The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1876-01-06
THURSDAY, JANUARY G, 1876.
MARKET GARDENING.

COHctudfd.
MARKET GARDENING.
Mr.. Hopkins called the meeting to order
with his usual promptness and courtesy and
proceeded to open the subject in a general
way as Introductory to n discussion of each
/ individual crop which forms part of the
business Of market gardening. "The sp-
plication of labor, said he, ''to small par
GELS of land for the purpose of raising a
crop suitable to local market, and COM
handing a price fixed by local demands,
constitutes what | conceive to be the law
of the best American agriculture. When
we devote ourselves to the business of
growing the staples which enter into the
markets Of the world, we submit our indus
| Try to the hands Of those who enjoy every
advantage over us. AS l have often re-
minded you, it is not easy to compete with
the wool growers of Texas and Californis,
who enjoy almost unlimited pastures and a
| climate SO mild that shelter in the winter
| season is unnecessary. The farmer of
these sections, when land commands high
price, cannot furnish grain to the market
in competition with tho Sc who occupy the
broad aud cheap and fertile prairies of the
west. Aud even the western gram grower
| finds himself often crippled by the pro-
| ducers Of countries where labor commands
| but a nominal price in comparison with his
own AS land advances in value and tn
wages Of labor increase, the farmer must,
| if possible, escape from that competition
/ which can be brought against him by more
( primitive forms Of society, and by those who
/ hold lands at the settlers rates. | think
| this is the great lesson which we must learn
| in this country, as it has already been learn
ed elsewhere. Go with me to those nations
whose population is devoted in any degree
to agriculture as an industry, and you will
find that it is the special farmers who are
the most prosperous. 1t is not the hemp
growers of Russia nor the grain-growers OF
Hungary and the Black Sea who consti-
tute the most prosperous farmers of the old
countries. The careful cultivators 10 Ger
many and Holland, the 'market-gardeners
around London and Paris, the men engag-
ed in supplying the local markets with the
necessaries of life and with the fruits and
vegetables which are called luxuries, are the
men who hold in their hands the agricul-
tural prosperity of those sections of the
earth. And SO it is in our own country.
There is shifting and uncertain prosperity,
sometimes very great, which attends the
growing of staples for the commerce of the
world But as look around to ascertain
where the long-coutinued and permanent
prosperity lies, | find it among those who,
| obedient to an inevitable law, gather around
the great aggregations of population and
supply them with food, or devote them
selves to some one branch of cultivation
/ which ie QCrNnripllv oAa ntnl IN ba ~,
Of the land they occupy.
OF the first, the supplying of local
markets here III contradistinction to general
husbaudry, call to mind one notable illus
tration was led at one time to believe
that one county in our state was declining
in an agricultural point of view from year
to year, until feared that this industry
would be entirely destroyed within Its linn
its. found that as time went on the cattle
of the county were diminishing the corn
crop was reduced more than one half the
grain crops were dwindling continually /;
The products of the dairy, butter and cheese,
| were becoming smaller and smaller the
hay crop grew less from year to year. And
| it seemed to me that the assertion that ag-
riculture was dying out vas literally true.
But when | found the sale of milk at large
prices was constantly increasing, and the
| production Of msrlel-Rarden .tuffs more
/ than supplied the deficiency in the other
crops, discovered that the farmers of this
/ county had learned the law which should
| govern their business, and that they were
! guided by the same rule as the manufac-
turer and merchant adopts to secure his
/ N at IN cir ,,l N ri at
with inappropriate commodities must, in
occordance with all human law, fail.
think there is hut one successful violation
of this law in the history of American COM
merce. When Lord Timothy Dexter sent
Il cargo of warming pans to the West In
dies, he laid the foundation of disastrous
commercial enterprise, which would have
ended as it ought to have done, had not the
| inganult, of man converted them 10 mo-
las.es ladies', and thus forced them into an
applicability which the exporter had never
ANTICIPATED. OF the second, the devotion
| of land to crops to which it Is especially
adapted, the encouraging instances are nu
merOus. 1t would hardly have occurred tc
the casual observer that the peat hogs OF
| Cape Cod could be converted into some OF
the most profitable agricultural acres of the
state And yet so it is. When il was found
that under the comparatively mild climate
of the Cape, the cranberry grew with
great luNuriance on the meadows there,
the application of skill and judgment il
clearing those lands and controlling the
fOwaGe of the waters secured to the farmer
who occupied that section, a golden oppoT
tunty for prosperous labor. The use O.
the light and warm and rich lands of Mass
achusetts and Connecticut to the onion
crop has been a source of large income tC
those states 1t would not be easy to est
mate the profits which have been derivee
from the cultivation of choice vegetables
on lands and in localities adapted 10 them
And | urge this mode of farming upor
those who enjoy the advantages which liz
all around you here. 1t must not be sup
posed, however, that this. business can b.
transacted without diligent and careful at
tention. When Burke declared that farm
ing required more judgment and foresgh
for Its successful prosecution than am
other business on earth, he uttered an I'm
deniabe truth. If he had applied the re
mark 10 market gardening especially, h.
would have stated truth still stronger
And this is one great advantage of thi
mode of farming above all others. 1t no
only brings the farmer into the immediat
association ~ populous sections with al
their social advantages, but 1t also appeal
at once to his most energetic faculties {
enter upon their work. We admire il
this county the intelligence which is rous
ed to action by all commercial and manu-
featuring associations. In special agricu
ture as | have defined it may we find tn
same opportunity. 1t is the active and civ
ilized mode of farming TO which the Amei
lean should naturally tend, attended as it
by all the privileges and opportunitie
which belong to cultivated life.