To subdue the land with an ax, a plow and a spade is possible; millions of acres have been so subdued. This method, however, is the most expensive of all, as in our times, markets won't wait, and the man who wants to get on must produce as quickly as possible. To do so, he must have the best tools. They will pay for themselves many times over in a single year. For the farm, the following list, in addition to a well-stocked tool chest (hammer, saw, plane, ax, etc.) covers the indispensible:
1 team horses (these may be hired) $200.001 walking plow 10.001 disk or cutaway harrow 25.001 farm wagon 50.001 cultivator (two horse) 25.001 one-horse cultivator 8.00Shovels, pick, mattock or grubbing hoe 10.00Work harness for two horses 25.00TOTAL $353.00
These things you must have to get the land in proper shape for seeds or plants; but special crops require special tools. A scythe is good to keep weeds away from fences. A sickle is handy to keep down grass. To reduce living expenses, a cow for $60, and fifty hens at fifty cents each, say $25, will supply a large family with milk and eggs. Most people make the mistake of buying too many things and these poorly selected. It is better to have too few tools than too many, for tools are often dropped where last used, and so are lost. Then if money is scarce, you may not be able to make a shelter for your machines and tools, and they will rust through the winter. Many farmers, through neglect, have to replace their tool equipment every four or five years, but with attention and care, the original equipment, even to the team, ought still to be in use twenty years after their purchase. I know many instances where this is true. The above equipment is the minimum for beginning work. The character of additions to it will depend much upon the crops which you select as the money getters.
For general market gardening and the kitchen garden too, the following tool list, together with the above, will include everything absolutely necessary.
Wheel hoe $6.00Spade and fork, each $1.00 2.00Push hoe .65Watering can .60Rake and common hoe 1.00Bulb sprayer .25Trowel .10TOTAL $10.60
The wheel hoe is a great saver—of backache, especially to the beginner; as Warner says, "at the best you will conclude that for gardening purposes a cast-iron back with a hinge in it is preferable to the ones now in use."
The dibble, an old tool handle, or a bit of broomstick sharpened, and garden lines to get the rows straight, labels, tomato supports, plant protectors and stakes earl all be homemade out of old material. The full outfit would include the following:
Roller $8.00Wheel-hoe with seeder 8.50Sprayer 3.75Wheelbarrow 4.00Crowbar 1.50Weeder .35
For such crops as admit of horse cultivation a horse hoe will save a great deal of time.
The weeder is a cousin to the push hoe and has a zigzag blade for cutting off young weeds which are just starting above ground. It is pushed backward and forward and cuts both ways. It is very good for soft ground; on a harder patch use the push hoe.
A market garden is really a big kitchen garden, from which the cultivator supplies not only his own family, but his neighbors, the public. To run a successful market garden for profit, land suitably situated near transportation and markets, a large supply of stable manure, hotbeds for raising plants, crates for shipping, wagons for delivering, and a complete outfit of tools are necessary. You must raise all sorts of vegetables and salad plants in quantities sufficiently large to justify you in giving your whole time to the work. An acre devoted to general market gardening could be attended to by two men with some extra help for marketing.
To get a place fully established on new, rich land requires two or three years. On worn-out land it would take longer to build it up to the high fertility needed for maximum production. Crops like asparagus and rhubarb take two years to establish on a remunerative basis. If bush fruits are raised, three years are required to get maximum results. So in starting, land should be bought outright or leased for ten years.
In market gardening for profit, one acre might be devoted to vegetables, one acre to small fruits; strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, currants, gooseberries, etc. and one acre kept for buildings, poultry, etc. An energetic man could clear one thousand dollars a year besides his living, after he got a start, and be absolutely independent; that is, unless some predatory railroad corporation could confiscate his profits before his product reached the market.
Some persons are just naturally so successful with plants that if they stuck an umbrella in the ground we should expect to see it blossom out into parasols—but they don't know why it does, and they can't teach any one else how to do it.
Any fool can sneer at "book farming" or at anything else, but you can hardly succeed without the best books by practical men. Do not let some experienced ignoramus talk you out of experimenting under their guidance. You will learn little without experience, and unless you have the grower's instinct, you will learn less without books.
Don't be hypnotized by long experience or by success. Hardly anybody knows his own business. You must have noticed that few of the people you buy of or sell to, know any more of their goods than you do.
It is just the same with trades. Hardly a barber knows that he should not shave you against the grain of the skin. Even the cat won't stand being rubbed up the wrong way; but the barber never thought of that.
We lawyers and the doctors are supposed to be thorough in our own field—I said lately to one of the ablest men at the New York Bar, "About one lawyer in a hundred knows his business." He said, "That is a gross overestimate." Shortly after I talked with three Judges, one of the City Court, one of the Supreme Court, and one of the United States Circuit, and they each agreed that my friend's remark was about true, and that in most cases litigants would do as well without lawyers as with them.
If that is true, what chance is there that an uneducated man who has "raised garden sass ever since he was a boy, and seen his father do it before him," can teach you correctly?
Men learn very slowly by experience, because no two experiences are exactly alike, unless they perceive and apply the principles under the experience.
An intelligent man accustomed to investigation can learn more about a specialty in a week's study than an untrained practitioner can believe in a year.
What the untrained teacher can tell us is of little account; what he shows us is another matter.
Therefore get help who know that they don't know anything about a garden and who consequently will do with a will exactly what you tell them to do; such labor is cheap—why should you pay extravagant prices for skill to a man who has succeeded so poorly that he can only earn day's wages? You can get much better knowledge at less cost from a book. Study and put your knowledge into practice yourself, where you see promise of a profit.
Almost every crop can be made a specialty. In proportion as special crops are profitable when conditions are right, so are they sources of loss when things go wrong. If, after your first season in the country, some special crop takes your fancy, give extra space and time to it the second year and see if you are successful in handling an eighth or a quarter acre. If so, you may extend your operations as rapidly as purse and market permit.
Before concentrating upon any crop as the chief source of income, a careful study must be made of all the conditions surrounding its production; a crop is not produced in the broad meaning of that term until it is actually in the hands of the consumer.
Potatoes, for instance, are grown by the hundred acres in sections adapted to their growth, and special machinery costing hundreds of dollars is used in planting, cultivating, and harvesting the crop. The good shipping and keeping qualities of the potato enable it to be raised far from markets and so brings into competition cheap land worked in large areas, with large capital. In spite of this, however, the small cultivator can usually make money if he can sell his potatoes directly to the consumer.
If your land is so situated that you can put your individuality into the crop and can control all the circumstances, preparation of land, planting, cultivation, harvesting, and marketing, your chances of success are immeasurably increased. As soon as any important part must be trusted to some one beyond your control, danger arises. Assiduous care in planting, cultivating, and packing will avail nothing if the product falls into the hands of transportation companies or commission merchants indifferent as to what becomes of it. It is therefore better to be quite independent, sell your own crop, and have the whole operation in your own hands from the very beginning.
Generally speaking, seed growing for the market is a highly developed special business which is usually carried on by companies operating with large capital, able to employ the best experts, and to avail themselves of all the advantages of scientific methods in culture, regardless of expense. So uncertain is the business, that even with all these facilities, they rarely guarantee seeds. It is obvious that the amateur has little chance of succeeding in such a difficult business. Nevertheless, he will be able after a few seasons of increasing experience to gather seeds from selected plants and so furnish his own supply. It must be borne in mind, however, that plants can be improved by cross breeding and that by keeping a variety too long on the same ground its quality deteriorates, and the plant tends to revert to the type natural to it before domestication.
When land is cropped every season, the nitrogen, potash, and phosphorus removed from the soil must be replaced in some form, otherwise you have diminishing returns, while the expense for labor is the same. In farming small areas for specialties you cannot easily invoke the principle of rotation by enriching the land with legumes, to be plowed under while green, the bacteria on the roots of which gather nitrogen from the air, but you must get stable manure or buy chemical fertilizers to maintain the fertility.
Special crops divide themselves naturally into two classes: those raised for immediate shipment to market, and those to be hauled to canneries. The first type are generally prepared in a more expensive way, and need more care and attention. Each class requires its own special forms of packing to conform to market peculiarities fixed by the taste of consumers.
For the cultivation of all specialties, many items of preparation are identical. Land must be well drained, it must contain a sufficient amount of humus, or decaying vegetable matter, to make it loose and porous; it must be free from sticks and stones or any foreign matter likely to impede cultivation or obstruct growth. The proper formation of a seed bed is a prime prerequisite to successful cropping. After the land is manured and plowed it should be gone over in all directions with a disk and smoothing harrow, until it is of a dustlike fineness.
In thorough cultivation before the crop is planted, lies the secret of many a success, and in its neglect the cause of many failures. Intelligent handling of crops is in a large measure knowledge of the influence of wind and rain, sunshine and darkness, on the particular nature of the plant Delicate plants, for example, ought to be grown where buildings or forests break the force of prevailing winds. Sheltered valleys in irrigated sections have proved the best for intensive cultivation. For thousands of years in China and Japan the conditions of successful intensive cultivation have been well understood, and to-day the most efficient gardeners are the Chinese. In some parts of Mexico, for the same reasons, intensive cultivation has reached a high development. In our own West we are catching up on vegetables and fruits.
We have seen what a worker with very little money can do and how he can succeed. A small capital, however, can be used to increase the returns to as great advantage on a small farm as large capital can be used on a large farm and with much less risk.
Stable manure is still the favorite article with the masses of gardeners. One ton of ordinary stable manure contains about 1275 pounds of organic matter, carrying eight pounds of nitrogen, ten pounds of potash, and four pounds of phosphoric acid.
When thoroughly rotted, the manure acquires a still larger percentage of plant food; it is more valuable, not only for that reason, but also on account of its immediate availability. Further, the mechanical effect of this manure in opening and loosening the soil, allowing air and warmth to enter more freely, adds greatly to its value.
It is easily gotten and often goes wholly or in part to waste. On the outskirts of some towns may be seen a collection of manure piles that have been hauled out and dumped in waste places. The plant food in each ton of this manure is worth at least two dollars—that is the least Eastern farmers pay for similar material, and they make money doing it. Yet almost every liveryman has to pay some one for hauling the manure away. This is simply because farmers living near these towns are missing a chance to secure something for nothing—because, perhaps, the profit is not directly in sight. But from most soils there is a handsome profit possible from a very small application of stable manure.
While writing this, I saw a man in New Rochelle, N. Y.; dumping a load of street sweepings into a hole in a vacant lot. It would have been less wasteful to have dumped a bushel of potatoes into the hole.
Commercial fertilizers are coming more and more in use by market gardeners, and with reason. If we examine a good fertilizer, analyzing five per cent available nitrogen, six per cent phosphoric acid, and 8 per cent potash, we shall find that one ton of it contains, besides less valuable ingredients: 100 lb. nitrogen, 120 lb. phosphoric acid, 160 lb. potash.
Such fertilizers probably retail at forty to sixty dollars per ton, and are fully worth it. All this plant food, and perhaps one half more, can be drawn in a single load, while it will take ten such loads of stable manure to supply the same amount of plant food.
There is no reason to be afraid of too much fertilizer, provided it is evenly distributed and thoroughly mixed through properly prepared soil. Stinginess in this item is poor economy.
Nitrogen is the most essential food for plant growth. It is an important element of plant food in manure. In ordinary manure most of the value is due to the nitrogen, although phosphoric acid and potash are also present. It is found in the most available form in nitrate of soda. Nitrate of soda will benefit all crops, but it does not follow that it will pay to use it on all crops. Its cost makes it unprofitable to use on cheap crops; but on those that yield a large return nitrate of soda is a very profitable investment.
"It is shown in the experiments conducted with nitrate of soda on different crops that in the case of grain and forage crops, which utilized the nitrate quite as completely as the market garden crops, the increased value of crops due to nitrate does not in any case exceed $14 per acre, or a money return at the rate of $8.50 per 100 pounds of nitrate used, while in the case of the market-garden crops the value of the increased yield reaches, in the case of one crop, the high figure of over $263 per acre, or at the rate of about $66 per 100 pounds of nitrate." (New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Stations, page 8, No. 172.)
Professor Voorhees, of the same station, experimented with tomatoes, with these results:
Manure and Fertilizer Used Cost Per Acre Value of CropNo manure $271.8830 tons barnyard manure $30.00 291.758 tons manure and 400 lb. fertilizer 15.00 317.63160 pounds nitrate of soda alone 4.00 361.13
Such common crops as tomatoes, cabbage, turnips, beets, etc., in order to be highly profitable, must be grown and harvested early; any one can grow them in their regular season; their growth must be promoted or forced as much as possible, at the time when the natural agencies are not active in the change of soil nitrogen into available forms, and the plants must, therefore, be supplied artificially with the active forms of nitrogen, if a rapid and continuous growth is to be maintained.
It is quite possible to have a return of $50 per acre from the use of $5 worth of nitrate of soda on crops of high value, as, for example, early tomatoes, beets, cabbage, etc. This is an extraordinary return for the money and labor invested; still, if the increased value of the crop were but $10, or even $8, it would be a profitable investment, since no more land and but little additional capital was required in order to obtain the extra $5 or $8 per acre.
The results of all the experiments conducted in different parts of the country and in different seasons, show an average gain in yield of early tomatoes of about fifty per cent, with an average increased value of crop of about $100 per acre. The rest of the report shows similar results with other crops. (New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin 172.)
Joseph Harris says, "Some years ego we used nitrate of soda cautiously as a top dressing on the celery plants. The effect was astonishing. The next year, having more confidence, we spread the nitrate at the time we sowed the seed, and again after the plant came up, and twice afterward during a rain.
"Instead of finding it difficult to get the plants early enough for the celery growers who set them out, they were ready three weeks before the usual time of transplanting.
"At the four applications, we probably used 1600 lb. of nitrate of soda per acre, and this would probably furnish more nitric acid to the plants than they could get from five hundred tons of manure per acre, provided it had been possible to have worked such a quantity into the soil. Never were finer plants grown. As compared with the increased value of the plants, the cost of the nitrate is not worth taking into consideration."
As a means of fertilization without the use of artificial fertilizer, soil inoculation has come. It has grown out of the discovery of the dependence of leguminous plants on bacteria which live on their roots. The discovery is one of the most important of those made in modern agriculture.
It has received its greatest impetus in America, under the experiments of Professor Moore of the United States Agricultural Department.
The Department supplied free to farmers the bacteria for inoculation. Now they supply it only for experimental purposes. A laboratory has been fitted up for the work. The method is to propagate bacteria for each of the various leguminous plants such as clover, alfalfa, soy beans, cow peas, tares, and velvet beans. All of these plants are of incalculable value in different sections of the country as forage for farm animals. In the West, alfalfa is the main reliance for stockraisers. The farmers of the East are trying to establish it, but meet with difficulty chiefly for want of the special bacteria which should be found on the roots.
The function of these bacteria is to gather the nitrogen of the air and supply it as plant food. Without the bacteria the plant can get only the nitrogen which is supplied from the soil in fertilizers. With the aid of the bacteria the growing plant can derive the greater part of its food from the air.
Here is one of the results of the use of inoculated seed as reported by the United States Agricultural Bulletin No. 214.
G. L. Thomas, experimenting with field peas on his farm near Auburn, Me., made a special test with fertilized and unfertilized strips, and stated that "inoculated seed did as much without fertilizers of any kind, as uninoculated seed supplied with fertilizer (phosphate) at the rate of 800 pounds and a ton of barnyard manure per acre."
This seems to be only in its infancy. The Department warns us that nitrogen inoculation is useless where the soil already has enough nitrogen and where other plant foods are absent.
The experiments are most important, and we are probably on the eve of as great advances in agriculture as in electricity, but the human race has a great love for "inoculation," and indeed for all unnatural processes.
You remember the story of the wonderful coon that Chandler Harris tells? No? They were constantly seeing this enormous coon, but always just as they almost got their hands on him, he disappeared. One night the boys came running in to say that the wonderful coon was up in a persimmon tree in the middle of a ten-acre lot; so they got the dogs and the lanterns and guns and ran out, and sure enough they saw the wonderful big coon up in a fork of the tree. It was a bright moonlight night, but to make doubly sure they cut down the tree and the dogs ran in—the coon wasn't there.
"Well, but, Uncle Remus," said the little boy, "I thought you said you saw the coon there."
"So we did, Honey," said the old man, "so we did; but it's very easy to see what ain't there when you're looking for it."
Another method of increasing fertility at increased expense deserves notice. The vacant public lands are for the most part desert-like, and their utilization can come about only through irrigation.
This land can be made to produce the finest crops in the world; and the tremendous volumes of water that flow from the mountains to the sea, once harnessed and piped or ditched to this land, will transform it into beautiful gardens and farms.
With the work being done by the United States Government, and that of the various states, we may look forward in the not distant future to this land being made habitable to man.
It is well known that with the dry, even climate and with an abundance of water applied as vegetation needs, this now arid waste is far more productive than the Eastern states, where the crops are at the mercy of the elements, sometimes having too much moisture and at other times not having enough.
"Irrigation offers control of conditions such as is found nowhere except in greenhouse culture. The farmer in the humid country cannot control the amount of starch in potatoes, sugar in beets, protein in corn, gluten in wheat, except by planting varieties which are especially adapted to the production of the desired quality. The irrigation farmer, on the other hand, can produce this or that desirable quality by the control of the moisture supply to the plant. He can hasten or retard maturity of the plant, produce early truck or late truck on the same soil, grow wheat or grow rice as he deems advisable."
"On the irrigated fields of the Vosges, Vaucluse, etc., in France, six tons of dry hay becomes the rule, even upon ungrateful soil; and this means considerably more than the annual food of one milch cow (which can be taken as a little less than five tons) grown on each acre."
"The irrigated meadows round Milan are another well known example. Nearly 22,000 acres are irrigated there with water derived from the sewers of the city, and they yield crops of from eight to ten tons of hay as a rule; occasionally some separate meadows will yield the fabulous amount—fabulous to-day but no longer fabulous to-morrow—of eighteen tons of hay per acre; that is, the food of nearly four cows to the acre, and nine times the yield of good meadows in this country." ("Fields, Factories, and Workshops," pages 116-117.)
"If irrigation pays"—and no one now questions that—"the whole Western country of rich soil, which asks but a drink now and then, will be turned into a Garden of Eden."(Maxwell's Talisman.)
Agriculture may be revolutionized with the advent of irrigation.
A new method of disposing of sewage and at the same time irrigating the soil, has come into use recently, and will be found valuable to those who are situated so that they can make use of it.
The sewage from buildings is drained into a large tank where the heavier matter can settle to the bottom. When the water rises nearly to the top of the tank it is siphoned into another tank, and from there it is piped about the field.
The piping is very simple—ordinary drain tile conveys the water. Beginning at the highest point of the field to be irrigated, a six-inch (or larger) line of tile should be laid along the highest ground with a fall of not over one inch to each ten feet. From this main trunk should be branch lines of "laterals," laid from eight to twelve feet apart, as they would be laid for draining a field. These branch lines may be laid at an angle to the main trunk as may be most convenient; all the joints must be covered so as to keep out the flirt. The whole system should be laid deep enough in the ground to be secure from frost; but to be most effective it should not be over fourteen to sixteen inches below the surface, hence sub-irrigation cannot be used very successfully in the Northern states. In a sandy loam soil with a clay subsoil it works best at sixteen to twenty-four inches.
This is substantially Colonel Waring's method of sewage disposal. To get the best use of it for plants, the water should be assembled and kept in the sun for ten to twelve days, then turned into the pipes until the ground is well soaked, and then shut off and not allowed in the pipes again for ten to fifteen days, according to the weather and condition of moisture in the soil. The crop should be cultivated between each watering.
However, as Bailey says, "Evidently in all regions in which crops will yield abundantly without irrigation, as in the East, the main reliance is to be placed on good tillage."
"Most vegetable gardeners in the East do not find it profitable to irrigate. Now and then a man who has push and the ability to handle a fine crop to advantage, finds it a very profitable undertaking." ("Principles of Vegetable Gardening," page 174.) Bailey, however, was not thinking of "overhead irrigation."
The late J. M. Smith, Green Bay, Wisconsin, was one of the expert market gardeners of his region. "The longer I live," wrote Mr. Smith, then in the midst of a serious drought, "the more firmly am I convinced that plenty of manure and then the most complete system of cultivation make an almost complete protection against ordinary droughts." (Same, page 330.)
If the soil is cultivated carefully and intensively, it will hold water within itself and carry a storage reservoir underneath the growing crop. Finely pulverizing and packing the seed bed, makes it retain the greatest possible percentage of the moisture that falls, just as a tumbler full of fine sponge or of birdshot will retain many times the amount of water that a tumbler full of buckshot will. The atmosphere quickly drinks up the moisture from the soil unless we Prevent it. This we do by means of a soil "blanket," called a "mulch" This finely pulverized surface largely prevents the moisture below from evaporating, and at the same time keeps the surface in such condition that it readily absorbs the dew and the showers. Water moves in the soil as it does in a lamp wick, by capillary attraction; the more deeply and densely the soil is saturated with moisture, the more easily the water moves upward, just as oil "climbs up" a wet wick faster than it does a dry one. One can illustrate the effect of this fine soil "mulch" in preventing evaporation by placing some powdered sugar on a lump of loaf sugar and putting the lump sugar in water. The powdered sugar will remain dry even when the lump has become so thoroughly saturated that it crumbles to pieces.
"We have no useless American acres," said Secretary Wilson. "We shall make them all productive. We have agricultural explorers in every far corner of the world; and they are finding crops which have become so acclimated to dry conditions, similar to our own West, that we shall in time have plants thriving upon our so-called arid lands. We shall cover this arid area with plants of various sorts which will yield hundreds of millions of tons of additional forage and grains for Western flocks and herds. Our farmers will grow these upon land now considered practically worthless."
In this way it has been estimated that in the neighborhood of one hundred million acres of the American desert can be reclaimed to the most intensive agriculture. (See a study of the possible additions to available land in Prof. W. S. Thompson's "Population, a Study of Malthusianism": Col. U, 1915.) Frederick V. Coville, the chief botanist of the Department of Agriculture, does not hesitate to say that in the strictly arid regions there are many millions of acres, now considered worthless for agriculture, which are as certain to be settled in small farms as were the lands of Illinois.
Land that was thought to be absolute desert has been made to yield heavy crops of grain and forage by this method without irrigation.
Macaroni wheat will grow with ten inches of rainfall, and yield fifteen bushels to the acre. This however is less than the average wheat yield in the United States.
Much can be done by dry farming; that is, by plowing the soil very deep and cultivating six or eight times a season, thus retaining all the moisture for the crops and reducing evaporation to a minimum.
There are thousands of acres in different sections of Montana that grow good crops without irrigation. In Fergus County, for instance, the wonderful yield of 45 bushels of wheat per acre is grown without irrigation. Heavy crops of grain and vegetables are grown in the vicinity of Great Falls by the dry farming system.
The money and time spent in spraying is also well invested. The New York Agricultural Experiment Station began a ten-year experiment in potato-spraying to determine how much the yield can be increased by spraying with Pyrox or with Bordeaux mixture.
In 1904 the gain due to spraying was larger than ever before. Five sprayings with Bordeaux increased the yield 233 bushels per acre, while three sprayings increased it 191 bushels. The gain was due chiefly to the prolongation of growth through the prevention of late blight. The sprayed potatoes contained one ninth more starch and were of better quality.
The average increase of profit per acre from spraying potatoes was figured to be about $22 on each acre. The result was arrived at from experiment, two thirds of which was by independent farmers. (Particulars will be found In Bulletin No. 264, issued by the Department.)
In fourteen farmers' business experiments, including 18 acres of potatoes, the average gain due to spraying was 62-1/2 bushels per acre, the average total cost of spraying 93 cents per acre; and the average net profit, based on the market price of potatoes at digging time, $24.86 per acre.
"One class of gardeners," Burnet Landreth explains, "may be termed experimental farmers, men tired of the humdrum rotation of farm processes and small profits, men looking for a paying diversification of their agricultural interests. Their expenses for appliances are not great, as they have already on hand the usual stock of farm tools, requiring only one or two seed drills, a small addition to their cultivating implements, and a few tons of fertilizers. Their laborers and teams are always on hand for the working of moderate areas. In addition to the usual expense of the farm, they would not need to have a cash capital of beyond 20 to 25 dollars per acre for the area in truck."
"Other men, purchasing or renting land, especially for market gardening, taking only improved land of suitable aspect, soil, and situation, and counting in cost of building, appliances, and labor, would require a capital of $80 to $100 per acre. For example, a beginner in market gardening in South Jersey, on a five-acre patch, would need $500 to set up the business, and run it until his shipments began to return him money. With the purpose of securing information on this interesting point, the writer asked for estimates from market gardeners in different localities, and the result has been that from Florida the reports of the necessary capital per acre, in land or its rental (not of labor), fertilizers, tools, implements, seed and all the appliances, average $95, from Texas $45, from Illinois $70, from the Norfolk district of Virginia the reports vary from $75 to $125, according to location, and from Long Island, New York, the average of estimates at the east end is $75, and at the west end $150."
I have before me now one of the roseate advertisements, which we so often see in the newspapers, telling how fortunes can be made by investing a few dollars in a tropical plantation in Mexico.
It gives what are supposed to be startling yields per acre, and yet the returns, which must necessarily be taken with considerable allowance, are only from $580 to $1087 per acre on various plantations.
There are market gardeners and nurserymen near New York City who are making their acres produce better returns than this. It is not necessary to go off into the tropical wilderness seeking a fortune which is usually a gold brick that some fellow is trying to sell you, when as good results can be secured right at home.
Market gardeners in and near Philadelphia pay $25 to $50 an acre and upwards rent for land, and work from five to forty acres. This is as much as similar land in many parts of the country could be bought for. But it is not a high rent when they are right at the market—one man makes the round trip in two and one half hours—manure costs them nothing—for years they have been using the excavations from the old style privy wells, which has been hauled to their farm and deposited where they wished it, free. They have modern facilities, such as trolley and telephone, and are as much city men as any clerk in an office. They clear far higher profits from an acre than the average farmer, raising never less than two, and often three crops in a season. They employ several men to the acre, and at certain times many more, working the men in gangs. Only the difficulty of getting good help at their prices prevents them from using twice the number.
However, the possibilities of putting capital into land at a profit are still infinite.
What chiefly attracts the gardener to the great cities is stable manure; this is not wanted so much for increasing the richness of the soil—one ninth part of the manure used by the French gardeners would do for that purpose—but for keeping the soil at a certain temperature. Early vegetables pay best, and in order to obtain early produce, not only the air, but the soil as well, must be warmed; that is done by putting great quantities of properly mixed manure into the soil; its fermentation heats it. But with the present development of industrial skill, heating the soil could be done more economically and more easily by hot-water pipes. Consequently, the French gardeners begin more and more to make use of portable pipes, or thermosiphons, provisionally established in the cool frames.
Competition that stands in with the railroads can be met only by being near the market or having water transportation. Indeed, the erect of water transportation in getting manure, and in delivering the produce from the railroads, appears in the early history of trucking. The railroads often crush out boat competition by absorbing docks and standing in with the commission men. This could be met by such cooperative selling agencies as the flower growers already have.
"One of the earliest centers for the development of truck farming in its present sense was along the shores of Chesapeake Bay, where fast sailing oyster boats were employed for sending the produce to the neighboring markets of Baltimore and Philadelphia. In a similar way the gardeners about New York early began pushing out along Long Island, using the waters of the Sound for transporting their produce. The trucking region on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan is another sample of the effect of convenient water transportation in causing an early development of this industry. The building of the Illinois Central railroad opened up a region in southern Illinois that was supposed to be particularly adapted to fruit growing." ("Development of the Trucking Interests," by F. S. Earle, page 439.)
If one goes into the trucking business on so large a scale as to be able to make deals with the railroads, such as The Standard Oil Company has made, of course additional prices could be gotten, owing to the possibility of putting competitors at a disadvantage. That business is a large one.
In doing business on this scale, much will depend on your ability as a merchant.
"It is useless to grow good crops unless they can be sold at a profit; yet it is safe to say that ten men grow good truck crops for one who markets them to the best advantage."
Three Acres and Liberty: Ch. XI-XV
Whether to get an early start on the garden or for raising plants for field crops, a hotbed is all but indispensable. In making a hotbed what we seek to do is to imitate Nature at her best, so get the best soil and the sunniest spot you can find.
In all hotbeds the underlying principle is the same: They are right-angled boxes covered with glass panes set in movable frames and placed over heated excavations. The bed may be of any size or shape, but the standard one is six feet wide, since the stock glass frames are usually six feet long by three feet wide. You can have any length needed to supply your requirements. "Tomato Culture," by A. J. Root, tells us that the cheapest plan is to get some old planks, broken brickbats or stone, and piece together a box-like affair in proper shape: to provide drainage, the front should be at least ten inches above the ground and the rear fourteen inches. A hotbed knocked together in this way is all right to start with, if you cannot do any better, but will last only two or three seasons. For a permanent bed, probably the best way is to make cement walls extending to the bottom of the manure. The bed ought to face south or southeast and be well protected on the north. It should be banked all around with earth or straw to keep out the cold, and mats or shutters should be provided for extra cold weather. The best material for heating the bed and the most easily obtained, is fresh horse manure in which there is a quantity of straw or litter. This will give out a slow, moist heat and will not burn out before the crops or the plants mature. Get all the manure you need at one time. Pile it in a dry place and let it ferment; every few days work the pile over thoroughly with a dung fork; sometimes two turnings of the manure are enough, but it is better to let it stand and heat three or four times.
"You can make a hotbed also on top of the ground without any excavation. Spread a layer of manure evenly one foot in depth and large enough to extend around the frame three feet each way. Pack this down well, especially around the edge, put on a second and third layer until you have a well-trodden and compact bed of manure at least two and one half feet in depth. Place the frame in the center of this bed and press it down well." A two-inch layer of decayed leaves, cut straw, or corn fodder, spread over the manure in the frame and well packed down, will help to retain the heat. Ventilate the bed every day to allow steam and ammonia fumes to pass off.
"The soil inside should be equal parts of garden loam and well-rotted barnyard manure. Tramp well the first layer of three inches. To make it entirely safe for the plant seeds in the hotbed, add another layer of the same depth. Use no water with garden loam and manure if you can possibly help it."
"Before sowing any seeds put a thermometer in the bed three inches deep in the soil. If it runs over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, do not sow. If below 55 degrees it is too cold; you will have to fork it over and add more manure. If the bed gets too hot, you can ventilate it with a sharp stick by thrusting it down into the soil."
Another way that the old gardeners have to make a hot bed is with fire. On a large scale this is cheaper, though more complicated than the fermentation of manure. In making this kind choose your location and build the frames as before. "Cut a trench with a slight taper from the east end of the plot to the end of the hotbed, and on under the ground to about four feet beyond the end of the bed. This taper to the outlet will create a draught and so keep a better fire. Arch this over with vitrified tile. The furnace end where the fire is should be about six feet away from the bed. When the trenches are completed, cover over with the dirt that was taken out of them. Two such trenches under the frames will make a good hotbed. Anyone can do this sort of work."
A hotbed can also be heated by running steam pipes through the ground, but unless you happen to be where exhaust steam could be used, this method is not economical except for big houses. The care and expense of a separate steam plant would be too great to pay, unless for growing winter vegetables for market or flower culture. If you go into that on a scale large enough to pay, new problems at once demand solution.
Vegetables under glass have kept pace with other crops. Within fifteen miles of Boston are millions of square feet of glass devoted to vegetables, chiefly lettuce. There are more than five million feet in the United States used for other crops. Ordinarily, under favorable conditions, glass devoted to this work will yield an average of fifty cents per year per square foot.
About the lowest estimate of cost per sash is five dollars; this amount includes the cost of one fourth of the frame and covers. There are usually four sashes to one frame. A well-made mortised plank frame costs four to six dollars. A sash, unglazed, costs from one to two dollars. Glazing costs seventy-five cents. Mats and shutters cost from fifty cents to two dollars per sash, depending upon the material used. Double thick glass pays better in the end as being less liable to breakage. These prices vary greatly, however.
The following sample estimate by a gardener is for a market garden of one acre, in which it is desired to grow a general line of vegetables. It supposes that half of the acre is to be set with plants from hotbeds.
One eighth acre to early cauliflower and cabbage, about 2000 plants, if transplanted, would require two 6 X 12 frames, from two hundred to two hundred and fifty plants being grown under each sash.
These frames may be used again for tomato plants for the same area, using about 450 plants. This will allow a sash for every 55 plants.
One frame should be in use at the same time for eggplants and peppers, two sashes of each, growing fifty transplanted plants under each sash.
Two frames will be required for cucumbers, melons, and early squashes; for extra early lettuce, an estimate of sixty to seventy heads should be made to a sash. It is assumed that celery and late cabbages are to be started in seed beds in the open.
In the fashionable suburbs of Boston "one hotbed 3 X 6 feet was used in which to start the seeds of early vegetables. Plantings were made in the open ground as soon as the weather permitted, and were continued at intervals throughout the season whenever there was a vacant spot in the garden. The following varieties of vegetables, mostly five-and ten-cent packets, were planted: Pole and wax beans, beets, kale, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, corn, cucumbers, corn salad, endive, eggplant, kohlrabi, lettuce, muskmelon, onions, peppers, peas, salsify, radish, spinach, squash, tomatoes, turnips, rutabagas, escarole, chives, shallot, parsley, sweet and Irish potatoes, and nearly a dozen different kinds of sweet herbs."
"In the larger garden, tomatoes followed peas, turnips the wax beans, early lettuce for fall use took the place of Refugee beans. Corn salad succeeded lettuce."
"The spinach was followed by cabbage, while turnips, beets, carrots, celery, and spinach gave a second crop in the plot occupied by Gardus peas and Emperor William beans."
"Winter radishes came after telephone peas, Paris Golden celery was planted in between the hills of Stowell's blanching. The plot of early corn was sown to turnips. The hotbed was used during the late fall and winter to store some of the hardy vegetables, and the latter part of October there was placed in it some endive, escarole, celeriac, and the remaining space was filled up by transplanting leeks, chives, and parsley." (Bailey, "Principles of Vegetable Gardening," page 38.)
"If spinach is grown in frames, the sash used for one of the late crops above may be used through the following winter.
"This, like the last case, makes a total of five frames, the cost, depending on make and material, from one to five dollars; twenty sash and covers, at, say, $2.75, $55; manure at market price, calculating at least three or four loads per frame. This is a liberal estimate of space, and should allow for all ordinary loss of plants, and for discarding the weak and inferior ones. It supposes that most or all of the plants are to be transplanted once or more in the frames. Many gardeners have less equipment of glass." (Same, pages 49-50 )
Growing vegetables under glass gives smaller returns than flowers; as, for instance, a head of lettuce brings much less than a plant of carnations, and suffers more from the competition of southern crops. Nevertheless, the greenhouse-grown vegetables have come into prominence lately because they can be raised in houses that are not good enough for flowers. Lettuce and tomatoes are the principal crops; some growers raise thousands of dollars' worth each year. The greenhouse is also used for forcing plants which are afterwards transplanted to the open air. This develops them at a time when they could not grow outdoors and gives them such a start that they are very early on the market, thereby realizing the highest prices.
"Nearness to market is the most important feature in a greenhouse. In large cities, manure, which is the chief fertilizer, can be had in most cases for the hauling. The short haul is an important item, and, most important of all, the gardener who is near the market can take advantage of high prices, if the grower is near enough to the city to make two or three trips; in such a fluctuating market as New York, it is to his advantage."
Some kind of a greenhouse is necessary, but one large enough to produce a living would cost a very large sum. Vegetable raising under glass has been made profitable in special localities where nearly the whole community gives its time to building up the industry, but complete success can be attained only by having absolute control of all the conditions entering into production, and giving assiduous and undivided attention to detail.
Leonard Barron, in theGarden Magazine,says: "The best type of greenhouse for all-round purposes is unquestionably what is known as the even span—that is, a house in which the roof is in the form of an inverted V, so as to be exposed as much as possible to sunlight, and having the ridge-pole in the center. All other types of houses are modifications from the simplest form, and are designed in some way or other to fit some special requirements. These requirements may be: the cultural necessities for some particular crop; a desire to have the atmospheric conditions inside more or less abnormal at given seasons (as in a forcing house); or an adaptation to some peculiarity of the situation, as when a greenhouse is built as an adjunct to other buildings."
"It is plain common sense that the ideal greenhouse is one in which the light is most nearly that which exists outside, and in which the heat is as evenly distributed. It is practical experience that a structure with as few angles and turns m it as possible and with a minimum of woodwork in its superstructure, best answers these conditions.... Greenhouse building has developed into a special industry, and the modern American greenhouse is the highest type of construction. It is built with as careful calculation to its situation and its requirements as is the country dwellinghouse. Such a thing naturally is not cheap."
"The low-priced 'cheap greenhouse' is a makeshift of some sort. Perhaps its roof is constructed of hotbed sash, a perfectly feasible method of construction, which for ordinary, commonplace gardening will answer admirably. Or, its foundation is merely the plain earth. Such a building does admirably in the summer time, and even in the late spring and early autumn; but woe betide the enthusiastic amateur in winter, who, being possessed of one of these light greenhouse structures, has indulged in a few costly, exotic plants. They will be frozen, to a certainty! It is economy to pay a fair price in the beginning to secure a properly built greenhouse that will withstand the trials of winter."
"If iron frame is used instead of wood there is greater durability, and the structure being more slender, will admit more light, but the cost will be increased."
"It makes very little difference in cost what shape of house is to be erected. The cost per lineal foot for an even span is practically the same as for a lean-to of the same length and width. In the lean-to, in order to get the sufficient bench and walk space inside, it is necessary to carry the roof to a point much higher than in the even span. The extra framework and material for the roof cost a good deal, yet add practically nothing to the efficiency of the house."
"Heating of greenhouses is best done by hot water, and in a small house the pipes may well be connected with the heating system used for the dwelling, if the greenhouse and the home are within any sort of reasonable distance from each other. For large houses, or ranges of several houses together, the independent heating plant is necessary. Steam is used for heating by commercial florists, but it is economical only on a large scale."
"As a uniform temperature must be maintained in the house, the fires, where steam is used, need watching continuously during cold weather, for the moment the water ceases to boil, the pipes cool off and a considerable time is consumed in starting the heat running again. With hot water there is much more latitude in attention, for though the fires dwindle' the water which fills the pipes will carry heat for a long time, and it will circulate until the last degree is radiated. But a hot-water system costs in the installation about one fourth more than steam. Very small houses may be successfully heated by kerosene stoves, which may be placed inside the house. A much better way would be to use oil heaters for an inside water circulation, carrying off all products of combustion by means of a flue. Coal stoves should never be installed inside the house. It has been done successfully by some amateurs, but the danger of coal gas being driven back into the house by a down draft in the chimney is too great a risk. Coal gas and illuminating gas are two virulent poisons to plants."
It is obvious that the amateur must proceed with great caution in undertaking intensive cultivation under glass. Build at first the simplest and least expensive kind of hotbeds or greenhouses. It takes three to five seasons to train even an experienced farmer along these special lines. Separate crops require special treatment. Do not experiment, but follow well-tried procedure. It is comparatively easy to farm an acre under glass, but it should be worked up to, each step being taken only after a solid foundation is ready to build on. Learn by your mistakes. Don't get discouraged by failure. By not making the same mistake twice, you will soon learn by experience just what is essential to production. The more you learn about the way nature does things, the more likely you will be to succeed when you seek to imitate her.