The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1891-09-12

Ii cOulu only get corner on the
truck farms of this country" said a New
York marketman with turn for statis-
tics, 81 wouldn't trade jobs with Van
derbilt or Gould if they'd roll both their
jobs into one. What do you think the
truck farmers pulled out of us dealers
here and there about the country and
carried home with them the last year?
Only little more than seventy-six mil
lion and half. That's all Out of that
they had to pay their help, OF course,
which cost 'em something like SO $780,
600, for they hire 217 900 men, to say
nothing of the 10000 women and $4,000
bows that help out with the work. And
their seeds knocked about a million and
half more out of the proceeds, and
they had to put up trifle of $10,000,000
for fertilizers. But after taking all that
out they had good round $4,000, 900 to
put away in the sock for rainy day.
Yes; you give me corner on the truck
farms of the country and you can have
all that Gould and Vanderbilt make, if
you want it.
Speaking about truck farming-and,
by the way, there are over half million
acres of good land in the country that
don't do anything else but raise garden
and field truck for markets with a capt.
tai invested of over 100000, 900, and
call on 10000 horses and mules, and
about 9,0O0, 900 worth of implements to
help do the work-where do you sup.
pose all of these nice, bright, green
plums and tempting cucumbers you see
in the big restaurants and the swell
fruit-store windows in the spring, before
the snow is gone, and for which you
have to put down a good half dollar be-
fore you can get one-where do you sup
pose they come from? / knew you'd say
Bermuda, or some other place down
South. But you're way off. These
early cucumbers come from climate
about as near like Bermuda as Califor-
MIA is like Minnesota. These cucum-
bers come from New England, from the
cold and stOrm-tossed coast of Maine and
Massachusetts, and even from New
Hampshire. The growers OF cucumbers
in New England get more out of an acre
Of land than the growers of any other
crop in this or any other country. They
think nothing of netting 81 1000
for an acre of cucumbers, but they also
have 272 acres that they grow them on.
OF course YOU will understand that these
cucumbers are not grown outdoors.
They are the products of the
greenhouses, and New England is the
only truck-growing district where the
raising of cucumbers in this way has
! been made a successful and standard
branch of the business. In other parts
of the country the cucumber crop aver
| ages net profit of from $26 to $3.50 an
acre, the latter figure being made in
Texas, Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas !;
but we never get any of their cucumbers
here. New England heads all other
vegetable-growing districts in return for
all of her truck products, the least she
makes being 800 an acre on watermel-
ons, which is 500 more an acre than the
highest price Southern watermelon
growers receive for their crop. AS a
matter of fact, the Southern water
melon-grower thinks he is doing very
well if he can get net price of $3.50 a
carload for his crop, and car will hold
the yield of three acres. New England
gets nearly 500 more an acre for her
celery crop than the crack Michigan
celery-growers get for theirs. In the
matter of tomatoes New England finds
no difficulty in selling her crop for $500
an acre, the next highest price being
paid to New Jersey and Long Island,
whose tomato farmers get an average OF
$l65 an acre for their crop. But it is
curious that cold New England should
lead the country on early vegetables,
isn't it?"