lose my trade. 
Even if one does not do this for con¬ 
science sake, it pays in dollar and cents. 
The last thing, we turn the hose on the 
contents of every basket, thus rinsing 
them thoroughly, when they are ready 
for the market wagon. I said above 
that I wash and clean all the stuff for 
market. This with me is not a matter 
of choice, but necessity. This is not a 
woman’s job, with hands in cold water 
a whole day, and as my son would 
rather gather the stuff from the field it 
naturally comes my way. A successful 
gardener is better off, if he has neither 
likes nor dislikes, and work that no one 
else likes to do will then just come his 
way, and things will thus move on har¬ 
moniously. J. H. BOLLINGER, 
Ohio. 
Bones and Tobacco Stems. 
A. M. Charlottetown, /’. E. t .—What Is 
l lie cheapest and most effect uni way to re¬ 
duce boiled beef bones to a stale ready to 
apply to the soil. Are they worth 50 cents 
per hundred pounds? Ilow are tobacco 
stems best applied to land, plowed under 
as they are, or decomposed with stable 
manure? Ilow much each of hone, tobacco 
stem (fresh from factory) and potash, 
would make a good dressing for one acre 
of cabbage or strawberries? 
Ans. —Crushing hard bones into meal 
is one of the hardest things in fertilizer 
making. 'Flic bones are first steamed 
under high pressure, then smashed or 
stamped and ground in powerful mills. 
In some parts of New England the 
softer bones .tire steamed and crushed on 
the farm. Where there is no steam 
power or mill such bones may be 
softened by packing in layers of un¬ 
leached wood ashes. In a box or barrel 
put a layer of bones smashed up by a 
sledge. Then a six-inch layer of ashes, 
then more bones and more ashes up to 
the top. Keep the mass moist with 
liquid manure. At the ends of about 90 
days the bones will be softened so they 
can be smashed with a heavy spade or 
shovel. While not equal to bone meal 
such bones give fair results. They are 
well worth $10 a ton. Tobacco stems 
are used in various ways. We should 
put them around trees as a mulch. 
Some dairymen use them as bedding. 
At one place we saw them run through 
a fodder cuter and chopped up fine— 
then used in the gutter back of the 
cattle to absorb the liquids. An average 
analysis of tobacco stems gives 2'/z per 
cent nitrogen, 8 per cent potash and less 
than one per cent phosphoric acid. 
You could use to advantage 800 pounds 
of stems, 500 pounds of bone and 100 
muriate of potash on the cabbage and 
still not have the best mixture, as there 
would be no nitrate nitrogen (see page 
77) in it. We would, if possible, cut up 
the stems and broadcast them. 
Fertilizer for Potatoes. 
A L., Carter’s Itridi/e, Va .—I want to 
put. an acre in Irish potatoes. What other 
kind of fertilizer could I mix with hone 
meal and how much to an acre to procure, 
the best results? The soil is chocolate red 
mountain land. Could I use tobacco stems 
to any advantage and how apply them? I 
have bailed tobacco stems. 
Ans. —The bone meal contains nitro¬ 
gen and phosphoric acid, but no potash. 
The tobacco stems contain but little 
phosphoric acid but eight per cent of 
potash. The two together are better 
than either alone, hut you would have a 
better mixture still if you could add 
nitrate of soda and potash. If you have 
a fodder cutter you can cut the stems 
up fine and scatter in the furrows made 
for potatoes. Then mix three pounds 
of bone meal to one of sulphate of pot¬ 
ash and scatter along the rows after tjic 
potatoes are dropped and covered. 
“For the Land’s Sake use Bowker’s 
Fertilizers; they enrich the earth and 
those who till it. Est. 1873. For prices 
or agencies address Bowkcr, Boston or 
New York.” 
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