| HOUSE AND GARDEN 
208 
March. 1911 
has, of late years, 
give n growers a 
wide range from 
which to choose. 
Black Caps, firm, 
delicious in flavor, 
and of posi t i v e 1 y 
enormous .size when 
compared with the 
berry of half a gen- 
e r a t i o n ago, and 
there are red berries 
too, in every re¬ 
spect far superior to 
the variety usually 
found, and even yel¬ 
low ones, brilliant in 
color, although not 
so lucious in flavor, 
yet, when mixe d 
with either their 
black or red cousins, 
present a dish as 
attractive to the eye 
as to the palate. To 
tide over the short interim between 
the raspberry and the blackberry 
comes the dewberry, developed of late 
years from the low-growing, or vine 
blackberry. Far more delicate in 
flavor, far more juicy than the ram¬ 
pant-growing high-bush variety, is 
this little-known, attractive money¬ 
maker. 
Sweet corn, known to the city 
dweller only when lie goes to the 
country for a vacation, will be in the 
near future shipped direct from the 
grower to the great hotels, restaurants, 
and boarding-houses of our cities, be¬ 
cause its sugar is turned to starch 
long before the consumer can get his teeth into it. The demand 
for real sugar corn is great, and this demand can never be sup¬ 
plied until the interval between picking and eating is reduced to 
an extremely limited number of hours, even six causing a vast 
loss in sweetness and flavor. 
Melons also offer a glorious 
chance. Ten acres of cante- 
loupes will keep the most ener¬ 
getic grower busy indeed. Prac¬ 
tically they are at their best only 
when ripened on the vine, and 
must be picked when ripe, the 
leeway either side being very 
slight. In th melon patch, as 
in the strawberry patch, a suc¬ 
cession can be kept up by plant¬ 
ing high-class varieties at dif¬ 
ferent ripening seasons, from 
the very early summer until 
far into the winter. The Casa- 
ba melon has proven to be an 
easily grown and an easily kept 
melon, when grown upon Long 
Island as when grown in the 
far west. 
Among other extremely prof¬ 
itable crops available 
for the man with 
small acreage are 
onions, egg-plant, to¬ 
matoes and cucum¬ 
bers. They are all 
husky income-pro¬ 
ducers, and upon the 
experimental stations, 
both upon the heavier 
soil of the Sound 
Shore, and the lighter 
soil of the central 
section, once consid- 
ered valueless, all 
have done splendidly. 
So have the won- 
d e r fully productive 
Japanese plum or¬ 
chards, and highly 
colored, highly fla¬ 
vored peaches and 
apples, and to these 
have been added 
grapes of many vari¬ 
eties, notably Niagara, Brighton, Del¬ 
aware, Catawba, Worden and the well 
known Concord. 
Our experiments have proven that 
alfalfa, which but a few short years 
ago was thought to be possible only 
in the West, grows on Long Island 
with the greatest luxuriance and full 
nutrient value. It has for centuries 
been known to prosper throughout 
Europe. Three cuttings annually is 
the record with us, with a yield of 
about five tons, and a selling value 
running up to $30 per ton when cut. 
Alfalfa has been easily established in 
every section of Long Island, and 
offers an extremely big-paying crop, for, once established, little 
care is required beyond the annual cuttings. Beyond its great 
value as a salable product of the soil, it is a fact that pork pro¬ 
duced by it brings two cents a pound more than pork produced 
by either swill or corn. Cattle 
fed on it produce not only 
greater quantities of milk, but 
milk yielding more cream, hence 
butter. Chickens receiving it as 
part of their daily ration in sum¬ 
mer or winter are impelled, be¬ 
cause of their improved physical 
condition, to recover quickly 
from the moulting process and 
get busy laying eggs. 
The transition stage 
has reached America, and we 
will, from this time forward, fol¬ 
low the lines of the older coun¬ 
tries, giving up great areas and 
low crop production, to small 
areas and continuous heavy crop¬ 
ping. For some years to come, 
the West will continue great- 
acreage farming, but in the East 
it is a thing of the past. 
The man who has once raised and eaten his own garden vegetables will never 
again be satisfied with the kind that is picked when green, losing all its flavor in 
transit 
With the aid of the hotbed and coldframe the season 
of crop production may be lengthened almost 
through the whole twelve months 
One of the Experimental Farms which a few years ago was 
acknowledged to be the most unpromising spot on Long 
Island 
