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"Winter having passed away, the time for labor and
the singing of birds again returned. Long before the land in Pennsylvania
was fit to plough, the admirable soil of New Jersey had been turned over,
and planted with early peas. One of its most valuable peculiarities is
that of being at all times fit for ploughing, except when actually frozen
hard. Even after heavy rains, when denser soils require a fortnight's
drying before getting into condition for the plough this is ready in a day
or two. Its sandy character, instead of being a disadvantage, is one of
its highest recommendations. It is thus two to three weeks earlier in
yielding up its ripened products for market. Peas are the first things
planted in the open fields. The traveller coming from the north, when
passing by rail to Philadelphia through this genial region, has been
frequently surprised at seeing the young pea-vines peeping up above a thin
covering of snow, their long rows of delicate green stretching across
extensive fields, and presenting a singular contrast with the fleecy
covering around them. Naturally hardy, they survive the
cold, and as the snow rapidly disappears they immediately renew
their growth.
Having been much surprised by the profit yielded
last year from the garden, I was determined to give it a better chance
than ever, and to try the effect of thorough farming on a limited scale. I
accordingly set Dick to covering it fully three inches deep with
well-rotted stable-manure, of which I had purchased in the city my usual
quantity, $200 worth, though hoping that I could so contrive it hereafter
as not to be obliged to make so heavy a cash outlay for this material. I
then procured him a spade fifteen inches long in the blade, and set him to
trenching every inch of it not occupied by standard fruits. These had
luckily been arranged in rows in borders by themselves, thus leaving
large, open beds, in which the operation of trenching could be thoroughly
practised. I estimated the open ground to be very nearly half an acre. I
began by digging a trench from one end of the open space to the other,
three feet wide and two deep, removing the earth to the further side of
the open space. Then the bottom of the trench was dug up with the
fifteen-inch spade, and then covered lightly with manure.
The adjoining ground was then thrown in, mixing the
top soil as we went along, and also abundance of manure, until the trench
was filled. As the earth thus used was all taken from the adjoining strip
of three feet wide, of course, when the trench was full, another of
corresponding size appeared beside it. With this the operation was
repeated until all the garden had been
thoroughly gone over. The earth which had been removed from the first
trench, went into the last one. But I was careful not to place the top
soil in a body at the bottom, but scattered it well through the whole of
the filling. If rich, the roots of every plant would find some portion of
it, let them travel where they might. On the whole job we bestowed a great
amount of care, but it was such a job as would not require repeating for
years, and would be permanently beneficial. I thus deposited $50 worth of
manure, as a fund of nourishment on which my vegetables could for a long
time draw with certainty of profit.
Now, a surface soil of a few inches only, will not
answer for a good garden. The roots of succulent vegetables must extend
into a deeper bed of fertility; and a greater depth of pulverization is
required to absorb surplus rains, and to give off the accumulated
moisture in dry weather. A shallow soil will become deluged by a single
shower, because the hard subsoil will not allow it to pass downward; and
again, in the heat and drought of midsummer, a thin stratum is made dry
and parched in a week, while one of greater depth becomes scarcely
affected. I might cite numerous instances, besides my own, where trenched
gardens remained in the finest state of luxuriance during the most severe
droughts, when others under ordinary management were nearly burnt up with
the heat, growth having quite ceased, and leaves curled and withering for
want of moisture.
The mode of trenching must vary with circumstances.
In small, circumscribed pieces of ground, necessity
requires it to be done by hand, as has been just described. In large
spaces the subsoil plough may be used, but not to equal benefit. There are
many reasons why the soils of gardens should be made better than for
ordinary farm-crops. Most of the products of gardens are of a succulent
nature, or will otherwise bear high feeding, such as garden roots in
general, plants whose leaves furnish food, as salad, cabbages, etc., or
those which produce large and succulent fruits, as cucumbers, melons,
squashes, etc. As nearly all garden crops are the immediate food of man,
while many farm-crops are only the coarser food of animals, greater care
and skill may properly be applied in bringing the former forward to a high
degree of perfection. The great amount of family supplies which may be
obtained from a half-acre garden, provided the best soil is prepared for
their growth, renders it a matter of equal importance and economy to give
the soil the very best preparation.
It rarely happens that there is much selection to be
made in soils as we find them in nature, for gardening purposes, unless
particular attention is given to the subject in choosing a site for a new
dwelling. Generally, we have to take the land as we find it. Unless,
therefore, we happen to find it just right, we should endeavor to improve
it in the best manner. The principal means for making a perfect garden
soil, are draining, trenching, and manuring.
Now, let none be startled at the outset with the
fear of cost, in thus preparing the soil. The entire expense of preparing
half an acre would not, in general, amount to more than the amount saved
in a single year in the purchase of food for family supplies, by the fine
and abundant vegetables afforded. If the owner cannot possibly prepare his
half or quarter acre of land properly, then let him occupy the ground with
something else than garden crops, and take only a single square rod (if he
cannot attend to more), and give this the most perfect preparation. A
square rod of rich, luxuriant vegetables, will be found more valuable than
eighty rods, or half an acre of scant, dwarfed, and stringy growth, which
no one will wish to eat; while the extra cost and labor spent on the
eighty rods in seeds, digging, and hoeing, would have been more than
sufficient to prepare the smaller plot in the most complete manner. Let
the determination be made, therefore, at the commencement, to take no more
land than can be properly prepared, and in the most thorough manner. The
ten peach-trees in the garden were thoroughly manured by digging in around
them all the coal ashes made during the winter, first sifting them well.
No stable manure was added, as it promotes too rank and watery a growth in
the peach, while ashes of any kind are what this fruit most delights in.
Then the butts were examined for worms, but the last year's application of
tar had kept off the fly, and the old ravages of the enemy were found to
be nearly healed over by the growth of new bark. A
fresh coating of tar was applied, and thus every thing was made
safe.
As the season advanced, my wife and daughter took
charge of the garden, as usual, and with high hopes of greater success
than ever. They had had one year's experience, while now the ground was in
far better condition. Moreover, they seemed to have forgotten all about
the weeds, as in calculating their prospective profits they did not
mention them even once, so was careful not to do
so, though I had my own suspicions on the subject. When the planting had
been done, and things went on growing finely as the season advanced, they
were suddenly reminded of their ancient enemy. The trenching and manuring
had done as much for the weeds as for the vegetables. Why should they not?
In her innocency, Kate thought the weeds should all have been buried in
the trenches, as if their seeds had been deposited exclusively on the
surface. But they grew more rampantly than ever during the entire season,
and to my mind they seemed to be in greater quantity. But the fact worked
no discouragement to either wife or daughter. They waged against them the
same resolute warfare, early, late, and in the noonday sun, until Kate, in
spite of a capacious sunbonnet, became a nut-brown maid. Not a weed was
permitted to nourish to maturity.
The careful culture of the garden this year gave
them even a better reward than it had done the year before. The failures
of the last season were all avoided. Several kinds of seeds were soaked
before being planted, which prevented failure
and secured a quicker growth. In addition to this, they raised a greater
variety of vegetables expressly for the store; and with some, such as
radishes and beets, they were particularly lucky, and realized high prices
for all they had to dispose of. Then the high manuring and extra care
bestowed upon the asparagus were apparent in the quick and vigorous
shooting up of thick and tender roots, far more than we could consume,
and so superior to any others that were taken to the store, that they sold
rapidly at city prices. Thus they began to make sales earlier in the
season, while their crops were far more abundant. The trenching and manuring was evidently a paying investment. In addition to all this, the
season proved to be a good one for fruit. The garden trees bore
abundantly. My ten peach-trees had by this time been rejuvenated, and were
loaded with fruit. When as large as hickory nuts, I began the operation
of removing all the smallest, and of thinning out unsparingly wherever
they were excessively crowded. After going over five trees, I brought a
bucketful of the expurgated peaches to my wife for exhibition. She seemed
panic-stricken at the sight —protested that we should have no peaches that
season, if I went on at that rate—besought me to remember my peculiar
weakness for pies—and pleaded so eloquently that the other trees should
not be stripped, as to induce me, much against my judgment, to suspend my
ravages. Thus five had been thinned and five left untouched.
At the moment, I regretted her interference, but as
compliance with her wishes always brought to me its own gratification, if
not in one way, then in some other, so it did in this instance. In the
first place, the peaches on the five denuded trees grew prodigiously
larger and finer than those on the other five. I gathered them carefully
and sent them to the city, where they brought me $41 clear of expenses,
while the fruit from the other trees, sent to market with similar care,
netted only $17, and those used in the family from the same trees,
estimated at the same rates, were worth $9, making, on those five, a
difference of $15 in favor of thinning. Thus, the ten produced $58; but if
all had been thinned, the product would have been $82.
This unexpected result satisfied my wife ever
afterwards that it was quality, and not mere quantity that the market
wanted. Her own garden sales would have convinced her of this, had she
observed them closely; but having overlooked results there, it required an
illustration too striking to be gainsayed, and this the peach-trees
furnished. All these figures appear in Kate's account-book. I had
provided her with one expressly for the garden operations, a nice gold
pen, and every other possible convenience for making entries at the
moment any transaction occurred. I had also taught her the simplest form
for keeping her accounts, and caused her to keep a pass-book with the
store, in which every consignment should be entered, so that her book and
the storekeeper's should be a check on errors that
might be found in either. She thus became extremely expert at her
accounts, and as she took especial interest in the matter, could tell from
memory, at the week's end, how many dollars' worth of produce she had
sold. I found the amount running up quite hopefully as the season
advanced, and when it had closed, she announced the total to be
$63
without the peaches, or $121 by including them. But she had paid some
money for seeds; as an offset to which, no cash had been expended in
digging, as Dick and myself had done it all.
So much for the garden this year. On my nine acres
of ploughed land there was plenty of work to be done. Our old enemy, the
weeds, did not seem to have diminished in number, notwithstanding our
slaughter the previous year. They came up as thick and vigorous as ever,
and required quite as much labor to master them, as the hoe was oftener
required among the rows of raspberries and strawberries. My dogged
fellow, Dick, took this matter with perfect unconcern—said he knew it
would be so, and that I would find the weeds could not be killed—but he
might as well work among them as at anything else. I ceased to argue with
him on the subject, and as I had full faith in coming out right in the
end, was content to silently bide my time.
This year I planted an acre with tomatoes, having
raised abundance of fine plants in a hotbed, as well as egg-plants for the
garden. I set them out in rows, three and one-half feet apart each way,
and manured them well, twice as heavily as many of my
neighbors did. This gave me 3,760 plants to the acre. The product
was almost incredible, and amounted to 501 bushels, or about five quarts a
hill, a far better yield than I had had the first year. From some hills as
many as ten quarts each were gathered. I managed to get twenty baskets
into New York market among the very first of the season, where they
netted me $60. The next twenty netted $25, the next twenty only $15, as
numerous competitors came in, and the next thirty cleared no more. After
that the usual glut came on, and down went the price to twenty and even
fifteen cents. But at twenty and twenty-five I continued to forward to
Philadelphia, where they paid better than to let them rot on the ground.
From 200 baskets at these low prices I netted $35. Then, in the height of
the season, all picking was suspended, except for the pigs, who thus had
any quantity they could consume. But the glut gradually subsided as
tomatoes perished on the vines, and the price again rose in market to
twenty-five cents, then to fifty, then to a dollar, and upwards. But my
single acre afforded me but few at the close of the season. I did not
manage to realize $40 from the fag-end of the year, making a total net
yield of $190.
Others near me, older hands at the business, did
much better, but I thought this well enough. I would prefer raising
tomatoes at 37 cents a bushel to potatoes at 75. The amount realized from
an acre far exceeds that of potatoes. A smart man will gather from sixty
to seventy bushels a day. The expense of
cultivating, using plenty of manure, is about $60 per acre, and the gross
yield may be safely calculated $250, leaving about $200 sure surplus
If it
were not for the sudden and tremendous fall in prices to which tomatoes
are subject soon after they come into market, growers might become rich in
a few years.
The other acre was occupied with corn, roots, and
cabbage, for winter feeding, with potatoes for family use. Turnips were
sowed wherever room could be found for them, and no spot about the farm
was permitted to remain idle. A hill of corn, a cabbage, a pumpkin-vine,
or whatever else was suited to it, was planted. But of potatoes we did
sell enough to amount to $24. On the acre occupied with blackberries,
early cabbages were planted to the number of 4,000. Many of these, of
course, were small and not marketable, though well manured and carefully
attended. But all such were very acceptable in the barnyard and pig-pen.
Of sound cabbages I sold 3,120, at an average of two and one-quarter
cents, amounting to $70.20. I cannot tell how it was, but other persons
close to me raised larger and better heads, and of course realized better
prices. But I had no reason to complain.
The strawberries came first into market. I had
labored to allow no runners to grow and take root except such as were
necessary to fill up the line of each row. Most of the others had been
clipped off as fast as they showed themselves. Thus the whole strength of
the plant was concentrated into the fruit.
In other words, I set out to raise fruit, not
plants; and my rows were, therefore, composed of single stools, standing
about four to six inches apart in the row. The ground between the rows was
consequently clear for the passage of the horse-weeder, which kept it
nice and clean throughout the season, while there was no sort of
difficulty in getting between the stools with either the hand, or a small
hoe, to keep out grass and weeds. The stools were consequently strong and
healthy, and stood up higher from the ground than plants which grow in
matted beds, thus measurably keeping clear of the sand and grit which
heavy rains throw up on berries that lie very near the ground. The truth
is, the ground for a foot all round each stool ought to have had a
covering of cut straw, leaves, or something else for the fruit to rest
upon, thus to keep them clean, as well as to preserve them from drought.
But I did not so well understand the question at that time as I do now.
The fruit ripened beautifully, and grew to
prodigious size, larger than most we had ever seen. The several pickings
of the first week yielded 600 quart boxes of the choicest fruit, which I
dispatched by railroad to an agent in New York, with whom I had previously
made arrangements to receive them. The greatest care was used in preparing
them for market. When taken from the vines they were put directly into the
small boxes, and these carried to the house, where, under a large shed
adjoining the kitchen, my wife and daughters had made preparations to
receive them. Here they were spread out on a large pine table, and all the
larger berries separated from the smaller ones, each kind being put into
boxes which were kept separate from the other. The show made by fruit thus
assorted was truly magnificent, and to the pleasure my wife experienced
in handling and arranging it, she was constantly testifying. Thus 600
quarts of the finest fruit we had ever beheld, were sent the first week to
New York. It was, of course, nearly ten days ahead of the season in that
region—there could be no New York grown berries in market. At the week's
end the agent remitted me $300 clear of freight and commission! They had
netted me half a dollar a quart. I confess to having been greatly
astonished and delighted—it was certainly twice as much as we had
expected. When I showed the agent's letter to my wife, she was quite
amazed. Kate, who had heard a good deal of complaint about high prices,
while we lived in the city after reading the letter, laid it down,
observing—
"I think it will not do to complain of high prices
now!"
"No," replied my wife,
"the tables are turned. Half a dollar a quart! How much I pity those poor
people."
And as she said this, I handed her a quart bowl of
the luscious fruit, which I had been sugaring heavily while she was
studying out the figures in the agent's letter, and I feel persuaded no
lover of strawberries ever consumed them with a
more smacking relish.
The agent spoke in his letter of the
admirable manner in which our berries were forwarded—all alike, all
uniformly prime large fruit—not merely big ones on top of the box as
decoys, and as the prelude to finding none but little runts at bottom.
This established for us a reputation; our boxes could be guaranteed to
contain prime fruit all through. Hence the agent could sell any quantity
we could send. Indeed, it was impossible to send him too much. Thus we
continued to pick over our
vines from three to four times weekly. As the ripening of the fruit went
on, the sight was truly marvellous to look at. "When the season was at its
height, the ground seemed almost red with berries. Then the famous
doctrine of squatter sovereignty was effectually carried out on my
premises, for there were twenty girls and boys upon their knees or hams,
engaged in picking berries at two cents a quart. Industrious little
toilers they were, many of them earning from one to two dollars daily.
Some pickers were women grown, some widows, some even aged women. It was a
harvest to them also.
The small boxes were packed in chests each holding
from twenty-four to sixty, just nicely filling the chest, so that there
should be no rattling or shaking about, or spilling over of the fruit. The
lid, when shut down and fastened, held all snug. These chests were taken
to the railroad station close by, the same
afternoon the berries were picked, and reached New York the same night.
The agents knowing they were coming, had them all sold before they
arrived, and immediately delivering them to the purchasers, they in turn
delivered them to their customers, and thus in less than twenty-four hours
from the time of leaving my ground, they were in the hands of the
consumers. This whole business of conveying fruit to distant markets by
steamboat and rail, is thoroughly systematized. It is an immense item in
the general freight-list of the great seaboard railroads, constantly
growing, and as surely enriching both grower and carrier. For the former
it insures a sale of all his products in the highest markets, and in fact
brings them to his very door.
Before the building of the Camden and Amboy Railroad
no such facilities existed, and consequently not a tenth of the fruit and
truck now raised in New Jersey was then produced. But an outlet being thus
established, production commenced. Farms were manured, their yield
increased, and stations for the receipt of freight were built at every
few miles along the railroad. They continue to increase in number up to
this day. Lands rose in value, better fences were supplied, new houses
built, and the whole system of county roads was revolutionized. As
everything that could be raised now found a cash market, so every
convenience for getting it there was attended to. Hence, gravel
turnpikes were built, which, stretching back into the
country, enabled growers at all seasons to transport their products
over smooth roads to the nearest station. These numerous feeders to the
great railroad caused the income from way-traffic to increase enormously.
All interests were signally benefited, and a new career of improvement for
New Jersey was inaugurated. The farmers became rich on lands which for
generations had kept their former owners poor. My agents were punctual in
advising me by the first mail, and sometimes by telegraph, of the sale and
price of each consignment, thus keeping me constantly posted up as to the
condition of the market. They paid the freight on each consignment,
deducted it from the proceeds, and returned the chests, though sometimes
with a few small boxes missing, a loss to which growers seem to be
regularly subjected, so long as they use a box which they cannot afford to
give away with the fruit. I thus fed the northern cities as long as the
price was maintained. But, as is the case with all market produce, prices
gradually declined as other growers came in, for all hands sought to sell
in the best market. As the end of the season is generally a period of very
low prices, it must be counteracted by every effort to secure high ones at
the beginning, in this way maintaining a remunerative average during the
whole. Thus, the half dollar per quart which I obtained for the first and
best, by equalization with lower prices through the remainder of the
season, was unable to raise the average of the whole crop above sixteen
cents net. But this abundantly satisfied me, as
I sent to market 5,360 quarts, thus producing $857.60.
Besides these, we had the satisfaction of making
generous presents to some particular friends in the city, while at home we
rioted upon them daily, and laid by an extraordinary quantity in the shape
of preserves for winter use, a luxury which we had never indulged in
during our residence in the city. I may add that during the whole
strawberry season it was observed that our city friends seemed to take an
extraordinary interest in our proceedings and success. They came up to see
us even more numerously than during the dog-days, and no great effort was
required, no second invitation necessary, to induce them to prolong their
visits. But we considered them entirely excusable, as the strawberries and
cream were not only unexceptionable, but abundant. However, I must
confess, that in the busiest part of the season our female visitors rolled
up their sleeves, and fell to with my wife and daughters for hours at a
time, aiding them in assorting and boxing the huge quantities of noble
fruit as it came in from the field.
In order to send this fruit to market, I was obliged
to purchase 3,000 quart boxes, and 50 chests to contain them. These cost
me $200. I could not fill all the boxes at each picking, but as one set of
boxes was away off in market, it was necessary for me to have duplicates
on hand, in which to pick other berries as they ripened, without being
compelled to wait until the first lot of boxes came back.
Sometimes it was a week or ten days before they were
returned to me, according as the agent was prompt or dilatory. Thus, one
supply of boxes filled with fruit was constantly going forward, while
another of empty ones was on the way back. So extensive has this berry
business become, that I could name parties who have as much as $500 to
$1,500 invested in chests and boxes for the transportation of fruit to
market. But their profits are in proportion to the extent of their
investment.
While on this subject of boxes for the
transportation of fruit to distant markets, a suggestion occurs to me
which some ingenious man may be able to work up into profitable use. It is
sometimes quite a trouble for the grower to get his chests returned at the
proper time. Sometimes the agent is careless and inattentive, keeps them
twice as many days as he ought to, when the owner really needs them.
Sometimes an accident on the railroad delays their return for a week or
ten days. In either case, the grower is subjected to great inconvenience;
and if his chests fail to return at all, his ripened fruit will perish on
his hands for want of boxes in which to send them off. It is to be always
safe from these contingencies that he finds it necessary to keep so large
a quantity on hand. Then, many of the boxes are
never returned, the chests coming back only half or quarter
filled. All
this is very unjustly made the grower's loss.
But a remedy for this evil can and ought to be be
provided. The trade needs for its use a box so
cheap that it can afford to give it away. Then, being packed in rough,
open crates, cheaply put together of common lath, with latticed sides,
neither crates nor boxes need be returned. The grower will save the
return-freight, and be in no danger of ever being short of boxes by the
negligence of others. This is really a very urgent want of the trade. The
agent sells by wholesale to the retailer, who takes the chest to his stand
or store, where he sells the contents, one or more boxes to each customer.
These sometimes have no baskets with them in which to empty the berries,
and so the retailer, to insure a sale, permits the buyer to carry off the
boxes, and the latter neglects to return them. In the same way they are
sent to hotels and boarding-houses, where they are lost by hundreds.
Again, the obligation imposed on a buyer to return the boxes to a
retailer, is constantly preventing hundreds of chance purchasers of rare
fruit from taking it; but if the seller could say to him that the box goes
with the fruit, and need not be returned, the mere convenience of the
thing would be sufficient to determine the sale of large quantities,—the
purchaser would carry it home in his hand.
The maker of a cheap box like this would find the
sale almost indefinite. It would be constant, and annually increasing. The
same buyers would require fresh supplies every season. A mere chip box,
rounded out of a single shaving, and just stiff enough to prevent the
sides from collapsing, would answer every purpose. The pill-boxes which
are made from
shavings may serve as the model. Here is a great and growing want, which
our countrymen are abundantly able to supply, and to which some of them
cannot too soon direct their attention. If the cost of transmitting the
boxes to the buyers be too great for so cheap a contrivance, then let the
shavings be manufactured of the exact size required, and delivered in a
flat state to the buyer, with the circular bottom, by him to be put
together during the leisure days of winter. A single touch of glue
will hold the shaving in position, and a couple
of tacks will keep the bottom in its place. The whole affair being for
temporary use, need be nothing more than temporary itself. A portion of
the labor of manufacturing being done by the grower, will reduce the cost.
If constructed as suggested, such boxes would be quite as neat as the
majority now in use, while they would possess the charm of always being
clean and sweet. Our country is at this moment full of machinery exactly
fitted to produce them, much of it located in regions where timber and
power are obtainable at the minimum cost. The
suggestion should be appropriated by its owners at the earliest possible
moment.
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