864 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
August 20, 
“THE LAND OF HEART’S DELIGHT.’* 
A Sucker in Southwest Texas. 
Part V. 
DISAPPOINTMENTS IN TRUCKING.—By the 
time I got through shipping for myself and neighbors 
I was pretty thoroughly disgusted witih the truck 
business. When I returned from shipping the onions, 
melon shipping began and I shipped four cars of 
melons for my neighbors. The melons were shipped 
from about June 15 to June 28. The first car brought 
$100 net, the second $50, the third $30, and the fourth 
barely paid freight and commission. By this time I 
exhausted my money, my nerve, and my patience with 
the truck business, in this “Land of Heart’s Delight.” 
OHIO IIOG READY FOR SHIPMENT. Fig. 332. 
I had sold both my teams and my wagon and used 
most of the proceeds, I was three years older and 
perhaps some wiser than when I came here, and I 
tried to think of all the mean acts of my life to deter¬ 
mine what particular ones, or whether all combined 
was responsible for the almost continuous failures I 
had made. I could not help but observe that most 
everybody else had fared about the same way, and 
many of my failing neighbors were better workers, 
better managers, better church goers, were as good 
by nature and apparently as good at least by practice 
as I, so I concluded that it was not caused by my own 
sin or that of my parents, but the result of misguided 
efforts and flying in the face of Providence, by trying 
to use this country for purposes that at present at 
least, conditions will not justify. My wife, my 
daughter, my son and family had all enjoyed good 
health. My catarrhal troubles were very much re¬ 
lieved, and we had enjoyed three of the finest Winter^ 
of our lives. While the Summers were uncomfort¬ 
ably long and some days quite hot the heat was much 
easier to bear than in more moist climates. The last 
Summer of my three years’ experience I rented most 
of the land to a neighbor, and they planted in cow 
peas and prepared the land, for potatoes and beans 
this year, 1911, and at this time, April first, there is a 
fine crop of early Irish potatoes nearly ready to har¬ 
vest, and an acre and a half of snap beans with fair 
promise of a small crop. 
CAUSES OF FAILURE.—Had we invested our 
money when we came here, in land four or five miles 
from town, at from $15 to $18 per acre, and in clear¬ 
ing, fencing, and preparing it for dry land farming in 
general and cotton in particular, and avoided irrigat- 
A PAIR OF GRASS PIGS. Fig. 333. 
ing outfits, orange tree planting and the truck busi¬ 
ness we would have done well financiailly. This 
country will produce, w T hen well farmed, an average 
of one-third bale of cotton per acre, and it is no 
trouble to get it farmed, and the tenant delivers the 
landlord one-fourth of the cotton at the gin. It costs 
from $12 to $15 per acre to clear, fence and put the 
land in shape for renting, or farming, making an in¬ 
vestment of about $30 per acre and the rent would 
easily pay from 10 to 15 per cent on the investment. 
By this time the land has doubled in value which 
would have paid 50 per cent more on first investment. 
MISLEADING STATEMENTS.—Organized real- 
estate companies here and in many other parts of the 
Gulf Coast countries have scattered over the United 
States and Canada vast amounts of literature describ¬ 
ing this country as producing $100 worth of melons 
per acre, from $100 to $200 worth of early potatoes 
and in some instances $500 and $600 worth of Ber¬ 
muda onions per acre, also as being an ideal country 
to raise oranges, whereas of the three Winters that I 
have been here 90 per cent of the orange trees planted 
have been frozen nearly to the ground. Many other 
statements equally misleading are in circulation; ad¬ 
vising people that they can buy and easily improve 10 
acres, make an easy living by trucking and at the same 
time plant and raise oranges and in a few years be in 
affluent circumstances from the sale of oranges. They 
illustrate their literature with photographs of except- 
tional cases, of exceptional crops, or orange trees, but 
who ever saw a statement from them that these same 
10-acre tracts cannot produce truck at all without thq 
use of an expensive irrigating outfit, costing from 
$1,500 to $2,COO, or that the truck business has been a 
financial failure for at least 90 per cent of the truck 
growers who have been well fixed for it, or that most 
of the people who have tried it have quit in disgust, 
and many of them bankrupt? Many poor people hav¬ 
ing but a few hundred dollars, often widows, office 
'girls, clerks and professional men from the East, have 
bought these 10-acre tracts and come here only to find 
that it is an utter impossibility to make a living on 
their purchase, as they had been led to believe, and 
have gone away utterly disgusted with what they have 
found. Express companies charge exorbitant prices 
for carrying vegetables to distant markets. I shipped 
a barrel of eggplant to Pittsburg, Pa., which was sold 
for $9.90. The commission firm received 99 cents for 
handling them, I received $1.15 and the express com¬ 
pany took the rest. Question, how much of the con¬ 
sumer’s dollar did I get? We are at the extreme 
southwest part of the United States, wdiere distance 
from the consumer and bad transportation service 
often puts us out of business. Cheap Mexican labor is 
very useful for clearing land, thinning cotton, picking 
cotton, and in some instances in gathering other crops. 
The common wages here are 75 cents per day and they 
beard themselves. In most kinds of labor they are 
not worth the price. It requires an overseer to boss 
him all the time, to get either a proper amount of work 
done or to get it done properly. He will quit the job 
at any time with the most trifling excuse, or no excuse 
at all regardless of the inconvenience or loss to the 
employer. If the employer tries to favor the Mexican 
laborer, brags on his work, or gives him anything to 
help him, the Mexican at once concludes he is of so 
much importance that he is indispensable to the busi¬ 
ness, demands higher wages and often becomes inde¬ 
pendent and insolent. The average newcomer begins 
by pitying the Mexican, but in a very short time he is 
pitying himself. Larger wages seldom gets better ser¬ 
vice. The more he is paid the longer he tries to make 
his job last. None of these conditions are explained 
to the prospective purchaser. After he has given up 
his money for his land, transportation of himself, his 
family and his goods and he begins to use this far 
famed cheap Mexican labor, these stubborn fact^. be¬ 
gin to filter through his intellect. 
Such are the present conditions in the famous Gulf 
Coast Country. Had I have read and believed this ar¬ 
ticle before I invested here it would have been worth 
$2,000 to me. I am writing it hoping that it may open 
the eyes of many honest people, and keep them from 
making the mistakes that I and very many others have 
made. A victim. 
PUMP IN CONNECTION WITH DRAINAGE 
IIow can I get the water from the outlets of my tile 
drain to the surface of the ground? Drain is four feet 
deep and flows a stream of one-half gallon a minute. I 
do not. own the ground below the outlet, and the neigh¬ 
bors ditch is filling up by the llood water running in it, 
and will not clean it out. Is there any machinery or 
contrivance to lift the water to the surface of the ground, 
or to cistern when I need it for irrigating, at a small 
cost, till the drains dry up as in dry weather? A. s. b. 
Felton, Pa. 
You can raise the water over a dyke by installing 
a pumping plant, which could be done quite cheaply 
for so small a quantity of water. I know of several 
$40 engines that are used for pumping from deep 
wells a far larger quantity than is mentioned here. 
A half gallon per minute is not much water. Bonner 
& Ware, of Batavia, N. Y., pump the water from 
50 acres of muck land every Spring, using a centri¬ 
fugal pump having a capacity of 2,000 gallons per 
minute. This pump is driven by a 20 horse-power 
engine, and is in operation from two to three weeks 
in the Spring, and I doubt there being a better pay¬ 
ing drainage proposition in the State. I went 100 
miles out of my way one bitter cold March day to 
look at this pumping plant. Arriving at the farm, 
Messrs. Bonner & Ware had the courtesy to hitch up 
a horse and take me nearly a mile to where the 
pump is located. They have parallel open ditches 
about 10 rods apart, which carry the water to a 
main ditch in which it runs to the pump and is raised 
over the dyke. These open ditches are utilized in time 
of drought for under irrigation by diverting the 
water from a creek into them, and this muck is of so 
loose a texture that the water moves quite quickly 
through the soil laterally from one ditch to another, 
and of course passes up by capillarity to the growing 
plants. In 1910 75 acres of spinach was grown on 25 
acres of this drained and irrigated muck, so you see 
they do not have to use glass or go to the sunny 
1 HE CONSUMER S DOI.LAR.” From Rochester Herald 
Fig. 334. 
South in order to grow three crops in one season on 
the same ground. But this is digressing, so return¬ 
ing to the case in hand, I should get a small gasoline 
pumping engine and attach it to a pump of sufficient 
capacity to handle the maximum discharge of the 
drain, but ascertain for a certainty what this is, do 
not guess at it. Then make a well at least three feet 
deeper than the drain outlet with a six-inch concrete 
wall and bottom for the drain to discharge into, and 
pump from this well over a dyke. 
J. F. VAN SCHOONHOVEN. 
The Agricultural Department says that clover and 
grass seed put on grain this Spring has been dried 
out on thousand of acres. Look such seeding over 
and see of you are among the parched. If so the 
Department suggests the following: 
One of the best ways known to get a stand of clover 
is to disk the stubble field as soon as the grain is off, 
allowing the disk to run about three inches deep and 
working the stubble into the soil. The disking and cross- 
disking should be sufficient to clean it of weeds and grass 
and put the top three inches of soil in fine tilth. Keep 
the ground cultivated until the first soaking rain, then 
sow about 10 pounds of clover seed mixed with six to 
eight pounds of Timothy per acre and harrow the seed 
in. A still better way than harrowing is to sow the 
grass seed with a grain drill, letting the seed run down 
the grain tubes from the grass seed box and covering the 
seed from one to 1 % inches deep. 
This you will see is a modified “Clark culture.” On 
farms where clover hay has become a fixture the loss 
Advertising 
Don’t Pay 
Unless you have the goods to 
supply the increased demand. 
We have been on the short side 
of the market so far this season. 
But we are coming along now, and 
expect to send out 12 loads each 
week. 
On Saturday our wagons will 
carry Cabbage, Carrots, Cucum¬ 
bers, Squash, Beets, Swiss Chard, 
Endive, Spinach, Onions, Peas, 
Sweet Corn, Parsley, Turnips, Let¬ 
tuce, Potatoes,Radishes, Tomatoes, 
Peppergrass, string Beans, etc. Al¬ 
so Apples, red and purple Rasp¬ 
berries, Cottage Cheese, Roasting 
Fowls, Broilers and Eggs. 
L. H. SHELDON. FAIR HAVEN. VT. 
ADVERTISING A VERMONT FARM. Fig. 333. 
of the crop would prove a calamity. Millet or corn 
fodder would help out, but clover or Alfalfa are 
needed. 
After a long and hard fight it was decided that the 
coal tar chemical “saccharin” must not be used as a 
substitute for sugar. Food which contains it is de¬ 
clared adulterated. We have just discovered a neat 
scheme to induce people to buy and use this stuff. 
We get a very innocent little card asking us to print 
a recipe for “sweet pickle.” The core of this recipe 
is saccharin, “which you can buy at any drug store. 
Evidently the scheme is to induce many country peo¬ 
ple to buy this and thus work up a demand for the 
deadly stuff. It is a very slick scheme, and the 
papers which take orders from the beverage and drug 
men surely ought to print it. 
