Iron County register., 1885-12-03
TRUCK FARMING.
An Occupation That Pays Well Enough II
All the Work L. Conducted Systemati-

An Occupation That Pays Well Enough If
All the Work L. Conducted Systemati-
oalIy.
Having followed truck farming for
twenty years I would say to an inquirer
that the first question to be settled is
that Of location. It is folly to begin re-
mote from market, on. bad roads, and
where it will be difficult to get manure,
or to command extra help in an emer-
gency. The village should be large
enough to furnish customers, and a
large part of its inhabitants should be
engaged in manufacturing, attending
schools, or in such other callings as will
occupy their time and make it necessary
for them to buy all they consume. Two
villages of equal inhabitants may differ
greatly in the quantity of vegetables re-
quired. as one may be somewhat scat
tered and large proportion of the fam
lilies have gardens or outlots, on which
to raise their own supplies, and the other
may be more compact with a much
larger proportion of consumers.
Your profits will depend largely on
the manure supply, and you should as
certain before locating whether you can
get all you require and at reasonable
cost. A very successful market-garden-
er from Central Indiana visited me
lately; he is gardening thirty-six acres
and has out one hundred thousand eel
cry plants this year. In answer to my
question as to the cost of manure he
told me he got all he could use for the
hauling and the stablemen were very
glad to have him take it away. Now if
one can locate near a town where ma
nure can be had at that rate, and there
are maryland the distance to his farm
is such that he can make six or eight
trips day, he has a wonderful advan-
tage over the man who must pay for
manure and can only draw three or four
loads day. All my gardening was
done two miles from town, and have
always been obliged to pay from fifty
cents to one dollar load for manure
and could never get all wanted at that
price.
Had I settled near any one of several
larger towns within fifty miles of where
now live, could have had an unlim-
tied supply of manure for nothing, and
it would have been worth thousands of
dollars to me. 1t is wiser to pay 800
an acre for good land for gardening ad-
joining a village rather than half that
for equally good land two miles further
away use the term good in speaking
of the land, and good farming land is
not always good for gardening. A
garden should be on soil naturally or
artifcially well drained. The soil should
be warm and easily worked, and yet not
shallow and gravelly so as to dry out
quickly, and should not be subject to
overflow. Garden crops cost too much
for any one to willingly take the risk OF
losing them by inundation, and yet
many farmers unwisely locate on bottom
land subject to overflow because such
lands are rich and easily worked. Hun
dreds of acres of bottom land along the
Ohio River and its tributaries are sub
merged and the crops utterly ruined
every few years.
A common mistake of beginners is te
attempt to cultivate too much land, or
to plant too largely of some crop which
requires experience and skill to manage
profitably, when they lack both. The
motto of the novice should always be:
$50 slow" Begin with little of your
best land and with few crops which
you know how to manage, and begin at
once to experiment with others. Do
everything in a thorough manner, have
men and teams enough to do your work
at the right time and do it well. Mr..
Root, of Illinois, most successful gar
dener and seed-grower, told me he found
it paid him to keep one horse at work
constantly through the growing season
on each four acres, and Mr.. Henderson
estimates that on the high-priced land
gardened in the vicinity of New York
City there is an average annual expendi-
ture of three hundred dollars per acre
for hand labor and thirty-five dollars
for horse labor. This last estimate is
where three crops are raised on the land
in single season. Near my village is
a gardener who works but four acres of
land and who tells me that his sales
average one thousand dollars year.
Poultry-keeping or dairying, or both,
can be carried on in connection with
truck farming to good advantage, if you
have sufficient land. There should be
an acre or so of land fenced in SO that
the fowls can be shut up when they
would damage the garden. A poultry
fence need not be expensive. find that
with Dashboard one foot wide Cor even
six inches if the board is put eight inches
above the ground and fill made) and
common lath above, fence can be made
that will turn fowls if one wing be
clipped, and this fence win cost less than
common board fence. The poultry
manure will half pay the keeping of the
fowls if all be saved and properly used,
and the fowls will be benefit to the
garden by destroying insects. They can
be let out late in the afternoon and will
not be likely to damage the garden. If
you accustom them to your voice they
can be called into the yard at any time
if you forget to shut them up at night.
If one has land enough to keep sever
al cows and can establish milk route
he will find dairying profitable in con-
neetion with gardening, but would adj
wise that the cows be fed in the stable
and not pastured at all. Have lot to
turn them in for an hour or two each
day for exercise, and feed them all they
will eat and largely of bran and oil
meal. Arrange the stable with ma
nure ditch made water-tight and keep a
supply of bedding to absorb all the
liquid, and you will on this system of
high feeding make a large quantity of
excellent manure. If you can not sell
the milk, make first-class butter and en-
gage it to customers at price that will
pay. All the waste of the garden will
help feed the COWS and much food can
be raised for them on the waste spots
WGlSso F. Brotoas, in ". Y. Tribune.