Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-05-05
Market Gardening.

Market Gardening.
The business of market gardening in
this country has assumed enormous pro.
portions. 1t occupies thousands Of acres
in and around our large cities and villages
and while in the depression which has at.
tended all business operations it has not
for TWO or three years paid old-time prof
its, vet on the whole it has paid better
than the average of farming during the
same time. The market garden is indeed
intensive farming on the most intense
pattern, sparing neither labor. manure
nor money to make small areas of land
enormously productive. Most farmers,
when they fail to make profit, set them
selves to studying how much they have
wasted" in extra labor, extra manuring
or other improvements, and when they
decide to economize these are the points
on which their retrenchment too frequent
lv begins. 1t will do some such farmers
good to be reminded that the class of soil
cultivators who are most lavish in expen-
ditures are most uniformly successful.
Market gardeners occasionally fall but it
is mainly those whose coarse and easily
produced products come in direct compe-
tition with ordinary farming
In fact, large numbers of farmers have
within few years taken to market gar
dening as a means of making their
farms pay. The devotion of large areas
to growing potatoes is one sign of this
tendency. 1t has been step in the
right direction. albeit it may not have
been far enough and long enough to reach
success. 1t is impossible for all farmers
to engage in the finer and more delicate
reason, if there were no other, would be
that very few are competent to do or
supervise such work. For all farmers to
attain the skill required to manage hot
houses and forcing beds, would be like
asking them to undertake business as
distinct from ordinary farming as would
be the practice of law. medicine or divini
| tv. 1t would require in one as much as in
another lifelong devotion to one special.
| ty to insure success. 1t is a failure to APP
p-eciate the different conditions in garden
ing as compared with farming that is the
cause of much i'll success in market gar.
dening. This is especially true when be-
gun by special farmers. They find ii diff
| ticult to understand how essential are the
large quantities OF fertilizers used by
market gardeners in growing all vegeta
BILE crops. Grain and other farm crops
are grown with comparatively small
amounts of manure. The free use OF
clover seed and keeping of farm stock
enables farmers to maintain land in good
condition tor ordinary cropping, with
ont purchasing commercial manure
But this is not enough for vegeta
bic crops. which always require
heavier manuring than grains. Nor is
ordinary farm land rich enough for grair
crops without some addition of purchased
manures, chiefly mineral.
| When farmers branch out into the cult
walton of vegetable crops they are too APT
to continue their old time economy in the
purchase and use of manures. 1t would
seem ruinous to them to apply GO to 10(
loads OF stable manure per acre, or 1000
to 2000 pounds of the best phosphate. Yet
these are quite common figures with sue
cessful gardeners, and that too, on LAND
fertilized by previous applications far be
vond the average for farm purposes Ir
fact, it is hardly possible by one applica
ton to fertilize land that has been rich
enough for grain crops so that it will
bring full crop of vegetables. The
usual practice with market gardeners ir
bringing new piece of land into theil
system is to manure heavily and grow
potatoes, corn or some other coarse crop
one or two years. In this time thorough
cultivation has mixed the manure with ht
soil. many of the weed seeds near the
surface have terminated and been de
stroyed. and the land is brought into con
dition for producing the more exactinG
and better paving crops.
1t will probably pay large classes o
farmer to begin cautiously and prudently
to prepare some part of his land for mar
ket gardening One field heavily MANFRED
may be planted as beginning, part il
early potatoes and part in sweet corn. with
enough tomatoes to make trial. Some
one of these crops probably paw better
than ordinary farming, and none are de
pendent on nearness to any market
except railroad station. Higher
prices can be got by peddlng and selling
directly to the consumer, but this involves
extra expense. What we wish to urge is
that farmers 20, so or 100 miles from a
large city are not precluded from using il
as a market. Some kind OF vegetables are
shipped hundreds of miles successfully.
Michigan celery growers have shipped
large quantities of this vegetable to east
ern markets. and the fact is that thew con
tinue doing this shows that the crop is a
paying one. In this way profits of city
gardening are reduced; but this is an in
evitabe result of continued profits much
above those of average farmers. When
the latter are obliged to add market gar.
dening to their farming to exc out profits,
the gains of both branches OF business
gradually approach each other, never
however. so that those forms of soil cul.
ture which require most skill tail to re-
ceive better pay than others -American
Cultiudtor.