THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES TRUCK-FARMING SOUTH. A Guide to the Raising of Vegetables for Northern Markets. BY DR. A. OEMLER, PRESIDENT OT THE CHATHAM CO., GEORGIA, FKUIT AND VEGBTABLK 6KOWEBS ASSOCIATION. NEW AND REVISED EDITION. ILLUSTRATED. NEW YORK: ORANGE JUDD COMPANY, 62 & 54 LAFAYETTE PLACE. 1912 Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1888, by toe O. JUJ>D CO., lu the Office of the Librarian oi Congress, at Washington. PRINTED ly U. S. A, ant CONTENTS. PAGK Preface 5 CHAPTER I. Labor 7 CHAPTER II. Soil and its Preparation 10 CHAPTMR III. Manures, their Kinds and Uses . 15 CHAPTER IV. The Rotation of Crops 54 CHAPTER V. Weeds 59 CHAPTER VI. Seed and Seed Sowing 62 CHAPTER VII. Hot-Beds, Cold Frames and Weather 71 CHAPTER VIII. Transplanting 82 CHAPTER IX. Water and Watering 87 CHAPTER X. Packing and Markets 90 CHAPTER XI. Insects and their Remedies 96 CHAPTER XII. Asparagus 119 CHAPTER XIII. Beans, Bush or Snap 130 CHAPTER XIV. Beet 134 CHAPTER XV. Cabbage 137 (3) 550481 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVI. Cauliflower CHAPTER XVII. Cucumber 169 CHAPTER XVIII. Egg Plant or Guinea Squash 175 CHAPTER XIX. Kale, Borecole or Sprouts 178 CHAPTER XX. Lettuce 180 CHAPTER XXI. Onions 181 CHAPTER XXII. Pea 191 CHAPTER XXIII. Potato 195 CHAPTER XXIV. Radish 207 CHAPTER XXV. Spinach . . 208 CHAPTER XXVI. Squash 209 CHAPTER XXVII. Sweet Potato 213 CHAPTER XXVIII. Tomato 220 CHAPTER XXIX. Watermelon , 229 CHAPTER XXX. Strawberry 236 APPENDIX. Analyses and Values of Fertilizers 252 Economy in Fertilization 257 Formula for Composts 259 Useful Tables 263 PREFACE. THIS work is written in the hope that it may be useful to my fellow farmers who are engaged in growing vege- tables for the Northern markets. The instructions giv- en, and facts presented, are mainly such as are not to be found in the few works extant on Southern gardening, and are those resulting from a long experience. When I commenced to produce vegetables for shipment, about twenty-six years ago, there were few or none following the pursuit as an exclusive business on a large scale. The consignments at that time consisted mainly of the mere surplus crops of the local market gardeners. The business has gradually developed to astonishing propor- tions, principally in the vicinity of the larger seaport cities of the South. One of the results has been that land within three miles of Savannah, for instance, has risen in value one hundred and fifty per cent, within the last twelve years. While the crops of the whole area tributary to Savannah, were by no means satisfactory during the past season, the aggregate quantity of pro- duce was large. The following statement shows the pro- duce forwarded to the Northern markets direct from the port of Savannah by the steamships alone. EXPOBTS (BY STEAMERS) OF VEGETABLES (AND ORANGES FROM FLORIDA), FOR THE SEASON ENDING AUGUST 31st, 1882. POBT. TBGKT Crates. ABLE9. Barrels. OBAl Boxes. roxs. Barrels. TOTAL OF PACKAGES. New York 105,739 50,787 24,472 4,132 27,572 12,696 7,956 630 69,379 2,723 13,033 9,837 2,519 907 445 174 205,209 67,113 45,906 14,773 Philadelphia Boston 185,130 48,854 94,972 4,045 333,001 The season's shipment of melons to New York aggre- gated 175,000. (5) 6 PREFACE. Of course, failures will occur in this, as in every other pursuit; but where favorable conditions of soil, situation, etc., exist, sober, economical, industrious, and intelligent farmers who attend closely to their business, can make this a most profitable branch of agriculture. As an in- stance of successful truck-farming, I may cite a case within my knowledge. Among the prosperous gardeners near Savannah, are three brothers, plain farmers from Effingham County, Georgia. They were without any special advantages as educated horticulturists, but under favorable contingencies, and possessing in themselves the above named desirable characteristics, they commenced to farm on their own account seven years ago. They had a borrowed capital of one thousand dollars wherewith to operate their first small crop, and make a payment on ac- count of their purchase of land. They were not only able to pay for the land in full, from the proceeds of their crops, but have acquired in the aggregate two hundred and seventy-five acres, making at various intervals cash pay- ments ranging from one thousand five hundred dollars to nine thousand one hundred dollars. Besides this, they have expended various amounts in buildings, and other improvements, and have cash on hand and a bank account. One of the brothers has also invested in railroad stock, and the elder of them has lately purchased a house and lot in town, for four thousand five hundred dollars, while there is not a mortgage, or lien, of any kind, on any of the property of the brothers. A. 0. TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH, CHAPTER I. LABOR. Owing to the perishable nature of the products, the areas at the South devoted to truck-farming must remain confined to certain limits. These will be near the larger cities and along the routes of railroads, by which products can be safely and expeditiously dispatched to market. Although truck-farming can employ but a\comparatively small proportion of the labor of the South, it must be followed according to the same principles and system that govern general agriculture. The negro must be accepted as the only practical solution of the labor question, and, notwithstanding his instability, he is the best for many reasons. It would be impolitic, even were it possible, to trust to more intelligent and energetic laborers from abroad, and mix the two races as field laborers. No dependence could be placed upon retaining the foreign help, as his greater energy and a praiseworthy desire for self-elevation would soon prompt the emigrant, or white laborer, to change his status and better his condition. Accepting the negro as the God-given instrument for the development of the agricultural resources of the South, while profiting by his general wastefulness and improvidence for his own good and our own, it should be the constant aim of every employer, who has the wel- fare of southern agriculture at heart, to elevate the labor- er. The employer can, by strict justice, fairness and 8 TRtfCK-FARMISTG AT THE SOUTH. even kindness, render him satisfied with his lot, to the end, that, instead of being an irritating element of the body politic, he may become a contented and useful mem- ber thereof. Exceptional instances of self-elevation and independence should be correctly appreciated and encour- aged as a spur to others. The death of slavery was, so to speak, the birth of truck-farming on an extensive scale in the South- Atlantic and Gulf States; indeed it would otherwise have been im- possible. I was probably the largest slave-owner, engaged in vegetable culture, in this section; but of forty- five grown negroes, twenty-six only were available as field laborers, the others being mechanics, house-servants, etc. ; and at no time could I have controlled more than that number of hands, and few, or none, could have been hired. At the present time there are in the vicinity of Savannah many truck-farmers who employ one hundred to two hundred laborers during the picking season. Ex-Governor Hammond's prediction : that the negro, in case of emancipation would "seek the towns, and rap- idly accumulate in groups upon their outskirts," has cer- tainly been verified. It is the better class of this popula- tion, those who are willing to do some work, which sup- plies the truck-farmer with sufficient labor during the pressing season of gathering his crops. The table below gives the usual average rate of wages, without board, paid by truck-farmers in the vicinity of Savannah. Formen 60 c. 12i-15c 20 c. $1.00 $0.75 lie. For women 50 c. 12i-15c 20 c [ He. 1 c. Ic. Three baskets fill four crates. "When boys and girls are hired the pay is at half rate per day. A few of the most efficient and trustworthy hands, who are particularly useful during the marketing season, and receive an increased pay, are selected to care for stock. Some farmers pay selected hands five cents per basket and one cent per crate additional for packing cucumbers and tomatoes; while others use the gang of day laborers for the purpose, depending upon their per- sonal supervision to prevent injudicious gathering. Foi cutting hay with scythes, men aro allowed one-third the cured hay, to be bought (at option of the hand or not, as may be agreed upon), by the employer at four dollars per rack-load of about eight hundred pounds. The hours of labor are from sunrise to sunset, with variable allowances for meals during the different seasons of the year. During the shipping season there is no fixed time for breaking off work; but extra pay is generally allowed in case of much night work. If the hands are made to bestir themselves properly during their work, it is not unreasonable they should ex- pect that the employer will not delay, or hesitate, in delivering compensation. Apart from considerations of justice, it is considered his policy to pay promptly after breaking off work on Saturday and before the stores are closed. Hands of the better order, and these are to be encouraged, may be depended upon to present themselves on Monday morning, whether in funds or not; but by far the greater majority will require time on Monday to get rid of their money, if they have had no opportunity of so doing Saturday evening and night, and will be ab- sent at roll-call. According to the report of the Agricultural Depart- ment of 1879, the latest authority at command, the average rate of wages paid, without board, in the interior of Georgia, was ten dollars and seventy-three cents per month. 10 fBUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. CHAPTER II. SOIL AND ITS PREPARATION. The requisites the truck-farmer must have in view in selecting a location, are cheap, safe, and expeditious transportation of produce to market, convenience for procuring manure, a soil adapted to the crops he wishes to grow, and sanitary surroundings. Other conditions being the same, water carriage is preferable to that by wagon. If in the selection of the land, one is confined to a single soil, he should select one consisting of a mix- ture of organic and inorganic matter; a light, deep, sandy loam, with plenty of humus, or vegetable matter. Ex- perience has shown that, without this, crops will not yield as well in proportion to the quantity of manure applied. Locations in the immediate vicinity of the larger coast cities, offering the best facilities in the way of transportation and manure, are in the possession of market gardeners, and such lands are generally highly fertile. The truck-farmer requiring a larger area is com- pelled to locate several miles beyond the corporate limits, on the line of a railroad, or on the banks of a navigable stream. The farm will often be one, the fertility of which has been shipped off to Europe, or the North, in the shape of cotton, by some planter, whose measure of suc- cess was gauged by the rapidity with which he could ex- haust his soil. The renovation of the land will be the first desideratum. To that end, and the consequent pro- duction of remunerative crops, the plowing under of green manures, the application of fertilizers, proper preparation, careful tillage, and deep plowing, will be necessary. With every additional inch of depth in plowing in the first eighteen inches of the surface, the farmer gains six million two hundred and seventy- SOIL AHb ITS PREPARATION. 11 two thousand six hundred and forty cubic inches per acre of available soil, with its mineral ingredients, and constantly increasing capacity of gathering, retaining, and supplying plant food. The conditions of quality of soil and climate being the same, the productiveness of soils must be in proportion to its mass. Sir J. B. Lawes found five thousand seven hundred pounds of nitrogen per acre in the first nine inches of his soil. The Russian black lands, which are held to be the richest in the world, have, according to Prof. Schmidt, within three feet of the surface, from forty thousand to forty-four thousand pounds of nitrogen. Several analyses of Boussingault showed from twenty-five thousand to thirty-two thousand pounds per acre beneath the surface, and a soil analyzed by Prof. Voalcker, in 1868, showed eight thousand four hundred and twenty-five pounds per acre. The practice of deep plowing will depend upon circumstances; a good, though shallow mould, or other soil, resting upon a sticky, clay subsoil, would not be benefited by being at once broken up deeply, bringing large, hard lumps of unfertile clay to the surface, and deteriorating the physical quality of the top-soil. DRAINAGE. Drainage, more especially underdrainage, renders a clay subsoil, when moved by the plow, more suscepti- ble to pulverization, and in such case a thorough drainage would have to precede deep plowing. Under- drainage prevents the drowning out of crops after heavy rainfalls. It increases the fertility and pulverization of the soil by admitting air. It keeps the ground moister in a dry season. It prevents the washing away of the soil and its fertilizing materials. It permits the farmer to work his land sooner after heavy rain, and earlier in the spring, and it prevents the land from becoming sour 12 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. in wet seasons. The total absence of water would be de- structive to vegetation, for it is itself necessary to plant life; but undrained land is not merely wet, it becomes water-logged, and through absence of air, the plants are drowned out. When, however, water passes through, and away from the laud, air takes its place, and also passes through the drains, and finds its way into the overlying soil, increasing its fertility and pulverizing it. The rea- son why drained laud gains heat, and the temperature of water-logged land decreases, is the lack of heat-conducting power in water, or the fact that air can not be transmitted downwards through water. When land is saturated with water, the heat is expended in evaporating the moisture, instead of warming the land, and during this evapora- tion the temperature is reduced. Undrained land be- comes sour in wet weather, and the formation of sub- stances injurious to vegetation is encouraged. The ab- sorbing power of soil is so great that ammonia and other fertilizing agents of water and air are arrested in their passage through it, thus enriching the soil; while the water on undrained land washes over the surface, carry- ing off into the water courses the fertility that might be saved. In undrained land, the passage of moisture, en- couraged by evaporation from the surface, is upwards, whereas in drained land, the current is downwards to the level of the drains, supplying the roots with aerated moisture in condition to be taken up by them. An excess of water in the soil produces such a saturated state of the atmosphere, as to prevent a healthy perspira- tory action of the leaves of plants growing upon it, and growth is retarded. PREPARING THE SOIL. Efficient drainage being provided, the land should be broken up and pulverized as deeply as possible. A mass SOIL AND ITS PREPARATION. 13 of sticky clay will absorb a slight amount of moisture, but when it is reduced to a powdered condition, its ab- sorbing power will be very much increased. One hundred grains of fine clay left for twelve hours in contact with a solution of caustic potash, the latter not filtered through it, absorbed one thousand and fifty grains of potash. Soils have the power of separating ammonia, and other bases from their solutions, and of separating alkaline bases from the acids with which they were combined. Soils possessing the greatest amount of capillary poros- ity, most friable and mellow, or, in other words, such as are in the best agricultural condition, Avill condense the greatest amount of fertilizing material; and the more they are pulverized, the better will they resist the leach- ing action of water. Soil in an improper physical con- dition may hold fertilizing materials in sufficient quanti- ties for a full crop. It will, however, yield only a small percentage to the vegetation upon it, until it is made friable, and so becomes conducive to growth. Carbonic acid is one of the chief agents in this process; and in order that this acid may be formed, the carbonaceous matter in the soil must be brought in direct contact with the atmosphere. As long as the soil is in a compact con- dition, or is saturated with water, carbonic acid is not formed. During the recent severe drouths it has been observed that crops growing on deeply-plowed land have suffered the least, for the reason that the greater the mass of fine soil, the greater must have been the amount of moisture absorbed. Heat is evolved during the de- composition of vegetable matter; and the darker the soil is from decomposing vegetable matter, the warmer will it become. The warmth of light-colored sands is attribut- able to their conductive power. Half the crop depends sometimes upon the previous preparation of the land. Owing to the absence of a covering of snow and of suc- cessive freezings and thawings, fall plowing, so useful at 14 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. the North, is destructive of fertility at the South and is not advisable. CULTIVATION". The land having been properly prepared by plow- ing, and sufficiently manured, and the crop planted with regard to the capacity of the soil, the most im- portant matter to the farmer is, thorough culture, or keeping the earth fine and mellow among the plants. Stirring the soil can scarcely be repeated too often during the earlier periods of growth, or until there is danger of injury to the roots or to the tops of growing plants by the cultivator. The ground may be too wet, but never too dry, for stirring; because the more frequently it is broken up, fined and aerated, the more moisture will the soil absorb from the atmosphere. This is an operation that should be performed after every rain, sufficient to cause incrustation or baking, which would prevent a free admission of air into the soil. The most obvious benefit of stirring the soil is, the destruction of weeds; for no crop can become remunerative, if crowded by weeds which deprive it of air, light, moisture, and even a part of the fertility of the soil. A war of extermination should be waged against weeds, although at times they become a necessary evil to the farmer who only cultivates the soil between the rows. Breaking the lumps gives free scope to the finer roots to secure all the available nutriment within the extent of their ramifications, as these finer roots are not capable of penetrating large clods, and thus may be debarred from reaching a large part of the food contained in the soil. Thorough and frequent culture of the soil admits air to the rootlets of the growing plant; it increases the capillary attraction of the soil, by which its humidity is rendered more uni- form; by presenting a larger number of points of radia- MANURES, THEIR KINDS AND USES. 15 tion, the deposit of dew, so beneficial in dry weather, is augmented; the temperature of the soil is increased by the freer admission of warm rain and air, and by the chemical processes thereby facilitated; and finally the fertility of the soil is augmented through the ammonia, nitric acid, etc., which are introduced with the air. The plow, horse-hoe, and cultivator are to be used, whenever available; but the hand-hoe must always be relied on for the finer and more careful work, when, particularly in the later stages of the crop, only superficial stirring is advisable. When plants are grown in a crowded state, darkness and want of air elongate the stems and leaves, at the expense of the roots and of a general healthy con- dition. The operations of thinning and hand-weeding are performed in connection with hoeing, to admit a free circulation of air around the remaining plants, and the sun is permitted to have an immediate influence upon each, developing the desired form, bulk, and other qualities. CHAPTER III. MANURES, THEIR KINDS AND USES. Almost any soil may be so altered in its character by judicious and plentiful manuring, as to be made fertile enough to produce good and remunerative crops. Manure is the most indispensable factor for success in market- gardening, and must be applied in much larger quantities than in any other branch of agriculture. The gardener should never be restricted by a short supply to an inad- equate application of manure, as the superior quality and quantity of his crops will generally justify an apparently lavish use, Knowledge of his soil, the peculiar requisites 16 TRUCK-FAKMING AT THE SOUTH. of his crops, a judicious rotation, and his general ex perience will teach him, where and when he may econ- omize with profit. He must not, however, gorge his land with manure, without rest or rotation, but seek to make it just rich enough to produce the most profitable crops. Should too much manure be applied, which, however, is rarely the case in vegetable culture, there will be loss of the most costly manurial ingredient nitrogen. Location, or want of facilities and means, frequently confines the gardener to forced limits. Those who are neither conveniently located for the purchase of stable manure, nor own sufficient stock to secure from their droppings a sufficiency of barn-yard manure, must have recourse to manurial agents to be named hereafter. Astonishing results are frequently seen in gardens near large cities, from the readiness such localities offer for procuring the best manures. Agriculture being the foundation of the prosperity of every people, and successful agriculture being impossible in the present condition of the earth's surface without fertilizers, it has properly been said, that "manure, even more than money, forms an integral part of a nation's wealth." When civilized nations properly appreciate the value of all manurial substances (as they will when their territory becomes as densely populated as China), none of these, as at present, will be allowed to go to waste, and the productiveness of the earth, and with it the wealth of nations, will be enormously increased. Prog- ress in this direction is being made. Scientific men have pointed out the sanitary and economical necessity of deal- ing properly with excrementitious manurial substances. If, during the past century, the night-soil of many of our cities had been incorporated in the surface soil of the surrounding country, instead of being buried under the houses of their citizens, what would be the fertility MANUBES, THEIB KINDS AND USES. 17 of the soil, and what the probable be nefit to the sanitary condition of the cities? Manures are either organic or inorganic, according as they may owe their composition to the animate or in- animate world, or are derived from vegetable and animal matters of all kinds, or from minerals. Every kind of matter which, when added to the soil, promotes the growth of a plant, whether by being itself directly taken up by its roots, or by chemically altering any heretofore existing constituent of the soil, so that it may be made available, or by physically altering its tex- ture, may be considered a manure or fertilizer. Every plant consists principally of the gaseous elements, ni- trogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, and of carbon in vary- ing proportions, and smaller quantities of alkalies, earths, silica, sulphur, and phosphorus. Chemical analysis has enabled us to learn the exact proportions of the constit- uents of plants, as well as the composition of soils. If chemical forces were the only forces of nature concerned in the growth of plants, then by supplying the soil with exactly the constituents in definite quantities, which chemical analysis has shown it to lack for the full matu- rity of any given agricultural crop, rules and formulas could be devised, so as to insure regularly the maximum yields of all crops. But the changes, not yet fully un- derstood, constantly going on within the soil and upon its surface in contact with the atmosphere; the mutual chemical reactions of the various soils and fertilizing ma- terials, and the vital actions of plants, with their influence upon the soil in which they grow, perhaps even upon the surrounding air, still more inexplicable and wonder- ful, together with the contingencies of weather, render it impossible to formulate any such rules. Exclusive of the crushing effects of glaciers and other agencies, under the gradual influence of water and the atmosphere, the surface of the rocks have become sufficiently pulverized 18 TEUCK-FAEMING AT THE SOUTH. and comminuted to support lichens and other of tl lowest forms of vegetation, which, by their decay ii creased the film of soil. These were followed by plan of a higher organization, successive generations pr paring for those which followed them. Thus organ constituents accumulated, until, in time, every arab soil contained in varying proportions every elemei of plant food. The variations are such, however, that soil in its natural or original condition may be more < less deficient in one or other constituent, and therefoi be better adapted for one crop than another. Findii] from experience or analysis, which of the principal coi stituents is absent in a soil, we may supply it by the a] plication of a special fertilizer for the production of particular crop. Humus, or vegetable matter undergoing decay, whic gives the dark color to fertile soils, disintegrates mine al substances, supplies large quantities of carbonic acic ammonia, and nitrates, and is indispensable to fertilit; and yet the direct absorption of humic matters inl plants is by no means so well established, as not to be mooted question between the best chemical authoritii and vegetable physiologists. Ammonia and nitric acid have been shown to be pres ent in the air; but it is generally held that the soil mui absorb these, or they must be conveyed to it in rain wate: . before they can be generally appropriated by plant; Yet Peters and Sachs proved, experimentally, that a bea plant grew and flourished by direct absorption of an monia through its foliage alone; but they failed wit every plant but the bean, which, like our cow pea, is leguminous plant. Chemical analysis shows that the 1< guminosa3 are richer in nitrogenous matter than any oth< family of plants, and yet we know that our cow pea wi grow on the poorest soil, deriving its nourishment i part from the atmosphere. Ozone, or active oxygen, MANURES, THEIR KINDS AND USES. 19 emitted by plants, and the more abundant the ioliage, the greater the quantity. By the action of this ozone, the nitrogen of the air may be converted into nitric acid. Perhaps the cow pea, the clover, etc., are more active in this respect than any other plants. These preliminary observations bring me to the first and most simple and cheapest manner of conveying fer- tility to the soil. GREEN MANURING. As soon as life is extinct, all organic substances begin to decay, and the richer these substances are in albuminoids, or such as contain nitrogen, the better are they adapted for fertilizing, and the more rapid will be the process of de- cay. Under like circumstances, albuminoids of animal origin will decompose more rapidly than those of vege- table origin. All green succulent plants containing saccharine and mucilaginous matters and woody fibre, fer- ment readily, hence the advantage of plowing in green crops, whether of natural growth, or sown for the pur- pose. No plant is better adapted to be used at the South for restoring fertility by green manuring than our cow pea. The analyses here given show it to be rich in albuminoids; it makes in our climate a heavier growth than clover in any part of the world, and grows on soil much too poor for a fair crop of the latter, answering thus both the demands of quality and quantity. When plants are in flower, they contain the largest quantity of soluble matter; it is, therefore, when plowed under at this season, under ordinary circumstances, that they will afford the greatest amount of soluble nutritive matter. In heavy, impervious soils, especially, they should not be turned under too deeply, or else the absence of air will retard decomposition. No applications of commercial fertilizers will continuously prove beneficial without the presence, in the soil, of decaying vegetable matter, or hu- TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. mus, and green manuring is the most efficacious and cheapest manner of supplying the land with large quan- tities of this necessary ingredient. It should be practised by gardeners, irrespective of the supply of stable manure they may be able to command. But for those located at a distance from cities, and there- fore not able to secure a sufficiency of barn-yard manure, green manuring becomes an absolute necessity. It has been estimated that after the removal of a crop of clover and other plants, there remained in the soil, as shown in the following tables, a large amount of roots: TABLE SHOWING THE QUANTITY OF BOOTS LEFT IN THE GROUND AFTER HARVESTING THE CHOPS ALSO THE AMOUNT OF NITROGEN AND ASH. |i 1 ^1 9,678.1 8,921.6 5.264.6 5,004.3 3,331.9 3,520.9 3,476 3,222.5 3,120.1 1,991.4 136.4 191.6 65.3 102.3 26.6 62.2 23.5 55.6 64.8 22.8 1,201.6 1,919.9 1,747.8 974.6 1,444.7 550 1,089.8 670.7 545.6 391.1 Rye Swedish clover Oats Lupine Wheat Serradella Barley ANALYSIS OF THE ASH OF THE ROOTS IN THE FOREGOING TABLE. I S3 1- | 1 $ I 197 7 24 2 36 7 26 4 18 7 38 5 Red clover 262.9 48.4 58 3 20 26 1 74 8 Rye 73 2 14 3 31 2 43 3 11 8 24 4 Swedish clover Oats 136.1 85 5 17.6 11 2 25.9 24 8 5.7 18 13.2 8 8 24.2 29 80 5 11 2 16 5 3 5 7 13 8 Wheat English peas Serradella. Parley 76.7 71.7 79.8 42.2 10.1 11 13.4 5.5 28.4 11.2 8.8 9.5 11 7 4.8 3.5 7.4 9.4 9 5.5 11.8 14.3 18.4 11. 3 MANURES, THEIR KINDS AND USES. 21 It will be seen by these two tables that the leguminous plants are especially rich in the three most important items: nitrogen, potash, and phosphoric acid. These roots bring up from the subsoil plant food, and in decaying, tend to deepen the soil along their course. A crop of cow peas would probably have nearly as great a weight of roots as clover, and in the neighborhood of twenty tons of tops. The latter alone would contain one hundred and sixteen pounds of nitrogen, principally obtained from the atmosphere; or as much as is contained in twelve and nine-tenths tons of barn-yard manure, and directly applied to the soil. Seven pecks to two bushels of peas would cost from two dollars to three dollars, and the barn-yard manure, if at all attainable, nineteen dollars and thirty-five cents, applied to the land at one dollar and fifty cents per ton. ANALYSIS OF GREEN COW PEA VINES. This and the following two analyses were made by Prof. A. E. Le Doux, chemist to the State Board of Agriculture, of North Carolina. Water 72.87 per cent. Ash 2.00 " Albuminoids 1.85 " containing ammonia. 0.35 ; nitrogen, 0.28 Cellulose 15.27 " Fat 0.21 " Carbohydrates.. 7.86 " ANALYSIS OF THE ASH OF COW PEA VINES. Ash 2.00 percent Potash 14.80 " Soda 23.29 " Magnesia 6.74 " Lime 22.57 " Phosphoric acid 9.28 " Sulphuric acid 2.35 " Silica 1.08 Chlorine 0.19 " Oxide of iron a trace " Carbonic acid 19.70 * 22 TBUCK-FARMING AT THE SOtlTfl. By reducing the analyses to weights and measures it is found that ONE TON OF FBESH COW PEA VINES CONTACT Water 1456.20 Ibs. Potash 5.92 " Boda 9.32 " Magnesia 2.70 " Lime 9.02 " Phosphoric acid 3.72 " Sulphuric acid 0.94 " Silica 0.42 " Chlorine 0.08 " Carbonic acid 7.88 " Albuminoids 37.00 " containing ammonia, 7.12 Ibi. Cellulose 305.40 " Fat 4.20 " Carbohydrates 156.20 " 2000.00 Ibs. Boussingault found that snow, which had lain for thirty-six hours on the soil of a garden, contained ten times as much ammonia as the snow of the same fall from a contiguous stone terrace immediately after falling, the mulch of snow having interrupted the ammoniacal emanations from the soil. The ammonia of the soil is constantly undergoing change, and fluctuating in quantity. This most important article of plant food, and most ex- pensive, when applied artificially, is most abundantly ab- sorbed by the soil in summer from the atmosphere, and being conveyed to it by rains and dews, and continually being taken up by vegetation, it is volatilized, evaporated with water, washed away and lost. Later and more exact chemical experiments have shown that the soil contains less ready-formed ammonia than was formerly held to be the Case. Ammonia in dry toil. Very light sandy soil from birch forest 0.00077 per cent. Rich lime soil from beech forest 0.00087 " " Sandy loam, forest soil 0.00012 " " Forest soil 0.00080 " " Meadow soil, red sandy loam 0.00027 " " Average 0.00056 " " It should be remembered that ammonia is only half as heavy as air. MANURES, THEIK KINDS AND USES. 23 Kich alluvial soils with decaying vegetable matter con- tain ten times as much, and fertilized field soils still more. Ammonia is only found in the surface soil, and generally at a depth of six feet there is no trace of it. Sir J. B. Lawes found that in one year the drain water took nitrogen from a field bare of vegetation at the rate of forty pounds per acre; from a field of wheat, which after the harvest contained no weeds, twenty-five pounds, and from a field upon which grass seed had been sown with the wheat, and continued to grow on the stub- ble field, only five pounds. POUNDS OF NITROGEN WASHED AWAY PEB ACRE. From soil without vegetation 40 pounds. From soil with wheat, 15 pounds retained by crop. .. 25 " From soil and grasses, 15 pounds retained by wheat. 35 pounds retained by grasses 5 " He found that the drain water was much richer in am- monia than the rain water which fell upon the field. He also found another fact of importance to our subject of green-manuring, that the drain water carried away more ammonia in the fall than in any other part of the year. It is therefore exactly at this season that the soil of the truck-farmer should be covered by a dense growth of vines. It has been shown that even a perfectly inert body, like a board, lying upon the surface will improve the fertility of the soil, by preventing evaporation. Now the mulch of pea vines acts like the covering of snow. It shades the soil from the rays of the sun, by which the volatile elements of fertility are exhausted with the vaporized water; it keeps the soil moist, mellow, and of even temperature; and as a secondary matter prevents the growth of troublesome weeds. The friable, unbaked condition of the surface, as has been before stated, is an element of fertility, by facilitating the absorption of fer- tilizing gases from the atmosphere. Under this dense covering, so retentive pf moisture, the carbonic acid dis- integrates particles of the soil and prepares it for plant 4 TRUCK-FABMIXG AT THE food; while in the darkness and under the shelter from winds, nitrates are formed and absorbed. It will be seen that the increase of fertility is greater than could be ex- pected from all the manurial agents in the pea vines. Clay soils, being more retentive of moisture and pos- sessed of greater power of absorption, are less benefited by the mulch than those of a sandy character. Like the questions of deep and shallow plowing and deep and surface manuring, that of plowing under the green vines, or allowing them to dry and partly rot upon the surface, will depend upon circumstances. They will contain and convey to the soil in the green state a greater quantity of fertilizing material and will decompose more rapidly. If intended to benefit a crop to be put in soon after they have reached a proper stage of growth, they must, of course, be plowed under green. Four weeks should elapse between turning under the vines and sow- ing or planting the crop, in order to allow a sufficient time for the most active decomposition to have passed, lest the heat evolved by the great mass of decaying green vegetable matter might be detrimental. For a spring crop, however, the vines should be left to die, and mulch the soil throughout the winter, unless indeed a second green crop, as of rye, is contemplated; because a bare fallow would be wasteful of the fertility supplied by the pea vines. It is an error that the bare soil deteriorates dur- ing summer only, for it is a common experience that a field of light soil, left bare after a late crop of sweet potatoes, shows a want of fertility the ensuing spring. Two crops of pea vines may be grown in a season; but after an interval of three or four weeks. To turn under a heavy growth properly, it must first be pressed down by a field roller or by dragging over it a heavy harrow with the teeth turned up; and it requires a good two-horse plow with a large sharp revolving coulter attached. To draw the vines into the furrows, a heavy chain with suf- MANURES, THEIR KINDS AND USES. 25 ficient slack should be attached to the whiffletree and plow-beam. Capt. J. W. Me Alpine has devised an iron hook "horn," which is attached to the plow-beam, as in figure Fig. 1. IBON HOOK OK "HORN" ATTACHED TO PLOW. 1. It works just in advance of the plow point; and on the surface its curvature corresponds to that of the mould- board, and draws the vines into the furrow. The same person has also invented a roller, which has a set of five projecting knives, with which to cut the vines when the growth is very luxuriant. By driving twice over the field at right angles the vines are cut in ten-inch lengths, and can be turned under effectively. The roller is fixed to shafts or a tongue, and as it is too light, a weighted Fig. 2. BOLLER FOB CUTTING COW PEA VINES. box is attached above the axle. The roller, figure 2, is fourteen inches in diameter, the knives five inches wide and ten inches apart. As neither of these inventions is patented, any one can use them. STABLE MANURE. Stable manure is a complete fertilizer, and is of all the most to be relied upon by the market-gardener, as it 2 26 TStJCK-tfARttlNG AT THE SOUTH. contains all the elements of fertility in available con- dition. No other is so well adapted to alter the physical condition of heavy soils, nor, when well rotted, better suits those of a sandy nature; nor is any other more apt to render the constituents of the soil available as plant food. Gardeners in the vicinity of cities may procure a sufficient supply and require no other manure, unless for a special purpose they desire to supplement it with a commercial fertilizer more rich in nitrogenous matter, such as Peruvian guano, fish scrap, etc. Those who are not so fortunately situated must utilize their smaller stock, by letting it form the basis of compost heaps to bring about and sustain the fermentation so necessary to break down the crude vegetable materials of which such heaps partly consist. Manures, to be promptly effica- cious, should be in a state of at least partial decompo- sition, so that the elements of which they consist may be in a fit state to form new combinations, or act at once as plant food. To bring about this condition without waste of material and expense of time and labor, is one of the problems of the horticulturist. Once placed within reach of the absorptive power of the soil, there is no fur- ther loss by evaporation. If the manure pile could be merely kept sufficiently moist by rains, to prevent a too rapid fermentation, it might be advisable not to keep it under cover; but the rains in our climate are too often heavy enough to leach out valuable soluble parts of the largest heaps. The difference in the composition of cov- ered and uncovered barn-yard manure is here shown. Barn-yard manure. Nitrogen equal to ammonia, per cent Organic matter soluble in water. Covered. 2.37 642 Uncovered. 1.7 1 82 Phosphoric acid 0.30 026 Alkalies 2.00 0.80 Exposed to the weather, piled, turned and handled, without proper judgment and close attention, there is MANURES, THEIR KINDS AND USES. danger of loss, besides the expense of time and labor. The general agriculturist, particularly on heavy soils, whose crops are of slower growth, may apply manure green or fresh from the stables, when its effects are often so permanent as to be perceptible for many years ; but the market-gardener's aim is to produce early crops of veg- etables, and his manures must be in a readily available condition. He wants no permanent manures. Perma- nence and insolubility are, in this case, synonymous. Luxuriant growth is an indication of the solubility of his fertilizers. He wants his manure pile to undergo such an amount of slow fermentation, as to break down the coarse fibrous vegetable matter it contains, so as to admit its being readily cut with a spade, and thus also to reduce its bulk. COMPOSITION OP FRESH AND DECOMPOSED STABLB MANUBB. Stable Manure. do. do. u ^ uu .^ 71024644.14.55.21.55.71.42.11.212.511.5 moderately rotted. . 750 192 58.0 5.0 6.3 1 .9 7.0 1.8'2.6|1.6J16.8;i .9 thoroughly rotted. .790 145 65.05.85.0 1.3 8. 8 1.8.3. Oil. 3ll7. Oil. 6 If piled so loosely as to admit air freely and be suffi- ciently moist, it will undergo fermentation so rapidly as to heat or firefang, and large quantities of the valuable, volatile carbonate of ammonia will evaporate, and the manure be rendered comparatively valueless. To avoid this too rapid fermentation, the pile may be broken down and turned whenever it begins to heat, until the process ceases to be too active. The escape of ammonia may be checked by mixing land plaster (sulphate of lime) with each load, so as to fix the ammonia as a sul- phate (which is not volatile). The gardener near the 28 TRUCK-FARMIKG At THE SOOTH. city, whose large pile daily receives considerable acces- sions, may resort to packing it so tightly as to limit the access of air, and consequently the rapidity of fermenta- tion, until near planting time, or, if possible and bet- ter still, he may keep it too moist for rapid decay by adding night-soil from the city, which will at the same time improve its quality. Gardeners near cities who accumulate a large stock of. stable manure, do not generally place it under shelter, notwithstanding the accruing loss, but deposit it in suitable quantities for each field in a single pile, upon the headland convenient for use, and compact it by mere- ly driving across the pile at each delivery. Never more than four hundred wagon loads are deposited in a pile. If, when finished, the heaps were covered completely with soil to the thickness of two or three inches, the escaping ammonia would be absorbed and fermentation retarded. It must be borne in mind, that even in winter we must limit the process of fermentation, and not encourage it, as is sometimes necessary in the Northern States; and we must also avoid leaching. The fermentation of stable manure may be retarded by the admixture of substances 'not liable to rapid fer- mentation. The gardener in the country may resort to composting it with muck, woods-earth, or even good garden soil, dry and pulverized salt-mud, or the same material in the shape of a soft mush in order to avoid getting it in the form of large lumps into his manure, and may also use green marsh-grass (Spartina strict a), if he be located on "the salts." Vegetable refuse of every kind, with leaves from the woods, slops from the kitchen and wash-house, with the dung of those domestic animals which does not readily heat, as that of neat cattle and swine, in short, everything available that will supply plant food may be added to the heap. The dung of all kinds of poultry, the urine and night-soil of the farm, MANURES, THEIR RINDS AND USES. 29 scraps of leather and woolen cloth and waste feathers will heat; but they also should go into the compost -heap. In the application of manure, the kind of crop, previ- ous fertility of the soil and the quality of the manure will govern the quantity. The amount and manurial value of the excrement void- ed by an animal depends upon the quality of its feed. The manurial value of hulled cotton-seed meal is more than twelve times that of wheat-straw, three times that of clover-hay, twice that of wheat-bran, ten times that of mangel wurzel, and thirty times that of common turnips. Of all vegetable substances used as cattle feed, hulled cotton-seed meal is the richest in nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, the most essential requisites in the growth of plants, and these will appear again most abun- dantly in the dung. The money value of the manure from different articles of food according to calculations of Sir J. B. Lawes, based upon the value of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash in leading commercial fertil- izers, are: VALUE OF A TON OF MANUBE FROM DIFFKBENT KINDS OF FOOD. Pkr ton. Cotton-seed meal $27.86 Linseed cake 19.73 Beans 15.73 Wheat-bran 14.59 Clover-hay 9.64 Indian meal 6.63 Oat-straw 2.90 Turnips 0.80 Block estimated that a horse fed on one hundred pounds of hay will void one hundred and seventy-two pounds of fresh dung; one hundred pounds of oats gave two hun- dred and four pounds; and one hundred pounds of grass gave forty-three pounds of dung. A horse furnishes, if well fed, about twelve thousand pounds of solid dung and three thousand pounds of urine annually. The ma- nure from the street-car stables in New York was found. 30 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. by Johnson to contain 0.53 per cent, of nitrogen. Reckoning two-thirds of the solid and fluid droppings saved, we have ten thousand pounds, or five tons of manure to each horse, containing fifty-three pounds of nitrogen. In his method of applying his manure the sensible gardener will be governed by the nature of his soil and manure, and by the kind of crop he wishes to grow. Half an inch of rain, although amounting to fourteen thousand gallons, or fifty-six tons to the acre, would not penetrate deeply into a heavy soil, hence in such a soil long, partly unfermented dung would not, if buried deeply, find sufficient moisture and air to support fermen- tation and dissolve out the manure for the benefit of the crop. A sandy soil favors decomposition, being more permeable to air and moisture, and as roots penetrate more deeply in a light soil, unfermented dung might be placed five or six inches deep in such a soil. Upon a dry, hot, light soil, manure of that description would be too heating if near the surface. At the rate of eight tons of manure to the acre, half an inch of rain would furnish nearly a gallon to every pound, and in the case of well-rotted or soluble manure, placed near the surface of either heavy or sandy land, would convey the ingredients of plant food in a dissolved state to the roots of plants. On either heavy or sandy soil, therefore, well-rotted ma- nure should be intimately mixed with the soil to the depth of three or four inches, when applied broadcast, and the nearer the surface, the finer should the soil be pulverized to increase its absorptive power. Unless un- fermented long manure is buried in a light soil, it had better be not incorporated, but applied upon the soil as a mulch. Such manure commingled with a heavy soil would benefit it physically by rendering it more open for admission of air, and the heat evolved would accelerate growth. The observations above apply to land well- MANURES, THEIR KINDS AND USES. 31 drained, especially under-drained. If badly drained and presenting a slope in any direction, the washing surface- water would carry off a large part of the soluble manure from the surface. Manure for close crops, whenever a large supply per- mits, should be applied broadcast, by preference; but generally economy and the desire for a vigorous start will demand its application in the drill. Only in the case of plants standing far apart, as melons, is manuring in the hill practicable, unless only a part of the manure is so applied. The great majority of the roots would soon extend beyond its limits, and the plant would suffer in the later stages of growth. BARN- YARD MANURE. This consists of the mixed droppings of such animals as are allowed to run in an open lot, the surface of which is strewn with more or less of absorbents. It may be re- garded as a combination ol the solid and fluid excrements of the different animals, and is of variable quality, owing to waste by leaching rains. If horses and mules alone are enclosed, its value would be that of an inferior stable manure. Notwithstanding its variable value, it is often used as a standard. COW MANURE. Although the fresh, solid excrement of the horse is richer in ammonia than that of neat cattle, the latter, on the other hand, is not subject to loss by heating. It contains more urea (supplying nitrogen) in the urine, and there is a greater quantity both of solid and liquid excre- ment voided; hence the manure of a cow must be con- sidered more valuable than that of a horse, particularly when the former has had nutritious food. 32 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. A cow, fed upon twenty-four pounds of hay and twelve and a half pounds of Irish potatoes, voided daily about one bushel of solid excrement, containing two and a half pounds of salts of ammonia, potash, soda and lime. The annual product of a cow is thirty-one thousand and twenty-five pounds of dung, of which four thousand eight hundred pounds is organic matter, containing: 189 Ibs. ammonia, 71 Ibs. phosphate of lime, 37 Ibs. sulphate of lime, 77 Ibs. carbonate of lime, 24 Ibs. common salt, 15 Ibs. sulphate potash. The yard manure of a full-grown ox is considered equal to that of a horse and a half, or ten to fifteen sheep. One cord fresh cow dung weighs 9,298 Ibs. One cubic foot of old, well-rotted ox manure weighs. .. 58 " " fresh " " " ... 48 " " " " " well-rotted stable manure " ... 39 " " " fresh " " " ... 30 "* The amount of urine voided annually by a cow is from twelve thousand to fifteen thousand gallons. In every hundred pounds : Of cattle urine are 4.00 Ibs. of urea. " horse urine 0.70 " " " " human urine 2.36 " " " " sheep urine 2'80 " " " " hog urine 5.64 " " "t The composition of urea is, according to Dr. Prout, carbon, 19.99; oxygen, 26.66; hydrogen, 6.66; nitrogen, 46.66. The nitrogen is equal to 56.66 parts of ammonia. Owing to the non-heating character of cow manure, it is well adapted to sandy land; and in consequence of the smaller quantity of vegetable matter to undergo fermen- tation, it has not the physically beneficial effects upon heavy lands, The value of cow-penning land and its permanent effects (sometimes noticeable for twenty or Dana's Muck Manual, t Paua'e Muck Manual. MANURES, THEIR KINDS AND USES. 33 more years) is probably owing to the fact that none of the urine is lost. On light sandy land it is serviceable through the treading and compacting of the soil. The absence of cut-worms on land recently cow-penned is probably attributable to the mulch of dung and the con- sequent absence of vegetation in the late summer, and not to the urine, as is generally supposed. When a gardener owns a number of neat cattle, and is located conveniently on the salt marshes, he can collect a quantity of good manure, particularly well-suited to his sandy land, by penning his stock upon alternate layers of salt-mud and green marsh-grass. ANALYSES OF MARSH-GRASS, OAT-STRAW AND MEADOW HAT. COMPARA- TIVE MONEY VALUE ; HAY BEING ONE DOLLAR FOR TOE SAME WEIGHT : Salt marsh grass 73 . 7 Oat straw 81.7 Meadow hay i 79.5 39.9 47.4 2.2 I 36.7 | 0.8 | 1:176 1.8 ! 37.4 I 0.6 i 1:299 5.4 i 41.1 i 0.9 i 1:79 I 1.00 Barn-yard manure taken as a standard of comparison, the weights opposite the manures below show the num- ber of pounds which would be equal in effect to one hun- dred pounds of the former: Barn-yard manure 100 Solid excrements of the cow 125 Solid Liquid " Liquid " Mixed Mixed " Mixed " Mixed " 73 cow 91 horse 16 cow 98 horse 54 sheep 36 hoff. 64 MANURE OF HOGS. The urine of man and that of the hog contain phos- phates, of which that of th? ox and horse is destitute. 34 TBUCK-F ARMING AT THE SOUTH. The pig voids a larger quantity of urine than any othe domestic animal The manure from fattening hogs i very valuable, but it contains a peculiar volatile sul stance which gives to roots and bulbs to which it is aj plied a disagreeable taste. Hog-pens should be liberall supplied with absorbents. SHEEP MANURE contains less vegetable fibre than that of cattle, and ma be classed with hog manure; but the nitrogenous matte being more abundant, it is a heating manure whe: piled and moistened. If penned, one sheep can ma nui^ ien and a half feet square in a night. It is to rich in ammonia to be allowed to come in direct contac with seeds or the roots of plants, and should be composte< or mixed with the soil. POULTRY MANURE. The dung of all domestic fowls and birds generally ha marked manurial properties on account of the larg amounts of ammonia and phosphate it contains. Lik sheep manure, Peruvian guano and all other fertilizer rich in ammonia, it should not, in its fresh, undilutei state, be permitted to come in immediate contact wit' the roots of plants, nor with the seed. The floors of th poultry-houses should be strown with finely powyorin, Prof. Riley, in his First Keport as State Entomologist of Missouri, men- 118 ^BUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. tions two species of ichneumon that parasitize the larva, credits the spined soldier-bug and the carabid larva, Calosoma calidum, with its destruction, and says that some kinds of spiders are known to prey upon it. From the Report of the United States Entomological Commis- sion, for 1877, we learn that the grasshopper is preyed upon, at one or the other stage, by Agonoderus, Harpa- lus, Amara, and other carabids; by soldier-beetles, sol- dier-bugs, and spiders, and that certain ichneumonidae parasitize the eggs. It seems probable, therefore, that the beneficial insects eaten by blue birds include the spe- cial enemies of the cut-worms and grasshoppers it de- stroys, but he who knows best the small number of re- liable observations upon which our general statements of the food of predaceous insects rest, will have the most hesitation in trusting them without reserve. The proba- bilities seem to be against the blue bird, but the certain- ties are, as yet, in its favor. Finally, I would call atten- tion to the fact that we do not know that the normal rate of increase among these carnivorous and parasitic insects is not sufficient to keep their numbers full to the limit of their food supply, and to furnish also a surplus for destruction by birds. Just as a tree puts forth more leaves than it needs, and sets more fruit than it can pos- sibly mature; as an offset to the constant normal depre- dations of insects, so there is much reason to suppose that our insect friends have become adjusted to this steady drain on their numbers. There are many consid- erations involved here into which I can not at present enter. It will suffice to say that all the evidence we have of the increase and decrease of carnivorous insecte, at- tendant upon the increase and decrease of the insects upon which they feed, tends to show that the real limit to their multiplication is not destruction by birds, but a deficient food supply, and that in relieving them from their feathered enemies, we should only be giving a por- ASPARAGUS. 119 iion of them the poor privilege of starving to death, in- stead of being eaten up. Considering, therefore, the certainty of the evil consequences of the destruction of the blue bird, and the uncertainty of the possible good, I believe that, notwithstanding the apparent balance against the species, even the most radical economist, the most indifferent to the beauty and pleasure of the nat- ural world, would have no present justification for throt- tling the song of the blue bird in his garden, with the hope of increasing thereby his annual store of hay and cabbage." The following table gives the percentages of the three classes of insects destroyed, and the average for the PERCENTAGES FOR . XACH MONTH. I ! rf | 4 1 $ 1 fl 4 3 1 2 Beneficial 46 28 21 35 38 14 11 28 Injurious 41 60 23 55 26 67 02 39 Neutral 13 11 56 10 34 19 87 33 CHAPTER XII. ASPARAGUS. (Asparagus officinalis.) Asperge, French; Spargel, German; Aspergie, Dutch; Sparagio, Italian ; and Esperrago, Spanish. Asparagus is a native of the sea coasts of Europe, and has long been in cultivation as one of the choicest vege- tables of the garden. Peter Henderson says of this vege- table, that the supply has never yet fully satisfied the demand, and that a small quantity of good asparagus has 120 TRUCK-FARMISG AT THE SOUTH. frequently helped to sell a wagon load of vegetables, the gardener making its sale conditional upon the purchase of other articles. Asparagus is not only a wholesome article of food, but it is a pleasant diuretic and aperient, and is often used as an alterative or "purifier of the blood." When prescribed medicinally it is, as a decoc- tion, made by boiling two ounces of the root in one quart of water. There are some sixty or seventy species of as- paragus, of which the above named is the only edible one. While the shoots of the majority of the asparagus plants are green, some plants produce purple-topped shoots, owing probably to some modification of the leaf- green, or chlorophyll. Such plants cannot be considered even as varieties, as they occur in every planting of whatever kind of asparagus seed, and the peculiarity is not transmitted as a regular distinctive feature. Difference of opinion exists among horticulturists in regard to the question of varieties of this vegetable, some contending there are no varieties of Asparagus officinalis. They claim that growers, in several localities, have brought the cultivation of asparagus to such a state of perfection, as to have developed a decided superiority in the plant; that, as like produces like, the seed of such plants are preferable and will continue to give a superior product. They hold that, until deteriorated, the Con- over's Colossal, the Ulm, the Argenteuil, and others, are only improved strains, while others claim them to be dis- tinct varieties. Unlike the varieties of other vegetables, the different sorts of asparagus are distinguished neither by shape, nor color of leaf or flower, nor by taste, nor by any other character, save size, and when removed from favorable conditions of climate, soil, manure, and man- agement, they deteriorate and are undistinguishable from plants grown from seeds of the poorest kind. As- paragus is a dioecious plant, that is, the male (staminate) and female (pistillate) flowers are on separate roots ASPARAGUS. 121 Only the latter bear seeds which will not be fertile un- less the flower is impregnated by the pollen of the for- mer. Thus it requires two distinct plants for the propa- gation of the species. Should a variety originate by chance, its flower would require the pollen of the previous variety to fertilize it; and to transmit its distinctive fea- tures to descendants, it must be ever afterwards exempt from any altering influences of the pollen. If such breedv ing of varieties was probable in dioacious plants, the chances of cross-fertilization are such that varieties and sub- varieties would be constantly seen. RAISING THE PLANTS. Asparagus is propagated from seed, the usual practice being to raise the plants in a seed-bed, and trans- fer them to the field when one or two years old, those of one year being much the best. It has generally been, at the South, not only the uneconomical, but from an horti- cultural point of view, the objectionable custom to pur- chase the plants from Northern nurseries, at from four dol- lars to eight dollars per thousand, without any knowledge of their previous cultivation, age, or condition. This has been done when the plants could be grown much cheaper, and much better at home, with the additional advantage of being able to lift them carefully and fresh from the seed- bed when needed; whereas, procured from a distance, they are stale, roughly handled and bruised. The price of the seed is usually about fifty cents per pound, containing some fourteen thousand seeds, which should supply at least ten thousand five hundred plants, or enough for three acres. At the average price of plants, as offered by the largest seed firms, the same number of plants would cost twenty-one dollars. Small, spindling shoots are comparatively worthless. The asparagus grower should start his seed-bed with the ultimate object of pro- ducing large, stout sprouts, (or " grass," in the language 6 122 TRUCK-FARMING At THE SOUTH. of the market), and to do this he must avoid stunted plants. A good asparagus plantation is expensive. It brings in no return for three years, but when it once comes into bearing, it remains productive for twenty years or more, and affords good profits. Unless it can be properly made from the start, it had better not be undertaken. The seed of asparagus is not injured by frost. It may be sown from December 1st to the middle of March. Se- lect high, sandy or well-drained, light land, which has been well manured; sow in drills two feet apart, and one inch deep; the plants should stand about three inches apart in the row. At these distances, one-fourth of an acre will grow twenty-one thousand seven hundred and eighty plants, or a sufficient number to plant five or six acres. If proper care is taken of them during their growth, the plants will be superior to any of one year's growth, purchasable at any price from any Northern nurs- ery, simply in consequence of our longer and warmer growing season. In addition to this, are the advan- tages of being able in transplanting to return them to the soil, fresh and without injury to the roots. THE SOIL AHD ITS PREPARATION. One of the chief claims of asparagus to popular favor is its early appearance in the spring; and hence, a heavy cold clay, particularly if badly drained, should be avoided. A light, high, warm, sandy soil, heavily fertilized, is best adapted to this crop, and it especially flourishes when such soil is located near its native habitat the sea coast. The more manure, the better the cultivation, the larger and better will be the "grass;" therefore the land should be in fine, mellow condition before the application of the manure. After deep plowing, subsoiling, and har- rowing, a coating of about a hundred wagon loads of green stable manure to the acre, without much long litter, ASPARAGUS. 123 should be turned under as deeply as possible. Future surface manurings will benefit the top soil. The field being thoroughly harrowed, straight rows should be laid off with a two-horse plow, going only in one direction, care being taken to have the straight cuts, or land-sides of the furrows, equi-distant from each other, and five feet apart. If the roots of the plants are long, it will prob- ably be necessary to deepen the furrows by following the first with a smaller plow. In the bottom of the furrow it is well to apply some lasting fertilizer., as coarse Fig. 15. ASPARAGUS PLANT. ground bone, at the rate of half a ton to the acre. If the land is high and warm, the crowns of the plants might eventually be about six inches below the surface; but in colder ground it would be unsafe to place them deeper than four inches, or the sprouts might be late in the spring, and a part of the plants might perish. The roots are round and succulent, with numerous small fibres, which unite to form the crown, from which the 124 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. sprouts appear. The crown grows laterally, the base of every succeeding bud, during the life of the plant, re- maining at about the same depth. This lateral manner of growth, and the position of the buds, are shown in fig. 15. The deeper the plant can be placed, due regard being had to the requisites of an early and profitable growth, the better, as the crowns will be less liable to injury at the hands and knives of careless cutters of the crop. The old method of close planting of aspara- gus upon trenched ground, with a subterranean layer, three feet deep, of oyster shells, or brickbats, for drain- age, and with the idea of preventing the too deep growth of the roots, has been abandoned. One might as well ex- pect to see stalks of corn grow thirteen feet high, and thick in proportion, when the grain is sown broadcast for fodder, as to look for good "grass " from the old man- ner of planting. An old asparagus plant makes an enormous growth of root, both as regards its mass and length, and wide planting admits of these roots securing a sufficiency of food, and of their making a vigorous growth without crowding. SETTING OUT THE PLANTS. The plants should be carefully lifted from the seed bed with a digging fork, without bruising the roots. These, if very long and irregular in length, may be shortened back a little. The distances in the row being marked off at from two to two and a half feet, or even three feet, a plant is dropped at each place, and the planter, following, holds the plant at the proper depth, say six inches, against the land side, or cut, with the roots spread out from the crown in a fan-shaped manner, and, with a single sweep of the left hand, fixes it in position with loose soil from the top of the furrow. The subsequent filling in may be ASPARAGUS. 125 done with the plow; but the hoe is to be preferred, as the depth can be more exactly adjusted, and there is less danger of an accidental disturbance of the plant. For safety, until growth commences, the crowns should not be covered the entire depth, but only two or three inches; when the shoots have grown several inches high, the cov- ering may be completed, and this will serve as a working of the ground, and destroy weeds. CULTIVATION. Its vigorous growth enabling it to overtop grass, and to hold its own against weeds, asparagus will withstand as much neglect as any other vegetable; but it will respond to generous treatment. The expense of its first planting, and its care, until it commences to make a return two or three years later, are too great to admit of neglect. If the plantation has been properly made and properly tended, its rank and luxuriant growth will meet across the five-feet rows in the third year and smother most weeds during the summer. The crop should be cultivated and hoed as often as necessary to subdue grass and weeds. Asparagus produces seed the second year. As soon, therefore, as the ctalks commence to die in the fall, they should be chopped down and burned, to prevent, so far as possible, the growth of young seedlings among the crop, which are not readily eradicated, and are really weeds. It is useless to apply manure when the plant is at rest in the fall and winter, but just prior to the commence- ment of growth, make an application of half a ton to the acre of Peruvian guano, bone-flour, or ground fish guano, mixed with muck, woods-earth, or garden soil, and thor- oughly harrow it in. If stable manure is used, it should remain upon the surface. The material being at hand, a mulch thick enough and close enough to prevent the growth of weeds and grass, to be burned off before the 126 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. winter top-dressing is to be applied, would obviate the necessity of frequent working, and of chopping, or mow- ing down the bushes, and would destroy all the seed; without causing any injury to the deeply buried roots. Subsequent cultivation consists in keeping down weeds by stirring the soil with cultivator and hoes, and in the annual installment of fertilizers, alternating each year with a different kind. The natural habitat of asparagus being the sea coast, it is benefited by applications of common salt, which may be used with advantage in sufficient quantity to de- stroy weeds, say from six hundred to eight hundred pounds to the acre, particularly if the crop is at a distance from the sea shore. The burning of a mulch of marsh sedge would supply the crop with other salts of sea water besides common salt. If the shoots are nu- merous and strong, a few may be cut the third year, but it is better to defer cutting any until the fourth season from the seed. CUTTING AND MARKETING. .Asparagus knives of various shapes are made expressly for the purpose. The blade should be passed down along the shoot to the necessary depth, when by a turn of the handle the shoot is severed, and can be lifted out. Only the part of the shoot made gieen by exposure to light is eaten, the white blanched portion being tough and stringy. Yet fashion, and, therefore, the trade, de- mand that at least a part of the sprouts be white, other- wise it would not be necessary to place the crowns so deeply in the ground. A change in this respect is tak- ing place, however, and a modification in the mode of planting may soon be advisable. Asparagus should not be cut until the shoots are four or five, or even six inches above the ground, so that they may be at least eight inches long, that being the usual ASPARAGUS. 127 Fig. 16. ASPARAGUS BUNCHER. (Old.) length of the bunches. A plantation in full bearing and vigorous growth may require to be cut daily, but it should not be continued beyond about four weeks, for fear of weakening the plants. The bunches, to command the highest market price, should be four inches in diameter, eight inches in length, and about two and a half pounds in weight, and should not only consist of good assorted "grass," but be evenly and compactly made. To attain these re- quisites, without too much loss of time, a buncher, of which there are many patterns, is indispensable. It holds the proper number of sprouts to form the four-inch bunch, firm- ly in position for one tie to be made below the buds and another noar the base, when the lower ends may be evenly cut off with a sharp knife. The sim- plest form of buncher is shown in fig. 16. It consists of a board with four pms about six inches long, placed four inches apart, and form- ing a square. This is Fig. ^.-ASPARAGUS BUNCHER. (Modem.) place( i against a wall, in order to make the ends of the shoots even, or it may be provided with a back, as in fig. 16. The ties are laid down, and the shoots stacked up between the pins. A 128 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. more recent form e* buncher is given in fig. 17. In this the shoots are placed between two strips of brass, and the upper, hinged portion brought down, which firmly holds the bunch in proper shape until it can be tied. Twine and small willow twigs are sometimes used foi ties, but Cuba Bast is the best material, and gives the bunches a very neat appearance. This is the inner bark of Paritium elatum, a large tree of the Mallow family. It is in large sheets, and sells, wholesale, at about $1.00 per pound. A recently introduced material, called Kaf- fia, the outer skin or cuticle of the leaf of a palm, is very soft and strong, and may be used for the purpose. Either kind should be cut of the proper length and laid in water; this renders the material flexible, and allows the ties to be made more readily. Asparagus is sold by the bunch, that from the South bringing generally, in New York, from nine dollars to twelve dollars per dozen, and it may be packed in other than the usual bushel crate, although a uniformity of package is desirable. The bunches should all stand up- right, and if in more than one layer, the buds on top of the shoots in the lower one should be protected from being bruised by the stems of the layer above by some soft intervening material, like moss. The first cost of making a planting of asparagus with home-grown plants, as above, is about one hundred dollars per acre. SAVING SEED. Asparagus is one of the vegetables of which Southern- grown seed is as good as any. To save the seed, the ripe, red berries should be stripped off by hand, or the bushes cut down, and the berries threshed off. They are then placed in a vessel or barrel, and pounded with a wooden pestle to break the outer shells, which may be separated from the seed by washing, when the latter are dried in the sun and stored away. ASPARAGUS. 129 INSECTS. Asparagus is subject to injury from the following insects : First The asparagus-beetle (Crioceris asparagi.) Second The zebra-caterpillar (Mamestra picta.) Third The smeared-dagger (Acronycta oblinita.) A small ash-gray moth, the caterpillar of which sometimes feeds upon the plant. The asparagus-beetle was introduced from Europe about 1860. In a few years it became so numerous and terribly destructive, that, in 1862, some farmers on Fig. 18. ASPARAGUS BEETLE (Crioceris asparaffi). Beetle. Larva, Egg. The lines show the natural length of Egg and Beetle. Long Island plowed up their asparagus plantations, the crops having been ruined. All remedies failed, and it was thought the cultivation of asparagus would have to be abandoned on the Island, where the best in the country is grown. But in 1863, there appeared a deliverer in the form of a little black shining chalcid fly, which very soon checked the increase of the insects. The larvas eat off the bark of the stalks, preferring, and commenc- ing with, the tender shoots. The beetle has two broods in the season, and winters in the perfect state. I have never seen this insect at the South, but if it has not yet reached us, the probabilities are that it will do so in time. The other insects named commit no serious injury. 130 TKUCK-FAKMING AT THE SOUTH. CHAPTER XIII. BEAN BUSH OR SNAP. (Phaseolus vulgaris.) Harwot, French ; Schminkbohne, German ; Heere Soon, Dutch ; Fagionlo Italian ; Fasoles, Spanish. The Bean is a tender annual, a native of India, and was introduced into England about 1590. Owing to the ease with which it can be grown, the short period between seed-time and harrest (about six weeks), and its extensive consumption at the Xorth, the bean is one of the principal vegetables grown by the truck-farmer. Its cultivation is most profitable where labor is plentiful for picking the crop, as in the neighbor- hood of cities. VARIETIES. There are two distinct forms, the Pole or Climbing Bean, and the Dwarf. The latter, Phaseolus vulgaris, is a low bush and produces its pods during a shorter time than the other. The Dwarf beans are a little more hardy, and the pods are smaller, but of better flavor and greater delicacy. As the running kinds require poles, the " Bush," in consequence of readier cultivation, is the bean of the market-gardener. The varieties of Bush-beans are numerous. The flat- podded " Early Mohawk," is the earliest, and hardiest. It sells well, until the later, more tender and less stringy round beans come in, and command a higher price. The "Valentine " is now the most popular round bean, it having superseded the " Refugee " or " 1000 to 1," and the " Cleveland Extra Early " is considered the earliest of them,coming in about one week later than the "Mohawk." The several varieties of German " Wax-beans " are very BEAN BUSH OR SNAP. 131 fine, and, when in good order, sell well ; but they become spotted more readily, and are not so extensively planted as the others. The time for sowing may be, approxi- mately, for the vicinity of Savannah, from the first to the middle of March, later to the northward, and earlier to the southward; in the middle of Florida, it may be safely planted as early as January 10th, and still further south, at any time in the winter. In 1881 the first beans from Florida came into the Savannah market on Decem- ber 22d. Formerly vegetables regarded as out of season, could find no sale in the Northern markets, but now beans in limited quantities, bring fair prices in March. SOIL. The lightest land of the farm may be appropriated to the bean crop; but a sandy loam suits it best. Like other leguminous plants, it will grow fairly upon good soil without recent fertilization; though, like other mar- ket vegetables, it should be manured, and green, or fresh stable manure is considered most beneficial. The land being properly plowed and harrowed, straight fur- rows, if the land is level, are laid off, thirty inches apart. The manure is drilled from the tail of a cart, or with a manure distributor, at the rate of thirty wagon loads to the acre, then covered by the plow. The resulting ridge beds are leveled by means of a board attached to a plow beam, taking two at a time, or by hoe or rake. To avoid repetitions, it may be stated here, that, for all vegetables hereafter to be treated, when manuring in the drill and planting on beds are mentioned, these operations of covering the manure and partly leveling the bed, must be understood to have preceded the putting in of the seed. SOWING THE SEED. The methods of depositing the seeds are various. One of the very best tmcVers ; n the vicinity of Savannah has 132 TBUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. constructed an instrument for making holes, upon the previously raked beds, exactly an inch and a half deep, and three inches apart. Into these even his poorest hands may properly drop the beans. The implement consists of a wheel upon the periphery, or outer rim, to which are fixed pegs of the desired length and the proper distance apart. Another very successful farmer sows his beans by hand, in a wide furrow three inches deep, and covers them an inch and a half deep with a rake. The former claims a greater uniformity of showing above ground, a nicer appearance, a saving of seed, and greater facility in working the crop, as the hoe and cultivator may run close to the straight row. The other claims that his plants, in the wide furrow, come up in a sort of quincunx order, support each other, and that he gets more plants upon the same area. Others again open the drills by a hoe, or small bull-tongue plow and use a seed drill to sow the seed, and cover by rake, or board, or by meana of the covering attachment with which the drill is pro- vided. The drill must of course be arranged to work accurately and satisfactorily, when its use will prove the most expeditious and the cheapest method of planting. CULTIVATION. When the plants are three or four inches high, the cultivator may be run between the rows, and just before the buds appear, the plow and hoe should be used to land up or draw soil to the stems, a useful operation, and the last in the cultivation of the crop, which is, of course, only to be performed in dry weather. PICKING AND PACKING. The pods should be picked with great care, so as to cause as little disturbance of the roots as possible, and before the seeds become large enough to bulge out the pods, and Avhile yet crisp enough to "snap" BEAK BUSH OH SNAP. 133 when bent. Beans are apt to shrink in the package, and a little wilting prior to packing, in this case, is less objectionable. The beans should be laid reg- ularly in the crate, well shaken down, and firmly ^,cked. The crop lasts some three weeks, and about six pickings are usually made. A fair yield per acre, is one hundred and fifty crates, although more are sometimes made, and the prices range from one dollar to four dollars per crate, according to earliness and demand. INSECTS. Beans are such an early crop, and the pods are picked at such an early stage of growth, that the insects infest- Fig. 19. BEAN WEEVIL (Bruchus fabce). ing them rarely damage the market-gardener's crop to any extent. They are as follows: First. The Bean- weevil (Bruchus fafice.) Second. The Yellow Bear Caterpillar, the larva of the Miller-moth (Spilosoma Virginica). Third. The Fall web-worm (Hyphantria textor). Fourth. The Blister-beetles, such as the Striped (Lytta vittata), the Ash-colored (L. cinered), and the Margined Blister-beetles (L. marginata), which are, how- ever, more hurtful to the Irish potato. 134 TBUCtf-FARMIXG AT THE SOUTH. CHAPTER XIV. BEET (Beta vulgaris). Bettarave, French ; Rothe-Rube, German ; Met or Kroot, Dutch ; Barba Biettola, Italian ; Settarage, Spanish. The Beet is a biennial, tap-rooted plant, with some- what fleshy leaves; it is a native of the sea coast of Southern Europe, and has been cultivated in England since 1656. It is only within the past year or two, that the beet has been grown for shipment to any extent south of Norfolk, although it has for many years been one of the regular Bermuda crops. Next to the cabbage, this is one of the most extensively and profitably cultivated vegetables at the North, and it is probably destined to stand high in the estimation of the truck-farmer. VARIETIES. The turnip-rooted varieties are the earliest and best to grow at the South, and of these the " Egyptian " or " Red Egyptian Turnip " stands first, notwithstanding the seed is higher in price than any other sort. The " Early Blood Turnip" is next in value. The "Bassano" is the earliest variety, but objectionable in consequence of its turning a light color in boiling. SOIL AND SOWING. Beets, like the ruta-baga, may be sown for local mar- kets in September and October; but in consequence of sudden changes of weather, success at this season is doubtful. Heavy rains and hot baking suns, whether the seed be up or not, may destroy a sowing. Although hardy, freezing will kill very young beets, and the BEET. 135 safest date for sowing near Savannah is about Janu- ary 10th, and earlier or later, according to latitude. In middle Florida the beet may be sown through November and December. Like all tap-rooted plants, the beet de- lights in a deep, rich, loose soil, a low, but thoroughly drained, sandy mould being the best. If loamy, let the soil be deeply stirred, freed from clods and lumps, and made fine and mellow. It is desirable to have clean and smooth roots, and fresh stable manure in the drill is objectionable, as it Fig. 20. EGYPTIAN BEET. Fig. 21. EARLY BLOOD TURNIP tends to make them branch or to produce "fingers and toes." Any rank manure in the drill, like night-soil, is objectionable, and hog manure is said to communicate an unpleasant flavor to the roots. Beets require a nitroge- nous fertilizer, and well-rotted stable manure, thirty loads to the acre, broadcast, supplemented with five hundred pounds of Peruvian guano, or with three hundred pounds of nitrate of soda; or three-fourths of a ton of the guano, or half a ton of nitrate of soda, composted with muck, will suffice without the stable manure. But in this case, the land should have previously produced some well-manured crop. As this plant is a native of the sea shore, an ap- plication of twelve bushels of salt per acre is beneficial to crops distant from the coast. If the cultivation of the beet crop is to be entirely by hand, the seed may be sown 136 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. three-fourths of an inch, or one inch deep, with a hand drill in rows, fifteen to eighteen inches apart. On level ground sow in narrow "lands," say thirty feet wide, which will afford additional surface drainage. If the planting is to be on a large scale, the distance between the rows must be from thirty to thirty-six inches, accord- ing to the size of the cultivator. In sowing and weed- ing, bear in mind that each grain contains several seeds. Owing to its slow germination, beet seed is often soaked in warm water. See chapter on " Seeds." The quantity of seed required to sow an acre is from four to eight pounds, according to the above-mentioned distances. CULTIVATION. The young plants should not be allowed to crowd each other. If the stand is close, it is well to chop out spaces in the row with a narrow hoe, and subsequently, when the plants are about two inches high, they should be thinned out to stand from four to six inches apart. Vacant spaces may be supplied; but transplanted turnip- rooted beets are not apt to make smooth roots. Subse- quent cultivation consists in stirring the surface between the rows, working as near the beets as possible, and in keeping the crop free from weeds. Frequent hoeings between the narrow rows and some hand- weeding will be necessary. For the wider rows, one plowing, the use of the cultivator twice, and one hoeing may suffice in favor- able seasons, but more should be given if needed. MARKETING. Beets must be marketed while tender, and before they are full grown. When about three inches in diameter, may produce such tropi- cal vegetables at will, as far as season is concerned. On Dec. let of last year, egg-plants and tomatoes were mature at Clear Water. The only variety cultivated for market is the "New York Purple Improved." This being a tropical fruit, or berry, it must reach its greatest development and mature its seed most perfectly at the South, for which reason it is not only possible, but ad- visable to use seed of home growth in preference to that produced at the North. The seed and young plants require more of a tropical heat (65 to 70) for their germination and continued THE EGG-PLANT. 177 healthy growth, than any other crop, and should, there- fore, be sown by themselves under glass in cold frames. After sowing, the bed should be well watered and the glass placed on, and not removed until the seed is up. In case of hot sunshine before germination, the sash should be partially shaded. If it is contemplated to prick out the plants into other frames, the sowing may be as early as the middle of January; otherwise ten or fifteen days later. The management while under glass is about the same as with other tender plants, with the exception that they require more careful exclusion of cold air, and have more frequent protection from slight variations of temperature by the glass, than the tomato, pepper, etc. , and they will bear a greater degree of heat without being drawn. No vegetable with which I am acquainted, can withstand drouth better than the egg- plant, which bears and matures its fruit under a degree of heat and dryness that would be fatal to other crops. If there be a sufficiency of decayed vegetable matter in the soil, this crop may be allotted to the sandiest part of the farm. If planted in low, although thoroughly drained, land, the plants are apt to die off about the time they commence to bloom or bear, a peculiarity more or less common to all the Solatium family. To mature early fruit of the size and quality required by the trade, a shovelful or two of fermented stable manure, or compost, should be mixed in each hill. The hills should be two and a half by four feet apart. The cultivation is about the same as that of any other hill crop. The earth should be slightly drawn to the stems during the hoeing, nr fc suf- ficiently, however, to touch any of the lower branches. The plow and horse-hoe, once each, run between the rows, and two hoeings should be sufficient for the crop in light unbaked land. To cut through the tough stems, without disturbing the plants, a thin-bladed, sharp knife, or a pair of nippers 178 TRFCK-FARMIXG AT THE SOUTH. is necessary. To be marketable at good prices, the fruit should be well grown, weighing from one to three pounds but not old, nor light colored and tough; small ones are not readily salable. They are to be carefully handled to avoid bruising and injuring the gloss. Shorten the stems to about half an inch and wrap each in paper. It is then to be firmly and evenly packed in crates, or in well ventilated double-headed barrels. The Flea-beetle frequently attacks the plants when young, for which the usual remedy of lime or soot is applicable, but rarely necessary. The large green Tomato-worm is sometimes found on the egg-plant. Should these, the Tortoise-beetle (Cassi- da Texand) or the false Colorado-beetle (Doryphora junc- ta), already mentioned, ever become destructive, Paris green might be applied before the fruit, or berry, is formed. CHAPTER XIX. TALE, BORECOLE, OR SPROUTS (Brassica oleraceavar. sabellica.) CTuwvert, French ; KrauskoM or Br mnkoM, German; Boerenkod, Dutch; Cavolo aperto, Italian; Col, Spanish. Kale is a variety of the cabbage of great excellence for the table. It is distinguished from the other varieties by its open growth and its more or less curled or wrinkled leaves. It is the most hardy of all, and with- stands a severe degree of cold; indeed, it is not consid- ered to have reached the perfection of flavor and tender- ness, until it has been frozen. Among the many varieties of kale some are dwarfish in habit, while others grow from four to five feet high, KALE, L:>::ECOLE, OR SPROUTS. 179 Kale is rarely grown at the extreme South for the Northern markets, its extensive cultivation being con- fined to Norfolk, Va. The price in the New York market rarely exceeds two dollars and twenty-five cents per barrel. The varieties cultivated are: a local one, called the "Blue Curled," and the "Green Curled Scotch;" the former by far the most extensively. The preparation and character of the soil, quantity and kind of manure, and the cultivation of the crop must be similar to that of the other varieties of cab- bage. The " Blue Curled " s sown from August 10th to September 15th, at Nor- folk, in drills thirty inches apart, at the rate of a pound and a half of seed to the acre; the plants are eventually thinned to a stand of from four to eight inches in the row. The "Scotch Curled," to a much smaller extent, is sown in seed-beds early in August, and transplanted in September from eight to ten inches apart in the row. The crop is cut for shipment in March. The size of the plants, when cut, varies from six inches to two feet across, and, therefore, the number which will fill a barrel varies greatly. It must be very firmly packed in well- ventilated barrels, as with the best care, it will shrink in consequence of its loose growth. It is subject to the same insects as the cabbage, and, sown as it is in the open field in the fall, is affected by the young cut-worms. See chapter on "Insects," Fig. 46. KALE. 180 TBUCK-FAKMING AT THE SOUTH. CHAPTER XX. LETTUCE (Lactuca sativd). Laitue, French ; Garten-salat, German ; Latuw, Dutch ; Lattijga, Italian Lechuga, Spanish. The Lettuce is a hardy annual which was first culti- vated in England in 1562, but whence it was introduced is not known. Owing to its freedom from insect depredations (exclu- sive of the cut-worm), its large consumption, and the ease with which it can be grown, lettuce is one of the most important crops of the Northern farm-gardener, notwithstanding the fact, that, of late years, it has be- come subject to a disease. In New York, the winter and very early spring markets are supplied from hot-beds, in which it is grown in and near Boston, where a specialty is made of this vegetable. In consequence of this ex- tensive supply of superior and fresh stock, the more wilted condition of shipments from the South renders the cultivation of it here unprofitable. It is grown, how- ever, to a considerable extent at Norfolk. A good sort should form a solid and large head. The varieties used at Norfolk are: " White Cabbage " and the "Boston Market," or " Tennis Ball," the former for open field culture, and the latter under glass. The seed is sown under glass in September, the plants put five or six inches apart, and the crop is ready for market in February and March. The trouble with this crop is the liability of the plants to damp off under glass. For the open field, the seed is sown about the middle of September in a bed, and not quite as deep as cabbage seeds, the plants are transferred to flat beds, setting them THE ONION. 181 about nine inches apart each way, to be cultivated en- tirely by the hoe, or in rows eighteen inches apart, the plants standing eight inches in the row, which will ad- mit the use of a narrow cultivator between the rows. This crop is marketable in April. Any well-drained soil, made fine and mellow, and well manured will produce good lettuce. After cleaning, or trimming the heads of soiled, 01 discolored leaves, they are firmly packed for shipment in crates, barrels being unfit for this crop. MUSKMELON, or CANTALOUPE. See additional chap- ters, pages 251, 252. OKBA, or GUMBO. See additional chapters, page 253. CHAPTER XXI. THE ONION (Allium Cepa). Ognwi, French ; Zwiebd, German ; Uijen, Dutch ; Cipolla, Italian ; Cebolla, Spanish ; Alho, Portuguese. The alliaceous esculents are of great antiquity and of universal cultivation in every civilized country, some na- tionalities preferring one variety, and others a different one. The same genus includes the Leek (Allium Porrum), the Chives (A. Schoenoprasum), the Garlic (A. sativum), the Shallot (A. Ascalonicum), and the Rocambole (A. Scorodoprasum). The onion (Allium Cepa) is the only species with which the truck-farmer has any concern. There are many varieties of the onion, only a few of which are grown for the Northern markets. ANALYSIS. According to Prof. C. A. Goessman, a crop of foul hundred and forty-two bushels contained: 182 TBUCK-FAKMING AT THE SOUTH. Potassium oxide 38.51 Ibu. Sodium oxide 1.90 Magnesium oxide 3.60 Calcium oxide 8.20 Sesqui-oxide of iron 0.58 Silicic acid 3.33 Phosphoric acid 15.80 Sulphuric acid 29.81 Nitrogen 48.63 The peculiar characteristic odor is due to a volatile or- ganic compound containing sulphur. Onions are used medicinally as stimulants, diuretics, and anthelmintics (worm medicines). Boiled or roasted, they form emollient poultices. The fresh root irritates or reddens the skin, and the expressed juice is sometimes used in ear-ache and in rheumatism. It has generally been held, but erroneously, that the onion could not be successfully grown from the seed, at the South, and that, below about the fortieth degree, the dry heat of our summers would dwarf the bulbs. Egypt and the Barbary States produce, perhaps, the finest onions in the world, several of the largest varieties having originated in Tripoli. Large quantities are annually exported from Portugal and Spain. The opinion pre- vails in Germany that the seed, at least of some varieties, will deteriorate, unless of southern growth; and those of the Madeira onion, used in Bermuda for the crop so popular in our Northern markets, are grown in the south of France. I have grown most varieties of the onion successfully for the past twenty-two years, having produced, one season, the "Giant Eocca" at the rate of ten hundred and fifty bushels per acre. The usual yield is from three hundred to eight hundred bushels. At no time of the year are the Northern markets entirely bare of this indispensable vegetable, some variety in its green or matured state being procurable. The aim of the Southern grower should be to slip his crop into the market at a time when the supply from other sections is most deficient. The first matured bulbs THE OXIOK. 183 in the spring found in the Northern markets are the Ber- muda grown " Madeira " onions. Although it might be possible to grow as fine onions in Florida from autumn- sown seed, the attempt to compete with Bermuda onions for favor would seem fruitless at present. South Florida might even antici- pate the Bermuda crop. The next onions, other than from this section and from Florida, offered in market, are the "Potato onions," grown near Nor- folk and in Maryland. Southern onions will be apt to bring the most sat- isfactory prices about the time the supply from Bermuda is becoming ex- hausted, which occurs about June 15th. While no variety of Southern- grown onions will keep ^ 47.-oNioN- GIANT BOCCA." during the winter, should they ripen a little premature- ly, they may be preserved sufficiently long to allow the shipments to be so timed as to meet this demand, VARIETIES AND SEED. Of more than one hundred varieties, the common ''Red Wethersfield" and " Yellow Danvers" are the best keepers. The beautiful white "Italian Queen" is the earliest and surest, but is too small. The " Giant Rocca " makes an enormous yield, but is too large for market. The now popular " Globe Madeira" will be the best to succeed the Bermuda crop of the same variety. Of no other vegetable, save the cauliflower, is it so im- 184 TRtTCK-fAfcMING AT THE SOUTH. portant to have a good strain of seed. If saved from bulbs of objectionable form, or imperfect development, seal- lions, instead of the desirable globular onions, will be the result. : No seed older than of the previous crop should be used, as it rarely retains vitality over one year; it is also well to put it to the preliminary test recommended in the chapter on " Seeds," in order to gauge the drill in accord- ance with the percentage of sound seed. It will germi- nate in three or four days, if kept warm and moist. The seed is frequently soaked from one to four days, but I cannot recommend the practice. If it is found to be of fair quality, to be perfectly reliable, the drill may be gauged to drop a seed every quarter to half an inch, at which rate it will require from three to four pounds to the acre. If sown too thickly, great labor is required to thin the plants, as it must be done early enough in their growth to prevent injury by crowding, and to avoid breaking the roots of those to be left. SOIL AND SOWING. Onions may be sown at any time in the fall, the weather being favorable, but there is nothing to be gained by such very early planting. In the latitude of Savannah, and northward, the young plants o October or Novem- ber sowing may be exposed to injury from heavy rains, or, notwithstanding the very hardy nature of the onion, from severe freezing in December. The crop from seed sown about January 1st escapes these dangers, comes in early enough for the better demand, and, growing through a shorter and warmer period, will require less extended care. The onion is intolerant of the vicinity of trees, and requires an open exposure. The soil best adapted to this crop is a deep, rich, fria- ble warm mould, full of vegetable matter, such as is fre- THE OKIOK. 185 quently found in river bottoms and drained ponds. On heavy land, the bulbs are apt to remain small, and ac- quire a greater pungency of taste. If the soil is loamy, sand should be the predominating constituent. Land recently cleared, and therefore free from grass and weed- seed, provided it is made perfectly mellow, is always to be preferred to old land, particularly unless the latter has been kept clean of weeds and grass, in order that none of their seeds may have been self-sown for several suc- cessive years. Although the onion is a very shallow-rooted plant, it delights in a well-drained, deeply-stirred, and finely-pulverized soil. No plant requires a more care- ful preparation of the land, and a proper piece, once se- lected for this crop (it being an anomaly in regard to rotation), it should always remain appropriated to the same purpose; for, with proper and efficient manure and management, the crop may be increased in quantity each successive year. The land should be allowed to mature no second crop. As soon as the onions are removed, it should be sown down to cow peas. If recently cleared land is selected, it should also be sown with peas in July or August. They will not only keep down the weeds, and tend to mellow the soil by the decaying mass of vege- table matter, but maintain and increase the fertility of the soil. The first of December is early enough to plow under the dead pea vines, which should be deeply buried. The analysis shows that the onion requires a rich nitrogenous manure, and that it also contains much pot- ash and phosphoric acid. The manure of the hog is gen- erally considered the best for this crop. If stable manure is used, it should not be coarse enough to prevent its be- ing plowed under shallow. There is no objection to fine, green stable manure, provided it contains no seeds of weeds. If the animals have been fed on hay, the manure must be thoroughly fermented to destroy the vitality of 186 TRUOK-FARMIXG AT THE SOUTH. the grass seed. The onion is a gross feeder, and, with- out adequate manuring, there will be no satisfactory crop. The plants will not form bulbs properly if poorly fed. The yield will be in proportion to the quantity and quality of the manure. Thirty loads, of thirty bushels each, sufficiently compressed, or fermented, to weigh forty pounds to the bushel, is not a heavy application. Twenty- five loads of night-soil would do as well. If other fertil- izers, such as bone-meal (which is excellent), or guano, are used, they should be harrowed in so as to permit the roots of the young plants to reach them. A top-dress- ing of a hundred bushels of ashes per acre is beneficial. After several years of manuring with stable manure, a change to a half ton of bone-flour, ammoniated super- phosphate, guano, or five hundred pounds of sulphate of ammonia would be advisable. If the land is new, or loamy, a cross plowing and double harrowing may be necessary to put it in proper trim to receive the manure. It should be level, lest heavy rains may wash out the seed on the higher points, and cover the plants in lower ones too deeply. At the South, where we are visited by heavy rains, onions, on a small scale, are best planted on four-feet-wide "lazy beds," the intervening paths acting as auxiliary drains. The seed may be sown upon these beds by hand, in drills half an inch deep, twelve inches apart, across the bed. On a larger scale, where machines must be used, making two drills at a time, the sowing had better be done on narrow lands, fifteen or twenty feet wide, the rows running lengthwise, twelve or fifteen inches apart. Beds, or narrow lands, are formed in plowing under the manure, previously applied broadcast, as shallow as pos- sible, and, if the furrows intervening between the lands are too shallow to act as drains, the loose soil is to be thrown out upon the beds with hoes or shovels. The surface must be thoroughly fined with harrow and hand- rake. In fair weather, the seed will be up in two weeks. THE ONION. 18? CULTIVATION. The only sure road to success in onion culture, even when all other conditions are favorable, is clean cultiva- tion, and as soon as the lines of young plants are dis- tinguishable, hoeing should be commenced, and repeated, with hand-weeding, whenever necessary, no weed being allowed to grow large enough to disturb the roots of the onion, when pulling it, and be continued to within about a month from the time the crop matures. The soil should be stirred between the plants in the row. The chief objection to this crop is the amount of care- ful labor required to keep it clean, at least four or five hoeings being necessary, for which the scuffle, push, or Dutch hoe is the best implement. Onions grow best upon the surface, as their roots do not penetrate the soil deeply; therefore, the hoeing must be superficial, and no soil should be drawn to the rows. They should be thinned to four inches in the row, if only large bulbs are wanted, but in case a large yield is de- sired, irrespective of size, the stand may be closer. Transplanted onions take root very readily; therefore, any vacant spaces may be supplied, or new beds made with the plants removed in thinning, cutting back the roots to about an injh, and the leaves one-half their length. The roots should be put down straight, and the plants deeper than they grew originally. If onions have room laterally, groups of four or five may be left together, be- cause in their efforts for survival, they will push one another sidewise, and mount on top of each other, and still form round, marketable bulbs. HAKVESTING AND MARKETING. At the North, where the onions are to be stored for winter use, the whole crop is pulled when three-fourths of the plants have turned yellow, shrivelled and dried in 188 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOCTH. the neck sufficiently to topple over. At this time, some of the roots are dead, and have lost their hold upon the soil. The onions are allowed to remain spread upon the ground for two or three weeks to dry, before being housed. They are in fit condition for storing, when no moist- ure is visible upon strongly twisting the necks. Here, the crop being wanted for an early market and immediate use, the onions are pulled, as they successively indicate ma- turity by toppling over, and are left on the ground a day or two, or they are removed at once, and the necks cut off with a sharp knife, an inch or so from the bulb, when they are carefully packed in bushel crates and shipped. A vegetable, not a luxury, and rarely, if ever, out of market, cannot be expected to bring high prices. Onions range between one dollar and two dollars and fifty cents per bushel crate. In our local market they brought last June from two dollars and twenty-five cents to two dol- lars and seventy-five cents per bushel crate. A globular-shaped onion will produce a crop one-third larger than one that is flat in form. RAISING ONION SEED. If properly matured, and carefully preserved, South ern-grown seed is as good as any. The onion being a biennial plant, it produces seed the second season. The bulbs from which it is contemplated to save the seed should be selected, choosing those which combine the distinguishing peculiarities of the variety, in order that the seed may remain true. If planted in the fall, the seed will be ripe the following July or August. The soil should not be as rich as for the crop of bulbs, lest the flowers may blight and form no seed. The rows should be about eighteen inches apart, and the entire bulbs pressed into the soil below the surface, about eight inches apart in the row. The seed stalks of some of the va- rieties are five feet high, and unless they are supported, THE ONION. 189 they will break or bend over, until the seed heads either touch the ground, or approach it so closely as to be dam- aged by the moisture. This support is most easily given by stretching twine a few inches below the seed heads, one along the middle of the bed, and another on the outer edge of every bed. The seed is ripe enough for gathering, when the pods commence to burst open, and heads and stalks turn yellow. The stalks are carefully cut six or eight inches from the heads, which are allowed to fall into a bucket or open bag, otherwise some of the seed may shell out and be lost. Partly-matured seed will not ripen fully, if the stalk is cut close to the seed- cluster. These must be spread out upon the close floor of a dry loft, or hung up to dry thoroughly, when they may be thrashed out, winnowed, and washed. The false seed and husks will float upon the surface of the water, while only the good seed will sink to the bottom of the vessel. The seed must be quickly and thoroughly dried in the sun before being stored away. ONION SETS. At Norfolk, onions for the Northern markets are not grown from the seed, as the crop would not sufficiently anticipate those of more northern latitudes; but from sets* or small onions. Those of the " Potato-onion" are put out in August and September, and sets of the " Silver- skin" and "Yellow Danvers" in February. The " Potato-onion " produces no seed, but forms from three to ten small bulbs around the old one, from which it is propagated. These small bulbs, when planted out, increase in size, and form a large and marketable onion. These produce the earliest crop of local growth, and even survive the winter as far north as Vermont. The prep- * The English word "sets" may have come over from the German " Setz-Zwiebel," that is : planting- onions. 190 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. aration of the ground for these and for other onion sets is the same as for the crop from seed. The sets are pressed into the soil at the distances the crop is to mature, the tops about level .with the surface, care being taken to have the root end down. The sets should range in size from that of a pea to a common- sized marble. The smaller the better. When the bulbs are too much developed, they are apt to run to seed in- stead of producing good onions. Onion sets are often high-priced, costing from five to ten dollars per bushel; but they may be grown at the South with proper manage- ment. The land should certainly be free from weeds and *rass, lighter and less richly manured than for the crop. The rows may be ten inches apart, and the seed should i)e sown late in the season, about May 1st, and much thicker than when intended to produce large bulbs. From fifteen to twenty pounds to the acre are required. INSECTS. The larvae of the Dipterous, or Two- winged insects, which at present infest the onion in this country, pene- trate it at the root; and the first indication of their pres- ence are symptoms of disease and approaching death. There is no remedy, but to dig up every wilted and yellow plant, and to hunt for and destroy the grub with- in the rotting bulb, with a view to curtail future depre- dations. The black Onion -fly (Ortalis flexd), is a native of fchis country, while (Anthomyia ceparum,) is an im- ported insect. THE PEA. 191 CHAPTER XXII. THE PEA (Pimm sativum.) Ibis, French ; Erbse, German ; Erwat, Dutch ; Plsetto, Italian ; Ptsoles, Spanish ; and Krvilha, Portuguese. The pea is a hardy annual, a native of the south of Europe, and has been cultivated from time immemorial. We are told that, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, peas not being very common in England, they were brought from Holland, and that they were " fit dainties for ladies, they come so far, and cost so dear." Where labor for picking the crop is plentiful, it is one of the indispensable crops of the truck-farmer, bringing in the first proceeds of the season. VARIETIES. A good market variety should be productive, of good flavor, form full, pods plump, and be of uniform growth. Frequently a gardener plants poor seed, which runs to vine, and produces but few good pods. The varieties themselves are subjept to change, and will deteriorate, Unless constant care is exercised in growing them for seed. The varieties at present preferred, enumerated in the order of their earliness and value are : First. The "Early Alpha." This is, exclusive of the "American Wonder," the only wrinkled Dwarf Pea. It grows three feet high, is very productive, and produces large pods of dark green color. The objection to all the wrinkled peas is, that they must be sown thicker than the round varieties. Second. The "Philadelphia Extra Early." This is very uniform, when the seed is pure, and is productive, 192 TRUCK-FAKMIXG AT THE SOUTH. Third. The " Daniel O'Bourke." This is an excellent early pea, and is very popular with Northern growers. Its height is about three feet. Of the later kinds, the " Black-eyed " and " White- marrowfat " take equal rank, and grow about four and a half feet high. SOIL AND SOWING. The large, later and more hardy marrowfat varieties may be planted in the vicinity of Savannah as early as November 20th, following with the earlier kinds; but in isual seasons December 1st is early enough for the first sowings. In the case of a plant so hardy as the pea, it is possible to grow it, in middle to south Florida, to mature at any time during the winter. It is well, if a large crop is to be planted, to make separate sowings at intervals ot a few days, in order not to have the whole planting subject to unfavorable contingencies at the same stage of growth. No usual degree of cold in this latitude will hurt the pea, unless it be in bloom or pod. A dry, rich, warm, sandy loam is the best soil for this crop. For the wrinkled varieties, it is especially neces- sary that the soil should be warm and dry. These do not seem to be so well matured as the round sorts, and in moist, or wet and cool soils they may fail to germinate, and may rot in the ground. Good stable manure is the best. The field being in proper condition, it is manured in the furrow at the rate of twenty-five or thirty loads, of thirty bushels each, to the acre, the rows being five or six feet apart, according to the variety. The seed is sown in double drills, about ten inches apart, on flat beds or ridges over the manure. The quantity of seed required for an acre is about two bushels. As regards the distance in the row, the peas are distributed according to size, about half an inch to an inch and a half, by hand, or by means of a drill, which sows both parallel drills at the same time. THE PEA. 193 The opinion, I believe, generally prevails that the deep- er peas can be sown, the more productive will be tho crop, and the longer will it remain in bearing. One and one-half inch is the usual depth in a sandy loam. CULTIVATION. As the growth of the pea crop extends through the winter and early spring, when weeds are not abundant, cultivation is only, or chiefly, necessary as a promoter of growth. The soil between the ridges may be stirred twice, or more frequently in an unfavorable season; but as soon as the plants grow to two or three inches, the earth should be hoed to the stems, when dry, gradually earthing higher up, as the peas increase in hight. All peas, save the dwarfs, not only fruit better, but continue longer in bearing and mature better, if they are bushed. As soon as they commence to " run " to vine, or to put out their clasping tendrils, which will be when about ten or twelve inches high, according to variety, they should be bushed or stuck. Branching sticks are thrust between the drills so firmly into the ground as not to be blown down, and near enough to be a support for all the plants. This will not only be facilitated, if the sticks cross each other in the row near the surface, but they will be a mu- tual support. When the bushes from which the sticks are to be cut are more or less convenient, the expense of this sticking will be from three to five dollars per acre. The first shipments are usually made from Savan- nah about March 10th. The early varieties admit of about five pickings; the later, one or two more; one hun- dred and fifty to two hundred crates being the yield per acre. Peas were sold the past season at from one dollar and fifty cents to five dollars and fifty cents per bushel crate, while fifteen years ago I received twenty dollars per barrel on April 5th. 9 194 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. No pod should be picked or packed which is yet flat, for the reason that the peas are not sufficiently developed; and none that are discolored or rough from over-ripeness should be marketed. The ordinary bushel crate is the only package used at present. The contents should be thoroughly shaken down, and the crate be more than full, when ready to be nailed up. The two weevils, Bruchus pisi and Bruchus granarius, which are principally injurious to the pea, affect the farmer only in so far as they are destructive to his seed, the larvae inhabiting it and feeding on its substance. Though they usually leave the germ untouched, and buggy-peas will germinate, yet the plant, being without Fig. 48. PEA-WEEVIL (Bruchus piid). Fiji. 49. GRAIN BRUCHUS a, Beetle, enlarged ; b. Pea, with spot. (Bruchus granarius). the nutriment provided for its early growth, is weak at the start, and is never so vigorous and productive as those from sound seed. Our common Pea- weevil (Bruchus pisi) is given in fig. 48, much enlarged, its real size being shown in the outline at the left. The Grain Bruchus or Barn-beetle of Europe (Bruchus granarius), fig. 49, infests both peas and beans. It is sometimes imported with foreign seeds, but has not yet become naturalized. It is somewhat smaller than the Pea- beetle, and the markings of the two are very different. The Cotton Boll-worm (Heliothis armigera) is some- times found feeding upon the pea, but too seldom to do much harm. THE POTATO. 195 CHAPTER XXIII. THE POTATO (Solanum tuberosum.) fbmme de terre, French; Kartoffd, German; Aardappd, Dutch; Tartvji bianchi or Bmto di terra, Ital ; Ibpas, Spanish. The active principle, Solanin, characteristic of the family Solanacece, to which the potato belongs, has been found, but in much smaller proportions than in other members, in the sap, in the berries, and also in tubers of the potato after they had sprouted. For this reason sprouted potatoes are less valuable for food than before the development of sprouts, although in the process of looking a change is effected in the composition. The chief organic ingredient of the potato is starch, which forms about one-tenth of its weight. It has gen- erally been admitted, that the potato was first introduced by the Spaniards into Europe from South America (it is still found in its wild state in the mountains of Chili), and that Sir Walter Raleigh introduced it into England from Virginia. Whether this is strictly the history of its appearance in Europe, or not, the potato has been found indigenous in Mexico and Arizona. Johnson wrote: " The potato is one of the greatest blessings be- stowed upon mankind; for, next to rice, it affords sns- .tenance to more human beings than any other gift of God." Unlike the latter (the continuous use of which sometimes affects the eyes), it may be the exclusive food of man for an extended period without injuring the system. And it is owing to the absence of any distinct peculiarity of taste, to its wholesomeness and to its con- sisting largely of starch, in every particular resembling the flour of grain, that it may be continuously used as 196 TEUCK-FABMING AT THE SOUTH. a chief article of food for a longer time than any other vegetable. It is somewhat strange, that the family which embraces the deadly nightshade, and other very poisonous plants, should also have among its members this most useful vegetable, besides a few others that are mentioned in this book. Of all the crops of the truck-farmer, the potato is the one which is always salable at more or less remunerative prices; its general use among all classes and nativities of the population, precluding a glut in the market. Owing to the prevalence of drouth at the Xorth dur- ing the summer of 1881, the staple crops of potatoes and cabbages having been failures, the winter stock was so nearly exhausted, that extensive importations were made from Europe; and when our Southern crops came into market, they enjoyed an unprecedented demand and high prices. My own small crop sold at from six to seven dollars for No. 1, averaging six dollars and sixty cents per barrel, and "culls" from three dollars to four dol- lars and fifty cents, averaging three dollars and forty-five cents per barrel. Those farmers who planted largely and had good crops of these vegetables made a "hit" in their operations. It is likely that others, induced by this success, will plant potatoes and cabbages more heavily than usual, and re- duce the acreage of other valuable products. I embrace this occasion to advise truck-farmers, that they will probably thrive better in the course of time, by confin- ing themselves to their usual areas of each crop, and by not allowing themselves to be influenced by periodical successes with any one vegetable. VAEIETIES. A variety of potatoes to be cultivated by the Southern truck-farmer should be productive in our climate of large nd even-sized tuber?, growing close together in the hill, THE POTATO. 197 with few or no small ones, it should be early and be popular enough in the Northern market to command the highest prices. At present the " Early Hose" meets these requirements and is generally the favorite, but the "Early Sunrise," "Beauty of Hebron," and the "Bur* bank," are also planted. The potato grown in Bermuda is the " Chili Red." Recently some Charleston farmers have planted this variety in preference to the " Early Rose," the latter not having given satisfaction. SIZE OF SEED. One of the mooted questions in gardening is : shall we plant the whole potato or cut it up into sets ? Experi- ments have failed to establish any certain rule ; and the intelligent farmer will understand that circumstances must govern the case. The potato tuber is not a root, for it has neither root- hairs itself, nor has the stem which connects it with the parent stock either fibrous roots or root-hairs and, therefore, provides the plant with no nourishment; nor is it a seed any more than is a stick of sugar cane a seed. The tubers are nourished by elaborated sap descending from the leaves through the bark. The formation of abnormal tubers above the ground at the point where the stem of a plant has been injured by a cut-worm, or otherwise, or in the axils of branches, is, among others, a proof of this. The potato is an enlarged underground stem, and the eyes are buds. These buds are more numer- ous at the point furthest from the plant, just as the buds are closer together at the end of a branch of the fig or any other tree. When the potato has dried out suffi- ciently and is surrounded by favorable conditions of warmth and moisture, the eyes or buds begin to grow; and until roots have been emitted for their nourishment, the shoots are dependent upon the starch of the sur- rounding substance for their support; resembling a seed in this respect. The eyes a 2 independent of each other, 198 TRUCK-FARMIXG AT THE SOUTH. having no vital connection. If both eye and tuber be sound, the shoots will grow to be healthy plants, if condi- tions are favorable, whether they be planted with the en- tire tuber or only connected to a small piece of its de- tached substance. The following rule has been given: cut large potatoes to single eyes; small potatoes will produce as good a crop if cut in pieces corresponding in size, for the young sprout requires substance to push it forward. The intel- ligent farmer should have an object in view, and his operations should be undertaken to attain it. In this case his purpose is to procure a crop of as many large potatoes as possible. It will not be secured, if many stalks grow from each set, any more than four or five stalks of corn to the hill will produce large ears of corn, though single stalks may. AVhatever be the size of the potato, it should be fully matured. If any Irish or Sweet potatoes are found rotten in the hill, they are always the largest, which have decayed after becoming over-ripe. It is, therefore, safest, for fear of having many stalks in the hill, to use a medium-sized tuber, cut to single eyes, pro- vided the buds show signs of development. If none of the eyes are developed, or only one is, that one only, from the whole potato, is apt to grow, the rest re- maining dormant. The eyes upon seed potatoes procured from the North are very apt to sprout upon arriving in our warm climate, and these should always be cut to single eyes. Northern seed potatoes should not be im- ported, until the farmer is ready to plant them. If the first shoots are rubbed off or killed by frosts, the suc- ceeding ones will be weaker and are apt to be more numerous. In cutting potatoes to single eyes, the cutter com- mences at the stem end, where the eyes are less abun- dant, and slices off pieces with a single eye to each, in such a manner as to distribute the substance of the tubel THE POTATO. 199 as equally as possible. If rules are to be given, they should be: cut a large potato to single eyes, whether sprouted or not. Small potatoes may not be ripe enough to grow strong shoots; but if a small potato is enough matured to put forth sturdy sprouts, cut it also to single eyes; for very little substance will suffice for their sup- port; but, if the potato has not sprouted, it may be planted whole, without much danger of its pushing up more than one stalk. Of late years, Southern truck- farmers have found that home-grown seed of the second crop of Irish potatoes, maturing late in the fall, whether cut or not, gives the best yields, and southern seed are now preferred from Norfolk to the Gulf. The tubers, being a shorter time out of the ground, are not so dry, and put forth only single shoots. There is no fear that their first sprouts have been rubbed off before planting. If frost cuts down the young plants, unlike northern seed, only single shoots will appear, yielding large pota- toes, instead of many too small for market. SOIL AND CULTIVATION. In an open, warm, sandy soil, the sets may be planted soon after being cut ; but for a cool, moist and heavier soil, the cut surfaces should be dried by spreading the sets in the shade for a day or two, or, if put up in bulk, sprinkle with lime or land-plaster. The quantity required to plant an acre will be about three to four barrels, according to the size, and the man- ner of cutting the potatoes. While the plant is indig- enous to Southern latitudes, it is found at considerable altitudes above the level of the sea, and partakes of the peculiarities of those of cool climates, generally suc- ceeding better at the North than at the South. Unlike its relatives, the egg-plant and tomato, it is intolerant of dryness and heat, and should therefore be planted as early as the season will admit, in order to escape warm weather. About February 1st is soon enough for the 200 TRUCK-FARMIHG AT THE SOUTH. "Early Rose." Some varieties start even earlier than this, and a week later would better suit the " Beauty of Hebron," for instance. If Southern stock is offered in the Northern markets while the Northern winter supply is abundant, and still of good quality, very good prices can not be expected. It will, therefore, not be the pol- icy of Florida growers to put in their crops much earlier than the date named. On account of its native habitat the potato requires at the South a cool, moist soil. Low, black moulds in river bottoms, if well drained, may give enormous yields; but the product is apt to be of inferior quality and decay readily, the gluten predominating over the starch in its composition. No vegetable varies more in quality on different soils. A variety may be fine on a good soil and nearly worthless for table use on one not adapted to it. The mealiest and best-flavored potatoes are grown on sandy soil, but for a satisfactory yield, a good, rich, sandy loam, with an abundance of vegetable matter is indispensable. Whatever be its character, the soil should be broken up deeply and thorougly mellowed, in order that it may absorb and retain moisture. Freshly cleared ground, of good quality, produces better crops than old land, prob- ably in consequence of its greater content of potash. The soil should have been previously enriched for a preced- ing crop. The roots will extend beyond the drill, and poor land fertilized Avith the same amount and quality of manure in the furrow will, therefore, not produce satisfactorily. Stable manure or barn-yard manure is chiefly to be relied upon by the potato grower. Composts of good commercial fertilizers with leaves or leaf-mould with the specially adapted potash salts, or ashes and bone-flour, may be used where a sufficiency of stable manure cannot be had. As a rule, land can scarcely be made too rich THE POTATO. $01 for the potato. The new varieties, unlike old ones, will not run to vine from heavy manuring; but will yield in proportion to their food, probably in consequence of their greater, and yet undiminished vigor. Fresh, dry stable manure, especially in dry, light soil, should not come in contact with the sets, lest the heat destroy their vitality. The same applies to Peruvian guano, fish scrap, hen manure, etc. Kich animal manures may render the tubers rough, ill-shaped and knobby. If the common German kainit is used, it should be sown broadcast, or harrowed in, two months before planting time, for fear the chloride of magnesium it contains may otherwise injure the crop. The enormous prize crops reported some years ago to a New York house, for instance of ten barrels, or four- teen hundred and seventeen pounds from a single pound of seed potatoes, nineteen pounds from a single hill of two sets, prove the astonishing effects of heavy manur- ing, and at the same time the possibility of the use of very small sets. In some cases a single eye was subdivided into ten pieces, a single pound furnished two hundred and forty sets. The largest crop, per acre, upon record was made about forty years ago by Mr. Knight, the cele- brated horticulturist, and President of the Koyal Hor- ticultural Society (Eng.), of thirty-four tons (English) and nine cwt., equal to twelve hundred and eighty-four bushels of sixty pounds each. From sixty to one hundred barrels per acre is quite a satisfactory crop for the Southern truck-farmer. The usual mode of planting is in the drill. When in hills, they are made three by two, or three by three, feet apart, and two or three sets are planted in each, so that they may be cultivated both ways. The land being in proper condition, furrows are made by the plow three or three and a half feet apart, into which the manure, if planting is on a large scale, is distributed, at the rate of forty 202 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. . loads to the acre, by a manure-spreader, and the sets are placed directly upon the manure, at from about twelve to fifteen inches apart. In light, warm laud, the sets may at once be covered by the plow to the depth of six inches, and in the subsequent cultivation no hilling up is neces- sary or advisable. On cool, heavy land, it is advisable to cover at first to the depth of three or four inches, and so early in the stage of growth, as not to injure the roots, an additional inch or two may be drawn to the plants by the hoe. Subsequently the workings by plow and hoe Bhould be superficial. As soon, however, as the first shoots become visible, the surface of the rows should be raked over, to loosen the soil and destroy any germinat- ing or young weeds, or a light harrow may be used some time before the sprouts appear above the ground. A single section of the Thomas-harrow with slanting teeth answers the purpose admirably. HARVESTING THE CROPS. A potato is immature and unfit for food, so long as the skin can be readily slipped from the surface. If dug prematurely, they will be bruised and blackened in the barrels, and be unsalable at fair prices. When the plant dies, and not before, the crop may be gathered. A good plowman may be able with a double-mould plow, or potato-digger, to throw out an extensive and less valuable crop than that of the truck-farmer, without too much loss and bruising, but here a plow should only be used to side the rows and the potatoes be dug out with steel-pronged hoes, or potato-drags. To avoid unnecessary handling, the potatoes should be assorted as first quality and culls (too small tubers being rejected) in the field. Cloudy weather is the best suited for digging the crop. Potatoes will not endure exposure to the hot sun. If packed while warmed by the sun, they are apt to rot before reaching market. If dug during THE POTATO. 203 sunshine, they should be gathered as dug, carefully emptied into barrels already ventilated, and either promptly hauled from the field, or each barrel shaded by potato vines. The diggers should not be permitted to bruise the po- tatoes by pitching them upon piles or distant rows; nor the pickers by throwing them roughly inoo their baskets. The more carefully a vegetable is handled, the better will it strike the buyer's eye, and consequently, the more money will it bring the grower. Whatever be its size, no cut or bruised potato should be shipped in the first quality, but may be included in the " culls." The bar- rels must be well shaken down, and so full that the heads have to be pressed upon the contents, and they should bo double-headed and strongly coopered. The crop generally matures in this latitude about the middle of May. An unripe potato in which the starch has been imperfectly formed is slow to dry out and slow to sprout. THE SECOND CEOP. A sufficient quantity of the "culls" should, there- fore, be reserved from the ripest portion of the field for seed of the second crop, and stored in a cool, dry place, excluded from the light. They may be covered on a barn floor in alternate thin layers with very dry sand, or put away in bushel crates. If exposed to warmth and moisture two or three weeks before planting time, sprouting may be hastened and a better stand be secured. The time to put in the second crop is from the latter part of July to August 10th. If the eyes have sprouted, the tubers should be cut, but otherwise planted whole. As at this time the weather is warm and the season of growth short, they should be well manured and the land deeply broken up and pulverized to retain mois- 204 TRUCK-FAKMtSTG AT THE SOUTH:. ture. The crop will be matured before frost, which generally occurs about November 1st, when it should be dug and the seed stored away, as recommended above. DISEASES AND INSECTS. The fungoid disease, sometimes so destructive to the potato crops of Europe, and of the northern part of this continent, will rarely, if ever, affect our early crops of early varieties, and the later ones must be exempt in consequence of the heat, as cool moisture seems neces- sary for the development of this disease. The earliest crops at the North escape great injury from the Colorado Potato-beetle (Doryphora IQ-Uneata), and ours will therefore remain exempt from that pest, should it come South. The insects infesting the potato at the South are of the Lepidoptera: First Gortynia nitela (the Potato-stalk borer). Second Sphinx quinquemaculata (the Potato-worm). Among the Coleoptera. Third Baridius trinotatus (the Potato-stalk weevil). Fourth Lema trilineata (the Three-lined Leaf -beetle). Fifth Lachnosterna querdna (the White-grub). Sixth Deloyala clavata (the Clubbed Tortoise-beetle). Seventh Lytta marginata (Margined Blister-beetle). Eighth Lytta mttata (Striped Blister-beetle). Ninth Lytta cinerea (Ash-grey Blister-beetle). The first three of these attack the plant only in the larval state. Numbers 1 and 3 are more injurious than any others, as they devour a vital part, and live within the stalks. The Potato-stalk Borer lives within the stalks of several plants, including the Dahlia and other flowers, and attacks the tomato as well as the potato. When full grown, it en ten the earth, and in about two months comes out as a small moth, fig. 50. THE POTATO. 205 The Potato-stalk Weevil lives within the stalk in a similar manner to the borer, but it undergoes its changes Fig. 50. THE POTATO-STALK BOKER. Moth. Larva. within the stem, and finally appears as a small beetle. The different stages are shown in fig. 51. When a vine Fig. 51. THE POTATO STALK WEEVIL. a, Larva : 6, Pupa ; c, Beetle. is seen to wilt, or to be dying, the stems should be ex- amined for the larvae, and burnt to prevent an increase of the insect. The worms of the potato and to- mato-molh and the other insects, exclu- sive of the blister- beetles, are not numer- ous enough to inflict much injury. The Three-lined leaf -beetle feeds UpOU the plant j n ^ ] arva l and per- fect state. The larvae can be distinguished from any others, by being covered, like the larvae of the Tortoise- Fig. 52. THREE-LINED LEAP BEETLE. a. Larva; t, End of Body; c, Pupa; d. Eggs. 206 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. beetles, by its own excrement, as shown in fig. 52. The perfect insect has a general resemblance to the Striped Cucumber-beetle. The White Grub is a general feeder, and destroys the roots of many different plants. The larva is shown at fig. 53, and the perfect beetle, the well-known June-bug, in fig. 54. The principal insect enemies of the sweet-potato are the Tortoise-beetles, of which there are several, some of i Fig. 53. Fip. 54. CLUBBED TOR- WHITE GBUB. JUNE-BUG. TO18E-BEETLE. them of singular beauty. One of them, the Clubbed Tortoise-beetle (Deloyala clavata, fig. 55), forms an ex- ception, and selects the common or Irish potato as its food plant, feeding upon it in its perfect state, the larva of this species being unknown. The Blister-beetles feed upon the foliage in the perfect state only. They are sometimes quite abundant, particu- larly upon the second crop. Some of the farmers near Savannah were compelled to use Paris green last season, to stay the ravages of Lytta marginata. THE RADISH. CHAPTER XXIV. THE RADISH (Raphanus sativus). Eadis and Rave French ; Rettig, German ; Tamme radijs^ Dutch ; Rafan(\ Italian ; and Jiabano, Spanish. The Radish is not known in the wild state, and its native country is doubtful. It is mentioned as being cultivated in England in 1584. The radish, to be marketable, should not lose its ac- ceptable crispness, and I have, therefore, never heard of its satisfactory cultivation for the Northern markets south of Norfolk. The varieties there used are: "Th? Long Scarlet Short Top," and "The Scarlet Tur- nip," which are sown, as the season will admit, at any time from Christmas to the last of February. A light, mellow soil is best adapted to this crop, as it produces cleaner, nicer rad- ishes, and of better flavor, than a heavier soil. This applies particularly to the longer-rooted va ieties. The manure should Flg 56._ 8CARLET ' Tl)BNEP . be deeply plowed under. The RADISH. field having been plowed in narrow lands and finely harrowed, the seed is sown broadcast at the rate of about twelve pounds to the acre, and covered with a light harrow. The crop is sometimes large enough to be marketable in March, but it is generally shipped throughout April. The radishes are washed, bunched, and packed tightly in ventilated barrels, generally holding about two hundred bunches. The price 208 TRUCK-FAKMING AT THE SOUTH. ranges low; but these vegetables sometimes sell as high as eight dollars per barrel. In case of very warm weather, a lump of ice is of late years sometimes packed in the centre of the barrel. CHAPTER XXV. SPINACH (Spinacia oleracea). Epinard, French ; Spinal, German ; Spinagie, Dutch ; Spinaci, Italian ; Espinaca, Spanish. The common Spinach is an annual plant, supposed to be a native of Western Asia and to have been introduced into England about the commencement of the sixteenth century. Spinach is very extensively used at the North, and when the supply of other green vegetables has been short, that grown at Norfolk has sold for eight dollars per barrel; but the price is very variable. I have never heard of its being grown for the Northern markets, as far south as Charleston. The variety raised at Norfolk is the " Improved Curled American Savoy." The seed is sown from September 10th until October 15th, in drills thirty inches apart, requiring from ten to twelve pounds to the acre. The land must be warm and strong, and the plant requires exceedingly rich manuring. The gar- deners at Norfolk supplement their stable manure with Peruvian guano. Some of them add to the heavy ma- nuring given in the fall a top-dressing of a ton to the acre of the best guano. The crop occasionally pays well, but costs the best growers one hundred and fifty dollars per THE SQUASH. 20D acre to raise it. When the land is very good, the rows may be only eighteen inches apart. This plant, like the cauliflower, must never be stunted, but be pushed from the start. When the leaves are about an inch broad, the plants Fig. 57. SPINACH. are thinned to from six to eight inches. The crop must be frequently hoed. The Norfolk crop is marketed in March, and is packed tightly in ventilated barrels. CHAPTEK XXVI. THE SQUASH (Cucurbita Pepo.) Cmtrge Melonee, French ; MefonenMrUs, German. The Squash is a native of the Levant, and was first introduced into England in 1597. The Summer Squash is an early vegetable, bears transportation well, if picked at a proper stage of growth, and brings satisfactory, though never fancy prices. Sometimes, however, a part of the crop may be left on the fanner's hands. With the 210 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. large, but late and unproductive winter squashes, the truck-farmer has no concern. Of the early summer squashes the two varieties cultivated for the Northern Fig. 58. SQUASH WHITE BUSH SCALLOP. markets are: the "Early White Bush Scallop," fig. 58, and the " Early Summer Crook-neck," fig. 59. The latter is much the best flavored of all the bush squashes. It is of a dark orange color and is covered with warty excrescences. When sufficiently grown for . 59. SQUASH SUMMER CROOK-NECK. shipment, it is about ten inches long. Although this may sometimes be preferred, and occasionally command a better price, the scallop squash is the favorite, as it bears transportation and is packed much better, The THE SQUASH. 211 "Boston Marrow" and "Hubbard" have recently been grown for shipment. These are winter, running varie- ties, and must be planted from eight to ten feet apart. If one saves his own squash seed, he must avoid having any others of the same family growing near by. SOIL AND CULTIVATION. The squash is a little more hardy than the melon and cucumber, and is planted from about the last of February up to the middle of March, in the latitude of Savannah, and, of course, earlier to the southward. This crop re- quires a light, warm soil, and liberal manuring, particularly when planted so early. It is usually grown in hills four or five feet apart each way, the manure being dug in somewhat, as recommended for melons, at the rate of two shovelfuls to the hill. From six to ten seeds are sown to each hill, and the plants thinned to a stand after the development of a couple of rough leaves. Instead of growing in the hill, and leaving two plants in each as is usually practised, I prefer to manure in the drill, to sow the seed at two feet apart, and to leave, final- ly, but a single plant every two feet. If sown as early as March 1st, it is advisable to make at least a second sowing. The cultivation is the same as for cucumbers. MARKETING. If squashes intended for shipment to the Northern markets, were to be picked, or rather cut (for they should never be broken from the plant) in as green and tender condition, as for the local demand, they would arrive at their destination, bruised, blackened, and unsal- able. Even if they could be delivered in sound condition, squashes in such an early stage of growth would not suit the trade. The proper time to pick them is when they have nearly attained their full growth, and for the scallop variety, just as they bve lost the green, and are acquiring 212 TBCCK-FAEMIXG AT THE SOUTH. a white and glossy appearance. At this time the rind is still penetrable by the finger nail. Squashes may be shipped either in barrels or crates, and they must be so carefully packed as not to be bruised during transportation. INSECTS. The insects infesting the squash plant, besides the al- ready mentioned striped-bug (Diabrotica vittata), which is more frequently on the cucumber, are: First The Twelve-spotted Squash-beetle (Diabrotica 12-pwictata). Second The Squash-bug (Anasa tristis). Third The Squash vine-borer (^Egeria cucurbitm). Fourth The Melon-worm (Phacellura hyalinitalis). Fifth The Squash Lady-bird (Coccinella borealis}. The injuries inflicted by, and the remedies applicable to the twelve-spotted squash-beetle, and the cucumber- beetle or striped-bug, are identical and are described un- der " Cucumber." The offensively smelling, rusty-black colored, hemip- terous "squash -bug" affects the plant in the larval and perfect state. It destroys the leaves in a manner similar to the harlequin cabbage-bug, by sucking out their juice. The yellowish brown eggs are laid in little clusters on the underside of the leaves. Both eggs and insects are readily detected, and may be hand-picked. The squash vine-borer lives, and inflicts its injury within the stem of the plant. The first indication of its presence is the wilting of the vine. The larvae may be killed by destroying such vines, to prevent the increase of the in- sect. The melon- worm (see "Melon") only attacks the later crop of squashes, and should be destroyed whenever found. The squash lady-bird, is the only species of the Coccinellidae which does not befriend the farmer. This insect feeds both in its larval and perfect state upon the SWEET-POTATO. 213 leaves of the squash. The eggs are deposited in groups on the under surface of the leaves. The color is dull yellow with nineteen black spots on the thorax and wing covers. Hand-picking is the remedy. CHAPTER XXVIL SWEET-POTATO (Ipomcea Batatas). Rttate, French ; Susze Kartoffel, German. The native country of the Sweet-potato is unknown, some authors accrediting it to America, and others to the East Indies. It was used as a delicacy in England, long before the Irish potato was known, it having been im- ported from Spain. The plant was introduced into Eng- land by Gerarde in 1597. Were it not for the fact that the taste for this potato and the manner of cooking it at the North differ so much from that common at the South, the sweet-potato could be made a very profit- able crop. Here it is baked, while at the North it is usually boiled. The most salable, and, in fact, the only extensively marketable variety in any of the North- 3rn markets, is the "Delaware," "Jersey," or, more correctly, the " Nansemond," (at one time called the " Brimstone"), which at the South is regarded as a most inferior sort, unfit for the table, unsalable in local mar- kets, and, in consequence of its unproductiveness, un- suitable for cultivation. While boiling will make any of bhe Yam varieties mushy, baking renders the Nansemond like so much dry flour. Although I have several times received nine dollars and ten dollars per barrel for the Nansemond of the first quality, in Boston and Baltimore, 214 TBUCK-FABMttfa AT THE SOUTH. I have for years abandoned the crop. Many of the tubers do not attain a marketable size in time to anticipate the Virginia crop, or before August 1st, and therefore the whole fails to be remunerative. The other varieties pro- : duce few, but uniformly large, potatoes, while the Nan- semond has a great number of small ones. Still, circum- stances may alter the case, and others may succeed better with this variety than I have done. The sweet-potato would be then a profitable crop. The other varieties may produce from two hundred to eight hundred bushels to the acre; but several of the Yam varieties split open and become useless when highly manured and grown to a large size, say from two to six pounds. This objection does not apply to the Pumpkin Yam, which is also a produc- tive and good table potato for home use. BAISING THE "DRAWS" OB SETS. The sweet-potato is propagated by "draws" (or "slips" in the up country, and "sets" or plants at the North), by " roots," as the Irish potato, and by " slips" or cuttings of the vines taken from the growing plants. The crop of the truck-farmer is grown only by "draws." The chief danger in producing these consists in killing the eyes by exposing them to too much heat. In this latitude, and further South, they are more safely grown in cold-frames, prepared about the last of Janu- ary. The light, warm soil of a cold frame having been dug up, raked, and leveled, the seed potatoes are placed on the surface, a half-inch or so apart. Specimens of more than about two and a half inches in diameter may be divided in two, lengthwise, and the halves laid on the bed with the cut surface down. If the weather and the soil are dry, the potatoes may be watered and then covered evenly with about three and a half inches of light soil. The soil will settle a little. The frames should never be closely covered with the sash, SWEET-POTATO. 215 even at night, except in cold weather, and never in bright sunshine. In dry weather, the soil may require watering. In case the draws are well grown, even commencing to " run" and crowd each other, before the season admits of their being transferred to the open ground, they may be drawn and heeled-in closely in another cold frame, to await favorable weather. In the meantime other sprouts will form for another pulling. To heel them in most expeditiously, a wedge-shaped opening is made across the bed, by plunging the spade into the moist soil to its full depth, and pushing it backwards and forwards. Such a drill will hold several hundred plants. The opening of the next drill, five or six inches distant, will press the soil to the roots of the plants in the first drill. They may be put out as soon as danger from frost is supposed to be past; in this latitude about April 1st, and earlier at the Southward. They may, however, precede other ten- der plants, for a hoar frost will not kill potato draws out- right if they were properly transplanted. The soil best adapted to the sweet-potato is a warm, well-drained, light, sandy loam, or pure sand. PKEPARING THE SOIL. This is an exception to all other vegetables, inasmuch that the soil should not be deeply stirred. A hard bot- tom to the row is needed to induce a short, plump growth of the potatoes. On deeply plowed, sandy soil, on a porous subsoil, the "Yellow Eed" variety has grown over a yard in length and but an inch or less in diameter, and very few well-shaped potatoes were in a crop. If the surface is to be stirred, it should be done by a small plow as superficially as possible, or by means of a horse-hoe. The old-fashioned "listing," where the plants are to be put out on an elevated ridge, or bed, is the best prepara- tion, the only objection being, that in case it is necessary 16 TBUCK-FABMING AT THE SOUTH. to cover in much vegetable matter, the beds must be made high, in order to furnish soil enough in which to set the plants. Further North such beds are necessary; but for this latitude and to the Southward, on light, warm, vrell-drained soils, I disapprove of high, pointed beds, because of their drying out so rapidly. The Nan- semond will not thrive in heat and dryness. Well-rotted stable or cow-pen manure, or a good compost, should be spread upon the list at the rate of twenty-five loads to the acre, and covered by the plow. On clean land, with- out any list, it is spread on the surface in rows, three and a half feet apart, and covered with soil. The ridges should be raked down to within a few inches above the general surface. Potash is especially needed in the soil for this crop. The best manuring that can be given to land for the sweet-potato is by cow-penning it. Apart from the adaptability of the manure for the needs of the crop, a special benefit results from the compacting of the soil by the trampling of the cattle. No variety produces a more satisfactory draw than the Nansemond. It has more abundant and longer roots than any other, which may be more readily pulled from the potato without disturbing it in the bed. TRANSPLANTING. The draws are put out with a trowel, or a flat or round dibble, on the tops of the ridges, about fifteen inches apart, and inserted one or two joints deeper than they originally grew. They are thus not only likely to bear better, but are safer from injury by a severe white frost; they will not be killed outright, but will sprout again from the buds on the stems that are below the surface. In subsequent culture, superficial hoeing, with one plow- ing, as the vines commence to run, will suffice, care being observed never to cover any part of a vine. SWEET-POTATO. 21? DIGGING THE CROP. When the crop is to be dug, if the vines are not very abundant (a luxuriant growth above ground is by no means a sure indication of a good crop below it), they may be torn away by the plow, the point not being permitted to enter the ground. This is only practi- cable with the Nansemond and other small- vined varie- ties. The " Peabody," " White Yam," and some others, have vines that are too thick and strong. If the growth is too heavy, they must be stripped with sharp hoes; when the rows may be sided by the plow and the crop dug with steel prong-hoes. The gathering, assorting, and packing are the same as in the case of the Irish potato, with the exception that sweet potatoes are less susceptible of injury by sunshine, and they may be ex- posed long enough for the soil to become dry and rub off in the handling. POTATOES FOR SEED. The proper time to put up seed potatoes for the next crop is as late as possible in the fall, or after the first white frost has touched the leaves. The opinion gen- erally prevails that potatoes grown from draws will not keep well. Probably it is so, only because such are over-ripe. Seed potatoes are saved from plantings of slips or cuttings. The earlier they can be made, as soon as the vines have grown long enough and the weather is sufficiently wet, generally in this latitude about June 1st, the better. The longest, and, therefore, hardiest vines being selected, an evenly laid bundle as large as the hand can grasp is placed on a board, and cut with a sharp hatchet in lengths of about fifteen or eighteen inches, rejecting the delicate end pieces. These cuttings are laid across the ridges at twelve or fifteen inches apart, and pressed down into the soil by means of a 10 218 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. notched dibble (figure 60). The vine is fixed about its middle in the notch, thus making, as it were, a double cutting. If vines are scarce, single cuttings may be made of four or five joints, the lower three leaves being cut away. These may be planted with a com- mon dibble. The cultivation is the same as before. The seed may be preserved in a dry cellar, but is usually put up in po- tato banks. The surface in a dry situation is leveled and covered to the depth of four of five inches, with dry pine straw; the po- tatoes are placed upon this, storing not more than fifteen or twenty bushels in each bank. Pile them in as sharp a cone as pos- sible, and cover first with pine straw, then closely with corn stalks, in order to shed Fig. 60. SWEET- fa Q ra j ns an( j fi na lly with fiv e or s i x inches POTATO DIBBLE. , ' . ' . of soil. This covering will absorb the mois- ture which escapes from the potatoes, but large banks should be provided with a ventilating hole at the top, the admission of rain water being prevented by a cover. INSECTS. The insects that attack the sweet-potato are: First. Haltica cucumeris, (Cucumber Flea-beetle). Second. Sphinx cingulata, (Svveet-potato-moth). Third Cassida JmYtofa, (Two-striped Tortoise-beetle). Fourth. Cassida aurichalcea, (Golden Tortoise-beetle). Fifth. Cassida guttata, (Mottled Tortoise-beetle). Sixth Cassida niyripes, (Black-legged Tortoise-beetle). Seventh. Chelymorpha cassidea. The first-named and smallest of these (described under "Cucumber") is the most injurious, attacking the few leaves of the young plants as soon as they are put out. The remedy for the flea-beetles, dusting with lime, soot, or Paris green if very abundant, may be resorted to. SWEET-POTATO. The large green worm of the sweet-potato-moth (Sphinx cingulata) very much resembles the tomato- Fig. 61. TWO-STRIPED TORTOISE-BEETLE ( CdSSida Uvittato). 1. Larva, natural size ; 2, Larva ; 8, Pupa ; 4, Beetle, all magnified. worm, but is not in sufficient frvce to do much injury. The moth is especially distinguished from Sphinx Carolina Fig. 62. GOLDEN TORTOISE-BEETLE ( Cassida auricJutlcea). a, Larva, natural size ; b, enlarged, with dung removed ; c, Pupa ; d. Beetle. and Sphinx quinquemaculata by its pink-striped under- wings. The larvae of the tortoise-beetles, although some- Fig. 63. MOTTLED TORTOISE-BEETLE ( Cassida a. Larva ; b, Pupa. times abundant, are not sufficiently so to diminish the crop of the truck-farmer. They have, like those of 220 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. Lema trilineata, the peculiar habit of covering themselves with their own excrement. The past season, I noticed, for the first time, a number of the perfect insects of Clielymorplia cassidea feeding up- on the sweet-potato. It is said to feed upon the milk- weed, and, I believe, has been found on the wild convol- vulus, or morning glory. It is a yellow, oblong-oval, beetle, somewhat similar to the tortoise-beetle in form, about three-eighths of an inch long, with a pair of black dots on each side of the thorax, and six black spots on each wing-cover. CHAPTER XXVIIL THE TOMATO (Lycopersicum esculentum). fomate, French ; Liebes-Apfel, German ; AppeUjes des liefde, Dutch ; R>mo d'oro, Italian ; Tomates, Spanish. The order Solanacece or Nightshade family contains over twelve hundred species, among which are three of our most wholesome and important vegetables the Irish potato, the tomato, and the egg-plant. It also includes the red pepper and the narcotics, bittersweet, belladonna, Jamestown or ' Jimson weed," the tobacco and others. The Tomato was first introduced into Europe from South America in 1596; but for many years it was ex- clusively cultivated as an ornament to the flower-garden. It came very gradually into use in the preparation of sauces and in soups, having attained popularity only within the last forty years. In the north of the European continent and in England it is not yet popularized; while in France and Italy, particularly near Rome and Naples, THE TOMATO. 221 it is produced in large quantities. It is a strange fact that, in Sicily, the tomato, when ripe, becomes sour and so unfit for use that the island has to be supplied from the vicinity of Naples on the neighboring mainland. Like all vegetables, grown on such an extensive scale, and so well adapted for transportation to distant markets, the prices the tomato commands are very variable. The farm-gardeners on Long Island and other points in the vicinity of New York rarely receive better prices than from twenty-five cents to one dollar per bushel, while fine stock arriving early on a bare market, has occasion- ally brought very high prices. Thus, some years ago, I received sixteen dollars per bushel-crate in Baltimore (at the rate of eight cents each), and in Boston and Balti- more, which are the best markets for this vegetable, I have frequently received eight and ten dollars per bushel- crate. Now that Florida anticipates more Northern localities in shipping tomatoes (though very frequently of inferior quality, sufficient care not having been paid to assorting and packing), these prices are past. The returns no\v range between one dollar and fifty cents and five dollars per crate, according to the length of the ship- ping season. The yield is from one hundred to two hun- dred crates per acre. At the North, where five thousand plants are required to the acre, and where the bearing and picking season is longer, four hundred bushels are obtainable. VARIETIES. The great number of varieties enumerated in seed cata- logues has only interest for the amateur. There is little or no difference in the time of maturing the fruit, what- ever claim may be made in the advertisements. This is probably owing to the neglect to save seed repeatedly from the choicest and earliest fruit. A good market variety should be of medium size, round and smooth, with few 222 TBUCK-FARMIXG AT THE SOUTH. seeds ; it must be firm, must ripen evenly and have a bright red color. The " Acme," " Livingston's Beauty " and "Perfection," the "Round Smooth Red," and the " Hathaway " fill these requirements ; the first-named is at present preferred. The "Trophy" and "Fejee Island" are both of excellent quality and appearance, but the first is objectionable on account of its too great size (not satisfactorily measurable by the quart), and the lat- ter on account of its shape. The "Pear-shaped" and the "Yellow" and "Red Cherry" are only used for pickles and preserves. SELECTION OF SOIL. The tomato will better resist drouth than it will too much rain, and indeed better than most vegetables; the soil, therefore, best adapted to this crop is a sandy one, or a high sandy loam. On low ground, well drained or not, in dry or wet seasons, the plants are liable to die out about the commencement of bearing. The fruit will even rot on high sandy soil, when the plants are manured with muck that has been exposed to the atmosphere for eight months. The tomato is not a gross feeder; it prefers a poor soil to one that is too fertile, nor will the plant bear any considerable application of stimulating fertilizers, such as Peruvian guano, hoof -trimmings, fish scrap, etc., which will certainly cause it to run to vine, and to make the fruit, particularly the first, decay before attaining full size. Those which do mature will be watery and not carry well. A &ood crop can be made with one shovelful of well-rotted stable or cow manure, or good compost, to the hill, or upon a soil which has recently produced a well manured crop. In the last case no manuring would be needed. SOWING THE SEED. Slow growth being requisite to produce good stocky plants, the seed should be sown about January 1st on un- THE TOMATO. 223 manured soil, in cold frames, in drills across the beds four inches apart ; and earlier or later, according to the de- gree of latitude south or north of Savannah. On heav- ier soils, use a slight bottom heat, light manuring, and BOW ten days earlier. If, after sowing, the weather should be cold and cloudy, the ground should be kept warm by means of the glass; but if warm, with much sunshine, the frames must be kept open or shaded, and the soil moist, until the plants have come up. Under the shade and moisture of the front boards of the frame the plants are apt to damp off, and to grow small and slender under the reflection of the sun near the back. It is therefore advisable to sow the seed more thinly near the front and back than in the middle of the bed. To avoid a too spindling and crowded growth, the plants should be thinned as soon as they are large enough to be handled with safety, and transplanted to fill vacant spaces in other cold frames, or thrown away. A tomato plant should never be put out in the open field, if avoidable, without having been previously transplanted. When the plant is pricked out deeper than it stood in the seed bed, it will throw out numerous small fibrous roots along the stem and at the root, to which the soil will adhere, when again taken up; and will therefore be apt to suffer less check at the final transplanting. When about four inches high, near the middle of February, pricking out into other cold frames, with the soil as in the seed bed, should be commenced. Set the plants down to the seed leaves at three or four inches apart, or if very large plants are desired, more space may be allowed to each. At those distances, each three by six-foot sash will cover from one hundred and sixty-five to two hundred and ninety plants, and an acre will require the use of at least eleven sashes. A very stocky growth can be obtained by stopping or cutting off the tops of the plants just above the seed leaves, as soon as vigorous growth has commenced. They 224 TEUCK-FAKMIXG AT THE SOUTH. will throw out a stem at the axil of each seed leaf ; thus producing, as it were, two plants from each root, which, when planted out deeply, will support each other and tend to increase the yield. If this is done before the plants have taken root, only one bud is likely to develop. If the pricked out plants become too crowded, pinch f *' if -* f J Fig. 61 BOX FOB TOMATO PLANTS. off some of the lower leaves to promote a stockier growth and cause side shoots to push. It may pay those, who can ship the earliest tomatoes, to prick out into pots or into boxes, plunging the boxes in cold frames. BOXES FOE TOMATO PLANTS. Before shipments from Florida by their greater earli- ness anticipated my crops of Tomatoes, I used boxes like THE TOMATO. 225 those in fig. 64, holding twenty plants each. These measured twenty-three and three-fourths by eighteen inches by seven inches high; they were made with two end boards eighteen by seven inches, and three-inch laths twenty-three and three-fourths inches long. When made of these dimensions and placed in contact in rows of three boxes across the bed, a cold frame six feet wide will rest with its upper and lower edges upon the adjoining end boards of the boxes. The boxes may be less than seven inches deep. . They are filled with soil which has been screened or is naturally free from roots, sticks, peb- bles, etc. Before removal from the frames, the soil must be saturated with water, when the plants can be cut out in the field with a sharp-edged brick-layer's trowel and placed with blocks of soil adhering to the roots, in squares previously made by the- plow, using a double mould-board. A hoeful of soil drawn to each side of the plant finishes the planting. In this manner plants may be put out on the highest ground, in the driest weather, and during the hottest midday sunshine, without wilting or the slightest apparent check to growth. TRANSPLANTING. If, however, the plants pricked out into cold frames are taken up carefully, with as much moistened soil ad- hering to the roots as possible, they may be planted out with the dibble or trowel, without loss, when the soil is only moist enough for the holes to be made, the recom- mendations given in the chapter on "Transplanting," being closely observed. The distances at which the plants are put out will de- pend upon the fertility of the land and the variety ; the usual distances are three to three and one-half feet in the rows, which are from four to six feet apart. The season and danger of frost will determine when to put out the plants, which is about April 1st. A tomato plant. 226 TBUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. however, if of stocky growth, will resist a slight frost, \ and the earlier it can be put out the better. If white frost be apprehended, the plants may be protected when grown on a small scale, by means of boxes or any other screen, or by smoke; but when on a large scale it is cheaper to have a surplus oa hand, in case of loss by frost. CULTIVATION. The first workings are done with a cultivator or a horse- hoe, running both ways. The plow and hoe leave the crop free from weeds, and on wide beds, at the time picking commences, the soil will be well drawn up to the stems, but without having covered up tjie young shoots issuing from the main stem, and which will bear fruit. Train- ing the vines to a single pole or to two placed parallel, or to a trellis, may be practiced on a small scale. Prun- ing the vines is not advisable. The fruit matures in this latitude about June 1st. Below is a table showing the dates of sowing, pricking out, planting and harvest for seven consecutive years: Dates of sowing. Jan. 14. Jan. 14. jan. 9. Jan. 4. Jan. 5. Jan. 8. Dec. 19. of pricking out. Feb. 15. Feb. 17. Feb. 20. Feb. 26. Feb. 28. Feb. 12. Feb. 12. of planting. March 27. March 16. March 26. April 1. March 24. April 1. March 19. of harvest. June 5. June 7. June 3. May 30. May 22. May 28. May 31. PICKING AND PACKING. The distance from market, or time required in trans- portation, will determine the stage of ripeness at which the fruit is to be picked. Fruit exposed fairly to the sun will show the commencement of the ripening process on the upper surface, while that in the dense shade of luxuri- ant foliage will first redden on the flower end. In the vicinity of Charleston and Savannah, the proper stage, has been reached, when the tomato has attained a yellow cast; and in Florida, as soon as it is full-grown and THE TOMATO. 227 shows the least sign of "turning." Generally the pick- ng is done there, when the tomato is much too green to ipen properly, and at the cost of the producer. The )ickers should not place leaky or decaying fruit in their >askets to soil the rest. Tomatoes, like all other stock 'or which good prices are expected, should be carefully issorted, both as to quality and degree of ripeness, all nferior or worm-eaten fruit being strictly excluded. To- natoes should not be emptied out of the baskets into .he crates and shaken down like potatoes, but packed ingly, in order that they may lie compactly, so that ipon arrival in market, each package may present a full md unshaken appearance. In the moie careful packing >ractised in later years, the fruit has been wrapped in >aper. This wrapping protects the remainder of the :ruit from leaking or decay in the crate. Paper for the jurpose should be porous, soft and strong. Pieces seven nches square (forty-nine square inches) will answer for 'ruit of medium size. A tomato as it is picked from the plant may fre- quently present a perfectly sound appearance, until the item is removed, when it is found to contain a well- jrown worm of Helwthis armigera the Cotton-boll yorm ; the insect, while very small, having penetrated ;he fruit under the calyx. A reason for rubbing off all ;he stems, is, the danger of their bruising other fruit or iearing the wrapping paper. In our Southern climate, in early tomato plant will not continue in bearing be- rond the first part of August ; but a succession may be secured by putting out plants in July from seed sown in Vlay, or early in June. From this crop, grown in hot veather, however, neither the yield nor the size of the 'ruit will be as satisfactory as the earlier one. Plants nay also be propagated from cuttings of old vines, if set mt in moist ground ; but many frequently fail to take oot. 228 TBUCK-FABMING AT THE SOUTH. SAVING THE SEEDS. For seed, the earliest well-matured, and in every re- spect, the choicest fruit should be selected, and those which were grown on soil best adapted to the tomato. As the objectionable knobby fruit is produced from dou- ble flowers, and these are said to result from the use of old seed, the fruit from which to save seed should only be gathered from plants raised from fresh seed. The fruit, when soft and over-ripe, should be mashed in any convenient vessel and stirred daily for three or four days, when the seed may be washed from the pulp and dried. INSECTS. Young tomato plants are liable to be cut down by sev- eral kinds of cut- worms.* During the Spring of 1882, the green larvae of Sphinx Carolina, and Sphinx quinque- maculatawere very numerous and destructive; but gener- ally, owing to paucity of number, the damage is slight. More severe injury is done, and particularly to the earlier and therefore most valuable part of the crop, by the caterpillar of tbe Cotton-boll worm, (or the " Corn- seed worm," Heliothis armigera.) They rarely, and only when very young, touch the leaves ; but penetrate the green fruit, one worm often boring into several. Hand-picking in either case is the only remedy. Just before the first picking for market, all the punctured fruit should be gathered and either fed to the stock or destroyed. Sometimes a large green worm may be found with one or two of what appear to be very minute eggs, adhering tightly to the skin at one of the rings of tbe body, or covered apparently, with eggs. Such a worm should not be destroyed. The supposed eggs are the chrysalides of an Ichneumon fly, its appropriate insect enemy. *See Chapter on Insects. THE WATERMELON. 229 CHAPTER XXIX. THE WATERMELON (Citrullus vulgaris). Pasteque, French ; Wasssr-Mtlone, German ; Water mdoen, Dutch Cocomero, Italian. The Watermelon was probably the melon of the Bible, and, as has been incidentally stated, was known to the Jews in Egypt. Watermelons may be more or less successfully grown from Key West to New Jersey, and from as far south in the interior of Florida as transportation facilities enable the farmers to ship the crop profitably. Commencing about May 15th, they are forwarded to the North by steamships and to the North-west by rail. Owing to the size and nature of the fruit, it has to be shipped in bulk, and, even with careful handling, in transit, accidental breakages will occur; but, if the en- tire crop, exclusive of losses by unavoidable causes, could reach the market, none would, under favorable circum- stances, pay better.* * The losses upon watermelons shipped to Boston have been so genera, that the subject has been discussed by the "Vegetable and Fruit Grow- ers' Association," with a view to provide a remedy. G. R. McRee. Esq., of Lowndes County, Georgia, one of the largest growers of melons for shipment to the North, wrote to the author in September last as follows: " I have almost quit shipping to Boston ou account of the heavy losses. I have lost as much as fifty per cent, of some of my consignments, and never expect to get off with less than twenty per cent." In December last Mr. McRee wrote: " You are at liberty to use any statement from me, in reference to the loss on steamers, in your forthcoming work. My losses by the Boston ships have been so heavy that I have very nearly quit the line. I sent only two or three consignments by it the past sea- son, and these were shipped by the forwarding agent of the railroad be- cause the New York ship was missed." LATER NOTE. I am constrained by a sense of justice, to state that after the above was in type, the agents called upon me, as President of the "Vegetable and Fruit Growers' Association of Chatham County," and promised that at both ends of the line, with the finer ships and new staffs of officers and crews, they would endeavor to remove the cause of complaint. A. 0. 230 TKUCK-FAKMIHG AT THE SOUTH. AVOIDABLE LOSSES. The melon, like most other plants, is subject to insect depredations ; but it is not from losses to the farmer by these minute objects, nor by the unfavorableness of sea- sons (although the melon is among the most uncertain of crops), nor by any of the other contingencies which so often make the profits of the agriculturist doubtful, that his success and his income are diminished; but by depredations and theft. After his crop is harvested, quick and safe transportation to market is a chief factor in successful truck-farming. Without it the industry must fail. With the transportation lines from Savannah, I have had an experience of twenty-seven years. In that time I have been the largest, and am now the oldest grower of melons in this immediate region, and know whereof I write. Previous to the war, the pilfering of melons was carried on to such an extent that two Sea Island cotton planters, my relatives, who planted them most extensively, were by self-protection compelled to admit the captains, or pursers of the steamships, into co- partnership, allowing them a part of the profits. Then, and then only, could melons be shipped with safety. Since that time, a vast improvement has been made. If it be a difficult matter to prevent these losses to the ship- per, the agency shows a praiseworthy endeavor to curtail them, and there seems to be a fair prospect of still further future improvement. The two Northern markets, where melons invariably command the highest prices, are Boston and New York. Under the same conditions of safety the preference would be decidedly in favor of the former ; but the handling has been so careless, and the " shortage " so outrageous, as to discourage shipments to that market. I have lost as many as two hundred and twenty-nine THE WATERMELON. 231 melons from a single shipment. The great loss is not under the head of specked or decayed (principally owing to rough handling), but missing. The melon is not an evanescent object which disappears without trace like ex- ploded gun-cotton. A fair yield to the acre is one thousand melons, large enough for shipment, or ranging from fifteen pounds up- wards. In consequence of a disease which has been killing the vines of late years, about the time the fruit is form- ing, the crop more frequently falls below than exceeds that number. I have examined the roots and vines in Fig. 65. WATERMELON" RATTLESNAKE." vain for insects, to account for this disease, and have not yet been able to ascertain the cause. It is probably not attributable to an insect in the root, like the larvae of the striped-bug in the cucumber, for the disease sometimes first manifests itself in a single side-runner. My melons sold the past season in the New York and Boston markets at from twenty-five to fifty dollars per hundred. VARIETIES. A variety to be fit for shipment should be large, with a rind thick enough to carry well, should not " burn" or become discolored in the field by the hot sun, and should "cut" red throughout, without a lighter colored hard 232 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. "core." At present "Kolb's Gem," and the "Rattle- snake," which is also known by several local names, fill these requirements better than any other. SOIL AND PREPARATION. The soil best adapted to the watermelon is a light, dry, warm sand, lately cleared, or which has not been culti- vated for at least three years. This peculiar adaptability of new ground is probably attributable to the opening of the soil by the decaying roots of vegetation. Whatever compacts the soil is in- jurious to the crop. A rainy season, owing partly to the consolidating of the land, is most unfavorable to success. On new ground, the first formed young fruit are more apt to become developed, and in larger numbers, and particularly are they all liable to shrivel and drop off 02 old recently cultivated land after a heavy rain or frequent lighter ones. This applies particularly to the sandy land of the coast. Notwithstanding the very succulent char- acter of the fruit, wet weather is more damaging than drouth. The field having been plowed and harrowed, it is laid off, according to the usual custom, ten or twelve feet each way, to mark the hills. For this purpose, a double mould-board plow is the best implement. It makes straight smooth furrows and wider openings at their crossings for the hills. Instead of these distances I prefer to make my hills six by twelve feet apart, and leave but a single plant in each, rather than two plants. With the same average area for each vine I conceive that the single plants will produce a greater number of large melons to the acre. The openings made by the plow are enlarged to about three feet in diameter, and deepened below the depth of the surface soil, and one or two shovelfuls of decayed stable, cow or hog manure, the latter to be preferred, are dug up and intimately mixed with the sub- THE WATERMELOH. 233 soil, by means of hoe, spade, or digging-fork. The hoe, although not so effective, is the more expeditious tool in the hands of negro laborers. Green stable manure or any other kind that is fermenting, or heating, is not suitable for melons on light land. If in place of the above, a compost of muck or woods-earth with cotton- seed meal or fish guano is used, the quantity should be two shovelfuls, containing about one pound of the meal or guano. When manure is plentiful enough, it may be applied in the drill or even broadcast, notwithstanding the distances of the plants, for most of the roots of the melon plant are long surface roots. Manured only in the hill, the plant derives less benefit from the fertilizer. SOWING THE SEED. A flat hill, elevated two or three inches above the general surface, is made over the manure with the removed surface soil, and in the middle of each the first sowing of from six to ten seeds is made, one or two inches deep, according to the nature and degree of moisture of the soil. As in the case of cucumbers, I make two more sowings at in- tervals of a week, putting in three orfour seeds at each, at which rate it will require from two and one-half to three pounds of seed per acre. A temperature of about sixty- five degrees is required to sprout melon seed ; and there is rarely anything gained in this crop by making the sow- ings too early, as cold weather, even without frost at night, will give the plants a check from which they will never recover sufficiently to produce a good crop. While melon seeds may be planted in the middle of Florida, in January and February, March 15th is quite early enough for the first planting in the latitude of Savannah, and, of course, later further North. CULTIVATION. If the first sowing has failed, or the plants have been killed or injured by cold, it is best to await the growth 234 TBtTCR-fARMlKG AT THE SOUTH. of the second or even of the third planting ; otherwise, as soon as the first has raade two rough leaves, and the others are up, the top of the hill should be stirred by a hand-weeder, or other hand implement, or by the fingers ; and the loose soil drawn to the stems up to the seed- leaves, at the same time thinning the plants to a couple, of each sowing, or even to less, if they crowd each other. Of course, the strongest, healthiest looking plants are to be left. It is sometimes the case that plants from the sec- ond sowing are more advanced than those from the first, when all of the latter should be removed. To stir the soil and destroy young weeds, the cultivator or horse-hoe is run in both directions over the whole surface, and as near the hills as possible without disturbing them. They should be thinned to a stand early enough to prevent crowding, and the hills hoed about the time the plants commence to " run," and the soil drawn well up to the seed-leaves, great care being taken not to cover the leaves or crown. Before the vines reach the edge of the hills, two furrows should be thrown to each side of the row. It requires careful plowing to throw the soil to the middle with out disturbing the hills, which are only six feet apart. This is done by depressing the right handle of the plow, or pushing it inward to the rows as the plow reaches each hill, and erecting it again in passing. Melon vines should never be handled, if it can possibly be avoided, and, therefore, as the vines cover the bed, and before they extend beyond it, the plow is used repeatedly, un- til the plants are left on wide beds separated by a wide furrow. Before the second plowing, hoes should be care- fully used around the hills and between the vines with- out touching them rudely ; removing all weeds before overlooked. "Watermelons come into market from Florida about the latter part of May; and from the vicinity of Savannah and the adjacent Sea Islands, about July 1st. THE WATtHMEtotf. 2.15 GATHERING THE FRUIT. An experienced picker can recognize from its general light and bright, but not glistening appearance, when a melon has reached a proper state to be cut from the vine for shipment, before it is fully, or " red " ripe, and he may do so without any other loss of time than is required to detach it from the vine and to place it on end for the carriers. Roads should be convenient, for it is impossi- ble to induce the laborers to avoid treading on the vines, even when they do not cover the ground. The less ex- perienced pickers must look for other signs of ripening, and the "belly," or lower surface, where it has been in contact with the earth, presents the most reliable in the appearance of the pores of the skin. When these become perceptible to the touch, by a roughness of the skin, or can be seen, or the rind has become too hard to be read- ily indented by the finger nail, the melon may be picked for shipment. The shriveling or dying of the ' ' curl," or little ten- dril nearest to the melon, or in the axil of the stem, is a usual, but not a certain rign of ripeness. A ripe melon sounds hollow upon percussion with the knuckle ; but thumping is only practicable in the early morning, for a large unripe melon has the same reso- nance during the hot midday sun. If the "belly" is yellow and blistered the melon is surely full ripe. Pres- sure upon the fruit to hear the sound of the rupture of the flesh within, if ripe, is objectionable. It injures the ripe as well as the green, and should never be resorted to. INSECTS. It is possible, nay, even probable, that the late, gen- erally observed perishing of melon vines may be entirely attributable to insects, and in part, to an unknown one. Wire-worms, or larvae of Diabroticce, may be the cause of the death of some. 236 TRUCK-FA KMIXG AT THE SOUTH. The injury to the seed-leaves of young plants by flea- beetles is annoying, but never extensive enough to war- rant the application of a remedy over the large area of a melon crop. Of the several plants in each hill a vigorous one may be expected to escape injury, until the develop- ment of rough leaves, when the danger from this source ceases. Th watermelon is a food plant of the yellowish green, nearfy translucent larva of an insect very similar to the pickle-worm moth, Phacellura hyalinitalis. If this in- sect has two broods, the first, or spring brood, must be very limited in numbers ; for I have never known the early melon crop for shipment to be damaged, while later crops suffer very severely. Not only are the leaves de- voured, but the worms gnaw and penetrate the fruit. It is, of course, the policy of the farmer to destroy the in- sects in all its stages, whenever possible ; but no remedy has as yet been found that can be profitably applied. The Phacellura is known to be subject to two parasitic in- sects : the Pimpla conquisitor, and a Tachina fly. CHAPTER XXX. THE STRAWBERRY (Fragaria). Fraisier, French ; Erdbeere, German ; Aardbezie, Dutch ; Fianta di fragda, Italian ; and f~resa, Spanish. The Strawberry, with the majority of the cultivated fruits of Northern climates, belongs to the Rose family. It well deserves its botanical name, Fragaria (from fra- gro, to emit a sweet odor), for no other fruit is so frag- rant. While some who have written upon the straw- THE STRAWBERRY. 237 berry make nearly a dozen species, the most accurate botanists fail to find more than three or four, that are really distinct. The most widely distributed species is Fragaria vesca, the Wood or Alpine strawberry. In this the seeds (really one-seeded seed-vessels) are not sunken in a cavity in the fruit, but are prominent upon the surface. This is the most widely distributed species, being found wild in Europe, Asia, and in this country. From this are derived all the cultivated Alpine strawber- ries, so popular on the Continent of Europe, and so sel- dom grown in this country. F. grandiflora, the Large-flowered strawberry, is a native of South America, and on the Pacific coast ex- tends northward to California. The Chilian strawberry (F. Chilensis) is now regarded as a form of this. F. Virginiana, the Virginia or Scarlet strawberry is our most common wild strawberry. It is found from the Arctic circle to Florida, and extends northward to Ore- gon and Washington Territory. Occurring in a great variety of localities, several of its forms have been described as species. This and F. grandiflora are the parents of the strawberries generally cultivated. They differ from the Alpine species in having their seeds in a cavity more or less deep. The other species which have been described as distinct are of no importance to the cultivator. The strawberry was apparently known to the Romans only in its wild state, for none of their writers have men- tioned it as among cultivated fruits. It is first mentioned as having been cultivated in England during the reign of Eichard III, in 1483. With the exception of a variety of Wood strawberry raised in France about 1 660, no im- proved variety of the strawberry was known until late in the last century, after the introduction of the Large- flowered and the Virginia strawberries. With the pro- duction of improved seedlings, as well as hybrids, new 238 TRUCK-FABMISTG AT THE SOUTH. varieties increased rapidly both in this country and in Europe, varieties of the former species seeming to be bet- ter adapted to the climate of Europe, while those of the latter are preferred in this country. The wild berry is vastly superior to most of the new- varieties, which the mania for size, regardless of the more valuable qualities of flavor, and aroma, has developed. All the wild species and most of the improved varieties have perfect flowers. They contain both stamens and pistils, and are termed hermaphrodite flowers. In the strawberry, the numerous pistils are crowded upon a rounded body in the centre of the flower, called the re- ceptacle. Immediately around these are the numerous stamens. As soon as the pistils are fertilized by the pol- len from the stamens, they begin to grow, and the lower part of each one ripens into a diminutive, bony, one- seeded nutlet, which popularly passes for the seed, and it is convenient, for the sake of brevity, to call it so. As the pistils themselves, after fertilization, begin to ripen, the receptacle on which they are placed begins to grow, and at length becomes the juicy, fine flavored mass with which we are familiar as the strawberry, though in struc- ture it is not the fruit, but merely an appendage to the proper fruits. Unless the pistil is fructified by the pollen of the same, or of some other flower, through the medium of insects or of the wind, it must remain sterile, or fruit- less, or "blind." The flowers of some of the improved va- rieties, particularly those originating in this country, are entirely without stamens, or have them imperfectly devel- oped. Such are the "pistillate" varieties, as for instance the old "Hovey's Seedling," and the later "Crescent." Having no stamens, they must be fertilized by pollen from other flowers and we must plant at least one row of a perfect variety to each ten rows of the pistillate kind, for that to become fruitful. There are many dis- advantages connected with the cultivation of these pistil- THE STRAWBERRY. 239 late varieties, and as there are many as good, or better, with perfect flowers, the former should be discarded. VARIETIES AND YIELD. A variety may be adapted to a certain soil and climate, and be totally unsuited under different conditions not very distant. Of the many varieties that are fine and popular at the North, few succeed under the continued heat and dryness of a part of our summer season. The principal requirements of a market variety for shipment to distant points are: First, Its adaptability to our climate. Second, Pro- ductiveness. Third, Fair size. Fourth, Sufficient firm- ness to enable it to endure the rough handling and delay of transportation without injury, so that it may arrive in market in good presentable appearance and condition. The old "Wilson's Albany," or "Wilson," and the "Neunan" or "Charleston" meet these conditions better than any others. The latter is a more attractive and better flavored berry, is more productive of runners, and is rapidly superseding the "Wilson" as the Southern market variety. Where all the conditions for its successful culture are favorable, the strawberry has long been, in the vicinity of large cities, the gardener's most valuable crop. As long ago as 1850, the average net profit of a Scotch acre * of strawberries in the vicinity of Edinburgh was from one hundred and seventy-five to two hundred dol- lars, the land renting at from twenty-five to seventy-five dollars per acre. The heaviest shipments to our Northern markets are made from Norfolk, Virginia, where probably the largest strawberry farm in the world is located, one cultivator having two hundred and fifty acres in this fruit. Large * The Scotch acre contains six thousand and eighty-four square ytrds, and is about one and a quarter acre English. 240 TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. shipments are also made from Charleston, S. C., to the Eastern markets, and from Mobile to those of the West. In 1879, seven hundred and thirty-four thousand and ninety-three quarts were shipped from Charleston. Ex- tensive plantings for shipment have also been made in Florida and South-western Georgia, one farmer having twenty acres near Thomasville, Thomas County. Although there are lands to be had in the vicinity of Sa- vannah, with adequate drainage, and so admirably adapted to the cultivation of strawberries, that the best fruit farms in the country could be established in this locality, not enough are grown to supply the local demand, and supplies for that purpose are procured from Florida and Charleston. In the local market the retail price ranged from fifteen cents to one dollar per quart-basket the past season, averaging thirty cents. The first sales were made February 20th. ' The first shipments from Florida, about February 1st, that arrive in good order in the Northern market, sometimes bring from three to five dollars. Larger shipments of one hundred quarts and upwards generally bring about two dollars. Heavier, and later shipments, soon reduce the price. From Charleston, the first shipments, coming late in March, bring from seventy-five cents to one dollar per quart, but the price drops, as the quantity increases, to from thirty-five to fifty cents per quart. The first from North Carolina bring about the same price as Charleston berries. The immense quantities shipped from Norfolk, commencing about May 10th, notwithstanding the fresher state of the fruit, bring the price down to from twenty-five to thirty-five cents, and sometimes lower still. New York is the best market for strawberries. No fancy prices are realized in Baltimore. Occasionally we enjoy in the latitudes of Savannah and Mobile a sufficiently protracted period of warm weather THE STRAWBERRY. %l in winter for the plants to bloom and mature fruit, en- abling us to make several pickings in December, but this occurs very rarely. G. H. Baker, of Illinois, reported having raised two hundred and fifty-three bushels, or eight thousand and ninety-six quarts of " Wilson's Albany," upon an acre, giving him a clear profit of fifteen hundred and nine dollars. Mr. Parker, of Massachusetts, picked three thousand two hundred quarts of the same variety from an acre within ten days, and sold them on his premises for eleven hundred and twenty dollars. The well-known authority on the strawberry Rev. E. P. Roe, of Orange County, N. Y., in his work " Success with Small Fruits," mentions the yield of one of his beds of the " Crescent Seedling," at the rate of three hundred and forty-six bushels, or eleven thousand and seventy-two quarts to the acre. A few years ago, 0. B. Galusha reported, in an Illinois journal, that he had produced fourteen thousand quarts of the same variety to the acre. These exceptional crops are merely given to show the capabilities of the strawberry under favorable contingencies. No such ex- traordinary yields can be realized in any other than a cool and moist climate, and it is doubtful whether in our hot region, under the most favorable conditions of soil, vari- ety, manure, careful preparation and proper cultivation, without subdrainage and irrigation, more than six thou- sand quarts per acre can be produced, while three thou- sand may be considered a good yield, and from fifteen hundred to two thousand are common. One farmer, near Savannah picked eight hundred and ninety-four quarts from two-thirds of an acre and discontinued picking after the price fell below fifteen cents. SOIL AND ITS PREPARATION. The selection of soil and location should be made with a view to provide the moisture so absolutely indispensa- IX 842 TRUCK-FARMIX. i Moisture at a as as s KSS s.s. ^^ Insoluble. I Soluble. : | : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Ammonia. iSSSSSSSS 8 SS88S33S3S8SSS8S8e .. 42 178 Cold Frames 78 80-81 Bosecole Materials for 28 Cotton Seed as Cattle Food 37 Injurious to Swine 37 In Compost 37 Cotton-seed Meal, Value as Manure 29 Cow, Manure 31 Annual Product. 32 Urine from, Annually 82 Cow-pea, Analysis of Vine 21 Bouseinganlt on Nitrogen Box for Tomato Plants Braseica oleracea .. 11 ..224 . 137 ..163 . 178 ..137 4-149 143 var. Botrytis var.soteWica Cabbages Analysis of 14 Club-foot in . . 268 INDEX. 269 Cow-pea, Analysis of Ash 21 Fertilizers Fish-guano Compared with Clover 146 Constituents of One Ton 22 Green, Manuring with 19 Hook to Turn Under 25 Mulchingwith 23 Guano, Peruvian 34 Chincha 35 Guanape. 35 Gypeum 51 Kainit. Nitrogen in 21 Land Plaster Plowing Under. . 24 Laws Concerning Lime .... 35 4 s ! I'l Roller to Cut 25 Cow-penning. Utility of 32 Crate, a Barrel 94 Muck 41 Night-soil 39 A Bushel 92 Nitrate of Soda... 58 Crates, Blocks for Making 94 Crops, Rotation of 54 Nitrogenous .... 52 53 Value of To follow in Rotation 57 Potash Potash Salts ... 43 44 CuhaBast 128 Ashes Preferred to 48 Improved White Spine 170 Insects Attacking 173 Chlorides .... 47 45 Composition of Sulphates 46 Using 47 Cucurbita pepo 209 Poudrette . . 40 Cultivation, Benefits of 14-15 Cut-worms Absent from Cow-nen- ned Land. 33 Prof. Atwater on . 36 Salt .VI Soda. Nitrate 53 Superphosphate of Lime 41 Florida, Vegetables from, in 1882.. 5 Forbes, Prof. S. A., on Blue Birds. 116 Fragaria, Chilensig sar Cynodon Dactylon 61 Cyperus rotttnduf, var. Hydra 60 "Deaconing" Packages 91 Dibble Use of ... 85 237 Drainage 11 Drain-water, Nitrogen 23 Earth Closets, Manure from 40 Economy in Fertilization 257 jj Ibs. each Hay, Oats, and Grass 29 Manures, Relative Value cf 33 Kinds and Uses 15 Markets ... 94 Plin^eolut: rulgaris Phosphates in Urine Phosphoric Acid Value of .1*0 . 33 . 41 253 Pisum sativum Plants, Composition of .191 . 17 . 59 .'9 Melons to New York in 1883 5 Menhaden 38 Moss-bunkers 38 Moles, Useful 99 Muck 41 Mulch, Value of Cow-peas for 23 Manner of Growth Plaster-land . 59 . 51 11 Fall not Useful ... a INDEX. 273 Potash 43 For Potatoes 44 Salts 44 Soda Nitrate of Value of 253 Soil 10 Poudrette 40 Ammonia in 22 Poultry Manure 34 Potatoes . 195 "Beauty of Hebron" 197 Preparation of ]^ "Burbank" 197 "ChiliRed" 197 Solanum Carolitiense 101-102 "Early Rose" 197 Diseases of 204 Injured by Magnesium 44 tuberosum 195 Insects injurious to . 204 Spinach 208 Require Potash 44 Second Crop 203 Seed, Sizeof 197 Sprouts 178 Pyrethrum Powder. 157 Quick-lime 48 Squash 2J9 " Early White Bush Scallop " 210 Radish 207 " Early Summer Crook-neck " 210 " Long Scarlet Short-top " 207 Insects Injurious to 212 " Scarlet Turnip " 207 Strawberry 236 Rama . 128 "Charleston" 239 "Crescent 1 ' 238 241 Culture of 245 Roots left in the Soil 20 "Hovey's Seedling"... ;.288 Manure for 243 Methods of Planting 243 Russian Black Lands 11 Mulching 247 "Neunan" 239 Salt-marsh Grass, Analysis of 33 Setting Plants 244 "Wilson" 239 Mud for Penning 33 " Wilson's Albany " 239,241 Picking and Marketing 848 Seeds 62 70 Sexes of 238 Superphosphate, Ammoniated 42 Of Lime 41 Sweet Potato 218 "Brimstone" 218 Insects injurious to 218 "Jersey" *H " Nansemond " 213 Quality of 63 "Pumpkin Yam" 214 Roller, Use of 71 Raising "Draws" 214 Raising Seed 217 Sowing 62 Yam Varieties 218 Testing 65 Thinning Plants 15 " Treading in " 71 Sheep Manure 34 Tomato For Penning 34 Insecti injurious to.. 2 274 INDEX. tomato Plants, Box for 224 Picking and Packing 226 Raising Plants 222 Saving Seeds 228 Transplanting 225 Varieties, "Acme" 220 "Fejee" .'20 "Hathaway" 220 ' Livingston's Perfection "..220 'Pear-shaped" 220 ' Red Cherry " 220 ' Round Smooth Red " 220 'Trophy 220 ' Yellow Cherry 820 "Topping" Packages 97 Transplanting 82 Utility of 86 Turnip, Analysis of 149 Urea, Composition of 32 Amount in Urine of Animals. . . 32 Urine Annually Voided by Cow 32 Phosphates in 33 Ureain 32 Vegetables from Florida in 1882 5 Savannah in 1882 5 Vegetable Refuse 38 Ventilation of Packages 91 Voelcker, Prof n Wages in Interior of Georgia 9 Laborers' 8 Walsh, Mr., on Birds 116 Water and Watering 87 Watermelon 229 Losses on 229 'Rattlesnake," 231 When, is Ripe 235 Weather, Importance of Observa- tions 75 Weeds 59 Bermuda-grass 61 Coco-grass 60 Dog-fennel 60 Nut-grass 60 Prickly Pear 62 Purslane 61 War Against 14 Wormseed 60 Weight of Manure 32 Wheat Unmanured for 20 Years 56 Whip-poor-will and Spring 76 Woods-earth 41 STANDARD BOOKS PUBLISHED BY ORANGE JUDD COMPANY NEW YORK CHICAGO ASHLAND BUILDING PEOPLE'S GAS BUILDING 315-32). Fourth Avenue 150 Michigan Avenue Any of these books will be sent by mail, postpaid, to any part of the world, on receipt of catalog price. We are always happy to correspond with our patrons, and cordially invite them to address us on any matter pertaining to rural boolfs. Send for our large illustrated catalog, free on appli- cation. First Principles of Soil Fertility By ALFRED VIVIAN. There is no subject of more vital importance to the farmer than that of the best method of maintaining the fertility of the soil. The very evident decrease in the fertility of those soils which have been under cultivation for a number of years, combined with the increased competition and the advanced price of labor, have convinced the intelligent farmer that the agriculture of the future must be based upon more rational practices than those which have been followed in the past. We have felt for some time that there was a place for a brief, and at the same time comprehensive, treatise on this important subject of Soil Fertility. Professor Vivian's experience as a teacher in the short winter courses has admirably fitted him to present this matter in a popular style. In this little book he has given the gist of the subject in plain language, practically devoid of technical and scientific terms. It is pre-eminently a "First Book," and will be found especially valuable to those who desire an introduction to the subject, and who intend to do subse- quent reading. Illustrated. 5x7 inches. 265 pages. Cloth. Net, $1.00 The Study of Corn By PROF. V. M. SHOESMITH. A most helpful book to all farmers and students interested in the selection and im- provement of corn. It is profusely illustrated from photo- graphs, all of which carry their own story and contribute their part in making pictures and text matter a clear, con- cise and interesting study of corn. Illustrated. 5x7 inches, loo pages. Cloth Net, $0.50 The Management and Feeding of Cattle By PROF. THOMAS SHAW. The place for this book will be at once apparent when it is stated that it is the first book that has ever been written which discusses the man- agement and feeding of cattle, from the birth of the calf until it has fulfilled its mission in life, whether on the block or at the pail. The book is handsomely printed on fine paper, from large, clear type. Fully illustrated. 5^x8 inches. 496 pages. Cloth Net, $2.00 The Farmer's Veterinarian By CHARLFS WILLIAM BURKETT. This book abounds in helpful suggestions and valuable information for the most successful treatment of ills and accidents, and disease troubles. A practical treatise on the diseases of farm stock; containing brief and popular advice on the nature, cause and treatment of disease, the common ailments and the care and management of stock when sick. It is profusely illustrated, containing a number of halftone illustrations, and a great many drawings picturing diseases, their symptoms and familiar attitudes assumed by farm animals when affected with disease, and presents, for the first time, a plain, practical and satisfactory guide for farmers who are interested in the common diseases of the farm. Illustrated. 5x7 inches. 288 pages. Cloth. Net, $1.50. First Lessons in Dairying By HUBERT E. VAN NORMAN. This splendid little book has been written from a practical point of view, to fill a place in dairy literature long needed. It is designed primarily as a practical guide to successful dairying, an elementary text-book for colleges and for use especially in short-course classes. It embodies underlying principles involved in the handling of milk, delivery to factory, ship : ping station, and the manufacture of butter on the farm. It is written in a simple, popular way, being free from tech- nical terms, and is easily understood by the average farm boy. The book is just the thing for the every-day dairy- man, and should be in the hands of every farmer in the country. Illustrated. 5x7 inches. 100 pages. Cloth. Net, $0.50. A Dairy Laboratory Guide By H. E. Ross. While the book is intended primarily for use in the laboratory, it should be of value to the practical dairyman. The time has come when the suc- cessful dairyman must study his business from a purely scientific point of view, and in this book the scientific principles, upon which dairy industry is based, are stated clearly and simply, and wherever it is possible, these prin- ciples are illustrated by practical problems and examples. 90 pages. 5x7 inches.- Cloth. ...... Net, $0.50 Profitable Stock Raising By CLARENCE A. SHAMEL. This book covers fully the principles of breeding and feeding for both fat stock and dairying type. It tells of sheep and mutton raising, hot house lambs, the swine industry and the horse market Finally, he tells of the preparation of stock for the market and how to prepare it so that it will bring a high market price. Live stock is the most important feature of farm life, and statistics show a production far short of the actual requirements. There are many problems to be faced in the profitable production of stock, and these are fully and comprehensively covered in Mr. Shamel's new book. Illustrated. 5x7 inches. 288 pages. Cloth. Net, $1.50 The Business of Dairying By C. B. LANE. The author of this practical little book is to be congratulated on the successful manner in which he has treated so important a subject. It has been pre- pared for the use of dairy students, producers and handlers of milk, and all who make dairying a business. Its pur- pose is to present in a clear and concise manner various business methods and systems which will help the dairy- man to reap greater profits. This book meets the needs of the average dairy farmer, and if carefully followed will lead to successful dairying. It may also be used as an elementary textbook for colleges, and especially in short- course classes. Illustrated. 5x7 inches. 300 pages. Cloth. Net, $1.25 Questions and Answers on Buttermaking By CHAS A. PUBLOW. This book is entirely different from the usual type of dairy books, and is undoubtedly in a class by itself. The entire subject of butter-making in all its branches has been most thoroughly treated, and many new and important features have been added. The tests for moisture, salt and acid have received special attention, as have also the questions on cream separa- tion, pasteurization, commercial starters, cream ripening, cream overrun, marketing of butter, and creamery man- agement. Illustrated. 5x7 inches. 100 pages. Cloth. Net, $0.50 Questions and Answers on Milk and Milk Testing By CHAS. A. PUBLOW, and HUGH C. TROY. A book that no student in the dairy industry can afford to be without. No other treatise of its kind is available, and no book of its size gives so much practical and useful information in the study of milk and milk products. Illustrated. 5x7 inches. 100 pages. Cloth. ....... Net, $0.50 in Soils By CHARLES WILLIAM BURKETT, Director Kansas Agri- cultural Experiment Station. The most complete and popular work of the kind ever published. As a rule, a book of this sort is dry and uninteresting, but in this case it reads like a novel. The author has put into it his in- dividuality. The story of the properties of the soils, their improvement and management, as well as a discussion of the problems of crop growing and crop feeding, make this book equally valuable to the farmer, student and teacher. Illustrated. 303 pages. 5^x8 inches. Cloth. . Net, $1.25 Weeds of the Farm Garden By L. H. PAMMEL. The enormous losses, amounting to several hundred million dollars annually in the United States, caused by weeds stimulate us to adopt a better system of agriculture. The weed question is, therefore a most important and vital one for American farmer! This treatise will enable the farmer to treat his field tc remove weeds. The book is profusely illustrated by photo- graphs and drawings made expressly for this work, and will prove invaluable to every farmer, land owner, gar- dener and park superintendent. 5x7 inches. 300 pages. Cloth Net, $1.50 Farm Machinery and Farm Motors By J. B. DAVIDSON and L. W. CHASE. Farm Machinery and Farm Motors is the first American book published on the subject of Farm Machinery since that written by J. J. Thomas in 1867. This was before the development of many of the more important farm machines, and the general application of power to the work of the farm. Modern farm machinery is indispensable in present-day farming operations, and a practical book like Farm Ma- chinery and Farm Motors will fill a much-felt need. The book has been written from lectures used by the authors before their classes for several years, and which were pre- pared from practical experience and a thorough review of the literature pertaining to the subject. Although written primarily as a text-book, it is equally useful for the prac- tical farmer. Profusely illustrated. 5^x8 inches. 520 pages. Cloth Net, $2.00 The Book of Wheat By P. T. DONDLINGER. This book comprises a complete study of everything pertaining to wheat. It is the work of a student of economic as well as agricultural condi- tions, well fitted by the broad experience in both practical and theoretical lines to tell the whole story in a condensed form. It is designed for the farmer, the teacher, and the student as well. Illustrated. 5j^x8 inches. 370 pages. Cloth. . , Net, $2.00 (4) The Cereals in America By THOMAS F. HUNT, M.S., D.Agri., Professor of Agron- omy, Cornell University. If you raise five acres of any kind of grain you cannot afford to be without this book. It is in every way the best book on the subject that has ever been written. It treats of the cultivation and improvement of every grain crop raised in America in a thoroughly practical and accurate manner. The subject-matter includes a comprehen- sive and succinct treatise of wheat, maize, oats, barley, rye, rice, sorghum (kafir corn) and buckwheat, as related particu- larly to American conditions. First-hand knowledge has been the policy of the author in his work, and every crop treated is presented in the light of individual study of the plant. If you have this book you have the latest and best that has been written upon the subject. Illustrated. 450 pages. 5j4x8 inches. Cloth $1.75 The Forage and Fiber Crops in America By THOMAS F. HUNT. This book is exactly what its title indicates. It is indispensable to the farmer, student and teacher who wishes all the latest and most important informa- tion on the subject of forage and fiber crops. Like its famous companion, "The Cereals in America," by the same author, it treats of the cultivation and improvement of every one of the forage and fiber crops. With this book in hand, you have the latest and most up-to-date information available. Illus- trated. 428 pages. 5^x8 inches. Cloth $1.7$ The Book of Alfalfa History, Cultivation and Merits. Its Uses as a Forage and Fertilizer. The appearance of the Hon. F. D. COBURN s little book on Alfalfa a few years ago has been a profit revela- tion to thousands of farmers throughout the country, and the increasing demand for still more information on the subject has induced the author to prepare the present volume, which is by far the most authoritative, complete and valuable work on this forage crop published anywhere. It is printed on fine paper and illustrated with many full-page photographs that were taken with the especial view of their relation to the text. Vtf pages. 6 1 /* x o inches. Bound in cloth, with gold stamp- ing It is unquestionably the handsomest agricultural refer- ence book that has ever been issued. Price, postpaid, . $2.00 Clean Milk By S D BELCHER, M.D. In this book the author sets forth practical methods for the exclusion of bacteria from milk and how to prevent contamination of milk from the si to the consumer. Illustrated. 5 x 7 inches. 14$ page Bean Culture By GLENN C. SEVEY, B.S. A practical treatise on the pro duction and marketing of beans. It includes the manner ol growth, soils and fertilizers adapted, best varieties, seed selec- tion and breeding, planting, harvesting, insects and fungous pests, composition and feeding value; with a special chapter on markets by Albert W. Fulton. A practical book for the grower and student alike. Illustrated. 144 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth. . . $0.50 Celery Culture By W. R. BEATTIE. A practical guide for beginners and a standard reference of great interest to persons already en- gaged in celery growing. It Contains many illustrations giving a clear conception of the practical side of celery culture. The work is complete in every detail," from sowing a few seeds in a window-box in the house for early plants, to the handling and marketing of celery in carload lots. Fully illustrated. 150 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $0.50 Tomato Culture By WILL W. TRACY. The author has rounded up in this book the most complete account of tomato culture in all its phases that has ever been gotten together. It is no second- hand work of reference, but a complete story of the practia ' experiences of the best-posted expert on tomatoes in the world. No gardener or farmer can afford to be without the book. Whether grown for home use or commercial purposes, the reader has here suggestions and information nowhere else available. Illustrated. 150 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth. $0.50 The Potato By SAMUEL FRASER. This book is destined to rank as a standard work upon Potato Culture. While the practical side has been emphasized, the scientific part has not been neglected, and the information given is of value, both to the growej and to the student. Taken all in all, it is the most complete, reliable and authoritative book on the potato ever published in Amer- ica. Illustrated. 200 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth. . . $0.75 Dwarf Fruit Trees By F. A. WAUGH. This interesting book describes in detail the several varieties of dwarf fruit trees, their propagation, planting, pruning, care and general management. Where there is a limited amount of ground to be devoted to orchard purposes, and where quick results are desired, this book will meet with a warm welcome. Illustrated. 112 pages. 5 x 7 inches. Cloth, v > ...... ... . ... ,. ,. $0.50 to Cabbage, Cauliflower and Allied Vegetables By C. L. ALLEN. A practical treatise on the various types and varieties of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli Brussels sprouts, kale, collards and kohl-rabi. An explanation is given of the requirements, conditions, cultivation ahd general man- agement pertaining to the entire cabbage group. After this each class is treated separately and in detail. The chapter on seed raising is probably the most authoritative treatise on this subject ever published. Insects and fungi attacking this class of vegetables are given due attention. Illustrated. 126 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $0.50 Asparagus By F. M. HEXAMER. This is the first book published in America which is exclusively devoted to the raising of aspara- gus for home use as well as for market. It is a practic^ and reliable treatise on the saving of the seed, raising of th'e plants, selection and preparation of the soil, planting, cultiva- tion, manuring, cutting, bunching, packing, marketing, canning and drying, insect enemies, fungous diseases and every re- quirement to successful asparagus culture, special emphasis be- ing given to the importance of asparagus as a farm and money crop. Illustrated. 174 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth. . $0.50 The New Onion Culture By T. GKKINER. Rewritten, greatly enlarged and brought up to date. A new method of growing onions of largest size and yield, on less land, than can be raised By the old plan. Thousands of farmers and gardeners and many experiment stations have given it practical trials which have proved a success. A complete guide in growing onions with the great- est profit, explaining the whys and wherefores. Illustrated. 5x7 inches. 140 pages. Cloth. $0.50 The New Rhubarb Culture A complete guide to dark forcing and field culture. Part I By J. E. MORSE, the well-known Michigan trucker and Originator of the now famous and extremely profitable new methods of dark forcing and field culture. Part II Com- piled by G. B. FISKE. Other methods practiced by the most experienced market gardeners, greenhouse men and experi- menters in all parts of America. Illustrates. 130 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth. .......... $0.50 (7) Alfalfa By F. D. COBURN. Its growth, uses, and feeding value. The fact that alfalfa thrives in almost any soil; that without reseeding, it goes on yielding two, three, four, and sometimes five cuttings annually for five, ten, or perhaps 100 years ; and that either green or cured it is one of the most nutritious forage plants known, makes reliable information upon its pro- duction and uses of unusual interest. Such information is given in this volume for every part of America, by the highest authority. Illustrated. 164 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth. $0.50 Ginseng, Its Cultivation, Harvesting, Marketing and Market Value By MAURICE G. KAINS, with a short account of its history and botany. It discusses in a practical way how to begin with either seeds or roots, soil, climate and location, preparation planting and maintenance of the beds, artificial propagation, manures, enemies, selection for market and for improvement, preparation for sale, and the profits that may be expected. This booklet is concisely written, well and profusely illus- trated, and should be in the hands of all who expect to grow this drug to supply the export trade, and to add a new and profitable industry to their farms and gardens, without inter- fering with the regular work. New edition. Revised and en- larged. Illustrated. 5x7 inches. Cloth $0.50 Landscape Gardening By F. A. WAUGH, professor of horticulture, university of Vermont. A treatise on the general principles governing outdoor art ; with sundry suggestions for their application in the commoner problems of gardening. Every paragraph fs short, terse and to the point, giving perfect clearness to the discussions at all points. In spite of the natural difficulty of presenting abstract principles the whole matter is made entirely plain even to the inexperienced reader. Illustrated. 152 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $0.50 Hedges, Windbreaks, Shelters and Live Fences By E. P. POWELL. A treatise on the planting, growth and management of hedge plants for country and suburban homes. It gives accurate directions concerning hedges ; how to plant and how to treat them ; and especially concerning windbreaks and shelters. It includes the whole art of making a delightful home, giving directions for nooks and balconies, for bird culture and for human comfort. Illustrated. 140 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $0.50 Farm Grasses of the United States of America By WILLIAM JASPER SPILLMAN. A practical treatise on the grass crop, seeding and management of meadows and pastures, description of the best varieties, the seed and its impurities, grasses for special conditions, lawns and lawn grasses, etc., etc. In preparing this volume the author's object has been to present, in connected form, the main facts con- cerning the grasses grown on American farms. Every phase of the subject is viewed from the farmer's standpoint. Illus- trated. 248 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $1.0 The Book of Corn By HERBERT MYRICK, assisted by A. D. SHAMBIA, E. A. BURNETT, ALBERT W. FULTON, B. W. SNOW, and other most capable specialists. A complete treatise on the culture, mar- keting and uses of maize in America and elsewhere for farmers, dealers and others. Illustrated. 372 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $1.50 The Hop Its Culture and Care, Marketing and Manufacture By HERBERT MYRICK. A practical handbook on the most approved methods in growing, harvesting, curing and selling hops, and on the use and manufacture of hops. The result ofc years of research and observation, it is a volume destined to be an authority on this crop for many years to come. It takes up every detail from preparing the soil and laying out the yard, to curing and selling the crop. Every line represents the ripest judgment and experience of experts. Size, 5x8; pages, 300 ; illustrations, nearly 150 ; bound in cloth and gold ; price, postpaid. $1-5 Tobacco Leaf By J. B. KILLEBREW and HERBERT MYRICK. Its Culture and Cure, Marketing and Manufacture. A practical handbook on the most approved methods m growing, harvesting, curing, packing and selling tobacco, with an account of the opera- tions in every department of tobacco manufacture. The contents of this book are based on actual experiments in field, curing barn, packing house, factory and laboratory. It is th only work of the kind in existence, and is destined to be the standard practical and scientific authority on the whole sub- ject of tobacco for many years. 506 pages and 150 origins engravings. 5x7 inches. Cloth ?3.oo Bulbs and Tuberous-Rooted Plants By C. L. ALLEN. A complete treatise on the history, description, methods of propagation and full directions for the successful culture of bulbs in the garden, dwelling and greenhouse. The author of this book has for many years made bulb growing a specialty, and is a recognized authority on their cultivation and management. The cultural direc- tions are plainly stated, practical and to the point. The illustrations which embellish this work have been drawn from nature and have been engraved especially for this book. 312 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $1.50 Fumigation Methods By WILLIS G. JOHNSON. A timely up-to-date book or. the practical application of the new methods for destroying insects with hydrocyanic acid gas and carbon bisulphid, the most powerful insecticides ever discovered. It is an indis- pensable book for farmers, fruit growers, nurserymen, gardeners, florists, millers, grain dealers, transportation com- panies, college and experiment station workers, etc. Illus- .rated. 313 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $1.00 Diseases of Swine By Dr. R. A. CRAIG, Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the Purdue University. A concise, practical and popular guide to the prevention and treatment of the diseases of swine. With the discussions on each disease are given its causes, symptoms, treatment and means of prevention. Every part of the book impresses the reader with the fact that its writer is thor- oughly and practically familiar with all the details upon which he treats. All technical and strictly scientific terms are avoided; so far as feasible, thus making the work at once available to the practical stock raiser as well as to the teacher and student. Illustrated. 5x7 inches. 190 pages. Cloth. $0.75 Spraying Crops Why, When and How . By CLARENCE M. WEED, D.Sc. The present fourth edition has been rewritten and set throughout to bring it thoroughly up to date, so that it embodies the latest practical information gleaned by fruit growers and experiment station workers. So much new information has come to light since the third edi- tion was published that this is practically a new book, needed by those who have utilized the earlier editions, as well as by fruit growers and farmers generally. Illustrated. 136 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth. $0.50 .(10). Successful Fruit Culture By SAMUEL T. MAYNARD. A practical guide to the culti- vation and propagation of Fruits, written from the standpoint of the practical fruit grower who is striving to make his business profitable by growing the best fruit possible and at the least cost. It is up-to-date in every particular, and covers the entire practice of fruit culture, harvesting, storing, mar- keting, forcing, best varieties, etc., etc. It deals with principles first and with the practice afterwards, as the foundation, prin- ciples of plant growth and nourishment must always remain the same f while practice will vary according to the fruit grower's immediate conditions and environments. Illustrated. 265 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth. . ... . . . $1.00 Plums and Plum Culture By F. A. WAUGH. A complete manual for fruit growers, nurserymen, farmers and gardeners, on all known varieties of plums and their successful management. This book marks an epoch in the horticultural literature of America. It is a complete monograph of the plums cultivated in and indigenous to North America. It will be found indispensable to the scientist seeking the most recent and authoritative informa- tion concerning this group, to the nurseryman who wishes to handle his varieties accurately and intelligently, , and to the cultivator who would like to grow plums successfully. Illus' trated. 391 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth. . . . . . $1.50 Fruit Harvesting, Storing, Marketing By F. A. WAUGH. A practical guide to the picking, stor- ing, shipping and marketing of fruit. The principal subjects covered are the fruit market, fruit picking, sorting and pack- ing, the fruit storage, evaporation, canning, statistics of the fruit trade, fruit package laws, commission dealers and deal- ing, cold storage, etc., etc. No progressive fruit grower can afford to be without this most valuable book. Illustrated. 232 pages., 5 * 7 inches. Cloth.' . .'.'.. . . $1.00 Systematic Pomology By F. A. WAUGH, professor of horticulture and landscape gardening in the Massachusetts agricultural college, formerly of the university of Vermont. This is the first book in the English language which has ever made the attempt at a com- plete and comprehensive treatment of systematic pomology. It presents clearly and in detail the whole method by which fruits are studied. The book is suitably illustrated. 288 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth S 1 - 00 (U) Feeding Farm Animals By Professor THOMAS SHAW. This book is intended alike for the student and the farmer. The author has succeeded in giving in regular and orderly sequence, and in language so simple that a child can understand it, the principles that govern the science and practice of feeding farm animals. Professor Shaw is certainly to be congratulated on the successful man- ner in which he has accomplished a most difficult task. His book is unquestionably the most practical work which has ap- peared on the subject of feeding farm animals. Illustrated. 5^2 x 8 inches. Upward of 500 pages. Cloth. . . . $2.00 Profitable Dairying By C. L. PECK. A practical guide to successful dairy man- agement. The treatment of the entire subject is thoroughly practical, being principally a description of the methods prac- ticed by the author. A specially valuable part of this book consists of a minute description of the far-famed model dairy farm of Rev. J. D. Detrich, near Philadelphia, Pa. On the farm of fifteen acres, which twenty years ago could not main- tain one horse and two cows, there are now kept twenty-seven dairy cattle, in addition to two horses. All the roughage, litter, bedding, etc., necessary for these animals are grown on these fifteen acres, more than most farmers could accomplish on one hundred acres. Illustrated. 5x7 inches. 200 pages. Cloth. ..-..' $0.75 Practical Dairy Bacteriology By Dr. H. W. CONN, of Wesleyan University. A complete exposition of important facts concerning the relation of bac- teria to various problems related to milk. A book for the classroom, laboratory, factory and farm. Equally useful to the teacher, student, factory man and practical dairyman. Fully illustrated with 83 original pictures. 340 pages. Cloth. SYz x 8 inches $1.25 Modern Methods of Testing Milk and Milk Products By L. L. VANSLYKE. This is a clear and concise discussion of the approved methods of testing milk and milk products. All the questions involved in the various methods of testing milk and cream are handled with rare skill and yet in so plain a manner that they can be fully understood by all. The book should be in the hands of every dairyman, teacher or student. Illustrated. 214 pages. 5x7 inches. .,,.,. $0.75 (12) Animal Breeding By THOMAS SHAW. This book is the most complete and comprehensive work ever published on the subject of which it treats. It is the first book which has systematized the sub- ject of animal breeding. The leading laws which govern this most intricate question the author has boldly defined and authoritatively arranged. The chapters which he has written on the more involved features of the subject, as sex and the relative influence of parents, should go far toward setting at rest the wildly speculative views cherished with reference to these questions. The striking originality in the treatment of the subject is no less conspicuous than the superb order and regular sequence of thought from the beginning to the end of the book. The book is intended to meet the needs of all persons interested in the breeding and rearing of live stock. Illustrated. 405 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth. . . . $1.50 Forage Crops Other Than Grasses By THOMAS SHAW. How to cultivate, harvest and use them. Indian corn, sorghum, clover, leguminous plants, crops of the brassica genus, the cereals, millet, field roots, etc. Intensely practical and reliable. Illustrated. 287 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $1.00 Soiling Crops and the Silo By THOMAS SHAW. The growing and feeding of all kinds of soiling crops, conditions to which they are adapted, their plan in the rotation, etc. Not a line is repeated from the Forage Crops book. Best methods of building the silo, filling it and feeding ensilage. Illustrated. 364 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $1-50 The Study of Breeds By THOMAS SHAW. Origin, history, distribution, charac- teristics, adaptability, uses, and standards of excellence of all pedigreed breeds of cattle, sheep and swine in America. The , accepted text book in colleges, and the authority for , farmers and breeders. Illustrated. 371 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $i-SO Clovers and How to Grow Them By THOMAS SHAW. This is the first book published which treats on the growth, cultivation and treatment of clovers as applicable to all parts of the United States and Canada, and which takes up the entire subject in a systematic way and consecutive sequence. The importance of clover in the econ- omy of the farm is so great that an exhaustive work on this subject will no doubt be welcomed by students in agriculture as well as by all who are interested in the tilling of the soil. Illustrated. 5x7 inches. 337 pages. Cloth. Net . . ?i.oo (13) Land Draining A handbook for farmers on the principles and practice of draining, by MANLY MILES, giving the results of his extended experience in laying tile drains. The directions for the laying out and the construction of tile drains will enable the farmer to avoid the errors of imperfect construction, and the disap- pointment that must necessarily follow. This manual for practical farmers will also be found convenient for reference in regard to many questions that may arise in crop growing, aside from the special subjects of drainage of which it treats. Illustrated. 200 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $1.00 Barn Plans and Outbuildings Two hundred and fifty-seven illustrations. A most valu- able work, full of ideas, hints, suggestions, plans, etc., for the construction of barns and outbuildings, by practical writers. Chapters are devoted to the economic erection and use of barns, grain barns, horse barns, cattle barns, sheep barns, cornhouses, smokehouses, icehouses, pig pens, granaries, etc. There are likewise chapters on birdhouses, doghouses, tool sheds, ventilators, roofs and roofing, doors and fastenings, workshops, poultry houses, manure sheds, barnyards, root pits, etc. 235 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $1.00 Irrigation Farming By LUTE WILCOX. A handbook for the practical applica- tion of water in the production of crops. A complete treatise on water supply, canal construction, reservoirs and ponds, pipes for irrigation purposes, flumes and their structure, methods of applying water, irrigation of field crops, the garden, the orchard and vineyard, windmills and pumps, appliances and contrivances. New edition, revised, enlarged and rewritten. Profusely illustrated. Over 500 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth $2.00 Forest Planting By H. NICHOLAS JARCHOW, LL. D. A treatise on the care of woodlands and the restoration of the denuded timberlands on plains and mountains. The author has fully described those European methods which have proved to be most useful in maintaining the superb forests of the old world. This expe- rience has been adapted to the different climates and trees of America, full instructions being given for forest planting of our various kinds of soil and subsoil, whether on mountain or valley. . Illustrated. 250 pages. 5x7 inches. Cloth. $1.50 (14) UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 1 6 VJ*. 2 1950 L9 15m-10,'48(B1039)444 SB 321.5