Norwich bulletin., 1919-05-02
NOTHING CERTAIN ABOUT FARMING FOR PROFIT

(Written Specially for The. Bulletin) 1
 There is farming--and farming. l There is gardening-and gardening.
 I read somewhere the other day, of 8 New Jersey truck garden in which 100000 onion sets had just been put out. They covered sixty acres and it was computed that somebody had to crawl 800 miles on his knees to. set them out. I set out four quarts the other day. To keep my mind occupied while my fingers were working l counted them. Just 726 in the four quarts. The cheapest I could buy them was 25 cents a quart, or $1 for the four quarts I set. At this rate the l 11,000,000 sets which the New Jersey trucker put out would have been worth considerably over St3,000. He didn't pay as much as 25 cents quart, of 1 course. He got his sets at the, lowest l wholesale rates, such as are given
 purchasers of large quantities. Per i haps this rate may have been a quart
 CT or a third less. It is safe to say, at any rate, that his onion sets must have stood him in $10, 900 before they | were uncrated at the farm.
 i Then the sixty acres had to be fer ! tilized and fitted. Onions, to do their ] best, require. extravagantly prodigal manuring. They also demand unusu-
 al care in the fining and smoothing of i the soil. One of the biggest onion i growers of the country, who never
 raises less than forty acres and often
 much more takes a full three years
 to fit his land whenever he starts q
 new onion bed. His experience has ! taught him that he can't get the de- sired yield and quality unless he
 does this. He manures so heavily
 Lo k- 1,oT
 made to turn the stuff under He blows and harrows and sows clover
 and blows that under, and fertilizes
 and blows and harrows again and again, till he has got the whole field
 so rich that it makes man feel like
 Rockefeller just to walk on it. Till
 it is so mellow and fine that sifted
 ashes are coarse in comparison. Till
 it has been so cleared of weed seeds
 and weed roots that absolutely none
 are left to steal the fertility away
 from the growing onions.
 don't know how far the Jersey gardener went in this direction, but
 probably he did about the same thing.
 The fact that the sixty acres are all provided with overhead piping to
 give irrigation in a dry time is proof
 that no expense was stinted in other directions. One doesn't put up hun dreds of twelve-foot posts and hang on them miles of iron piping and provide reservoirs and pumping en- zines for his land, unless he has the and in good enough shape to deserve dch luxuries.
 Nor do I know how many men he Dployed to set those onions out, syr how much wages he paid them. ele must have had quite a gang, for no
 
 3n l.-s knees and set out little onions as he crawls It's slow business at
 the best. And they didn't do it for
 love, either That we may safely as-
 sume. Nor just for their health. They worked for money and the gard aner had to pay them as much as they could earn at any thing else, or .. they wouldn't have staid two min !, utes on the crawling job.
 All of which is told, merely to lead up to the suggestion that Mr.. and Mrs. City Consumer may do we'll to
 think of these things when they come
 to buy onions. Before they denounce
 the onion raising farmer as a greedy
 .profteer they might proftably con s4der, for moment, what it has cost i, him in the way of labor and prepara- i. ton and fertilization and seed and 7 gasoline and posts and pipes and va rious other things to grow these on-
 ions.
 Also they might, if generally inclin- . ed, reflect for another moment on ! the risk he takes. Not much from drought in this particular case, for his costly overhead irrigating system insures against that. But too much rain is quite as harmful. He runs an Il equal risk of having his crop damaged beyond recovery by cold, wet season To say nothing; of onion maggots. Or of cutworms. Tor of smut. Or of a dozen other changes, any one of which may ruin his crop.
 It would seem to be fair as- sumption that he has the right to a return from onion consumers, if he succeeds in making a good crop of the money which he has put out for seed fertilizers and labor, etc. Also enough in addition to pay his overheard, i e., his taxes, interest on his invest ment, depreciation, wear and tear fencing, and so on. Also some pay