The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-10-03

Belmont, in the midst of the trucking
region that supplies Boston. He has
forty acres, every foot of which is
worked for all it will endure. Three
acres are under glass, where cucun-
bers and lettuce are raised. There
are a lot of cherry trees and pear
trees. He runs his business care
fully as any business man should. He
works hard, and he makes money.
Apropos, it occurs to me that a man
from this region, who had a, market
garden and a business in Boston, died
two or thre years ago, leaving $780,
900. He made all of that money
from his truck farm, having declar-
ed, when alive, that his trucking bus
mess often had to pay deficits in his
Boston business.
There is much gardening in New
England of the old sort, that is, that
does not depend upon glass, or any Of
the intensive and professional meth
DDS. This sort of trucking yields
gross revenue, per acre, about equal
to the yield for fruit and berries
from $1,000 down to three or four
hundred. It is often combined with
fruit growing, especially in peach or
chards during their first two or three
years, and in apple orchards during
their first five years. In a general
way, 1t is to be said that the New
England farmers who raise truck for
the market need to study the ques-
lions of varieties and the methods of
marketing. 1t is not to the credit of
the market gardeners of New Eng
land that, with all the land to be had
at low prices, all the opportunities
for easy marketing, and the ease with
which all the ordinary vegetables
may be grown, a great proportion of
the green stuff the people living in
the New England cities and large
towns is grown in the south or west.
Home grown vegetables and greens
are rarities in most of the New Eng
land homes, unless they are obtain
able of neighborhood gardeners. The
lettuce, spinach, ETC., that is raised
in the vicinity of Boston does not be-
gin to supply the Boston demand, not
to mention the towns in the Greater
Boston zone. Some of these towns
are on the route from the big truck
farms to Boston, and see the great
wagons go into town every day, and
yet the people living there have to
put up with stuff grown in the south.
Boston absorbs all the, product of its
trucking area, and is not half sup
piled then.
Tt is not only the garden truck that
is not properly marketed but all veg
etables and fruit. It ought to be
possible for the householder who is a
bit particular about what he eats to
get vegetables that have not been
handled from three to a dozen times.
been exposed to- the sun and the dirt
OF the city for hours or days, and
paved over by many purchasers. It
ought to be possible to buy potatoes
for example, that were put into car
tons on the field where they were dug
and never touched with shovel or
scoop or dirty grOcer's clerks hands
1t should be possible to get heads of
lettuce that had been cut and put at
once into paper bags; spinach like
wise, and peas and beans, tomatoes
ana Deets and turnipS-everythin of
the sort. This is one of the details
of successful marketing that ought to
be studied by the truck grower SUP
pose some one of them, who could de-
mand large output, should study
the question of distribution and pack
age with the astuteness of the great
bakers, and make it a point to cater
to the better class of residents in a
given section. Would he not be
likely to get the trade? Let him ar
range to supply as many families as
he could get the right goods for, then
let him have a system of calling them
on the phone every day, or every
other day, and sending their orders
direct from the farm, carefully pre-
pared and packed, and warranted
fresh that same day. Would he not
get the business, and get prices in ad-
vance of the market with margin
large enough to cover all his extra
expense?
New England raises a lot of gar
den truck, and many men make mon
ey in the business. but she does not
raise one-tenth as much as she ought
and may, if the men of New England
awake to the great opportunity that
is waiting for them.