The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-06-03
TRUCK FARMERS
Remarkable Products From
Small Gardens About
Newerk.
WOMEN WHO HAVE CHARGE
What Hard Work and Good
Judgment Can Accom-
plish in Small Space.

To those whose Sunday outings take
them to the outermost edges of Newark's
suburbs, the truck farms are a most In
terestfng sight, says the Newark Sunday
.CaI." Just now they are in the first
stages Of the summer evolution. a sort OF
hodge podge of carefully smoothed and
squared beds, and here and there math-
metically straight rows of very young let
tuce and onions, heaps of manure and
bruch and a few fields not dry enough TO
be ploughed yet.
To the man who comes from out West,
where farms are measured by miles.
OF even from up in New York State
where the man who has a hundred or TWO
hundred acres can get little more han a
tolerably comfortable living for his lam
lily, these little truck farms of half a doz-
en- acres are a huge joke. If he has travel-
ed a bit. they are apt to remind him Of
japanese gardening or the farms OF the
French peasants.
The numbe of these tiny farms scat
tered about the suburbs is surprising. Ihe
commuter travelling over the
these days gets whiffs of newly turned
earth and the aroma of young onions
Later he will have sweet pungent odors OF
celery. The sunny, eastern slopes along
the old copper mine. road, which goes
through Kearny, Arlington and Kings
land. are completely covered with these
closely cultivated patches.
The quantity that can be raised on
them is amazing to any one not in the
business. There is one farmer who has
about four acres, only rented at that,
and who manage to keep a family OF
six comfortably fed, clad and housed on
the returns from his farm. He hires one
man and two of his sons, Boys of Is or
whereabouts, assist in the work of cul-
tivating and marketing the produce. TWO
younger children are at school, and his
wife attends to the housekeeping and has
nothing to DO with the farm work. Few
of the women folk of these farm house
holds work in the fields, though the farms
furnish considerable work for women.
From the latter part of May ON TO the
end of summer groups of from four to
a dozen women working in the gardens
are a familiar sight. Most of them are
Italians. They are hired to pick peas
and pull carrots and radishes and tie
them into punches. AS they work they
chant and shout a ballad in Italian. and
with their CAV dresses and bright-colored
handkerchiefs on their heads they make
a picturesque feature of the landscape,
and almost make one believe that the
little farms belong near Bordeaux after
all.
There is nothing French about the
farms. however, except the intensity OF
their culture. French farmers do not
seem to immigrate, or, at least, none OF
them settle along the copper mine road.
Many of these market gardeners We're
horn in England or Ireland, though there
are not a few mong them who might
belong to the Sons of the Revolution, II
ancestry were the only consideration.
Here and there one comes across a
woman who manages a little farm almost
all by herself. There is one old a along
the backroad who is making a fairly com
Portable living for herself and an invahd
husband whose health is improving with
the outdoor life. She has brought SIX
acres, and is trying to pay for 1t through
a building and loan association. Some OF
it is on a side hill and the rest of 1t is
meadow land in need of drainage. Each
wear she manages to ditch a little more
and make it arabic. She raises all the
small vegetables and a good many flow
ers. A great deal of the actual work she
does herself, and two or three mornings
a week. about 8 O'clock, she starts Off
with her covered wagon and goes to the
market to sell her produce. She's a
healthy, happy old lady, and seems per-
fectly content with a farmers life. In her
youth she lived in the country, but for
several years before taking to market
gardening she kept a large boarding
house.
While few of these farmers wives or
daughters seem to assist in the actual
work of the gardens, as they would in
variably be expected to do, if they were
French peasants instead of American
citizens. many of them raise a few flow
ers for pin money. One young woman
raised enough sweet peas, a couple of
Summers ago to pay for a course at a
business college and to pay her car fare
back and forth from the school. Her
entire stock was sold to a Newark flower
store, to which she brought the fresh cut
blossoms every morning. Most of the
crops of the little suburban farms are
are disposed Of in the Newark market,
though IL lew lAiSAA u
to the New York and Jersey City mar
kets.
Truck farming seems to be one of the
few occupations left nowadays in which
industry, genuine thrift, thorough knowl-
edge of the trade and good judgment
insure a decent and comfortable living.
Not much luxury is possible, to be sure.
until the farmer accumulates a little cap
ital, but the small capital can always be
to tell in the business. If the
market gardener had turned shoemaker
or ~janitor instead, he would always be
living in terror lest somene come along
with an Investment which would dispense
with his services, unless he had a very
large capital indeed, enough to buy the
new machi or to get into a new COM
bination. While new inventions have
certainly revolutionized things on farms
where large crops, such as wheat or po-
tatoes, are raised, they are not likely to
reach these little suburban farms for
many a day yet. The work is done IN al
most the primitive manner The first
warm days of spring bring out the men
to spread the manure, with pitch forks,
In a thick layer over the surface. Then
comes the plough, drawn by one horse,
a man walking behind and holding the
.f - n = n 49, 4-- 49, A.