MY SECOND YEAR--TRENCHING THE GARDEN--STRAWBERRY PROFITS.
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, &c., or those which
produce large and succulent fruits, as cucumbers, melons, squashes, &c.
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. I 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 sun-bonnet, became a nut-brown maid. Not a weed was permitted
to flourish 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 any thing 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 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 every thing 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 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.