Greenseller

“ By far the largest proportion of greenhouse plants are raised from cuttings, and in the case of soft-wooded plants, the process is so simple, sure, and speedy, that there need be but little said about it. As a rule it is a difficult matter to strike cuttings of hard-wooded plants, but the compensation for the difficulty is found in the fact that no one is in want of large quantities of such plants, and as well-made young heaths and such like can be purchased at a very low price, the propagating business need not stand in the way of the formation and good keeping of a pretty collection. ”

“ For all classes of consumers, they are cheaper, cleaner and more wholesome than the ordinary stale and wilted vegetables, for sale in the city markets! We have named these cubes, 'Solaris Vegetable Concentrates,' a title which we have copyrighted. The packages readily wholesale at 75 cents, to be retailed at one dollar. At these prices, they yield a handsome profit to the farm.
"Last year we placed hundreds of sample [Pg 240] packages on the general market, which soon proved the excellence of the goods, and later brought heavy orders for this year ”

“ Once these seedlings were transplanted to the garden, we dismantled our temporary greenhouse, filled the spot with topsoil, and made a flower bed. I’ve seen several small greenhouses like the one we improvised on sale commercially, one, of metal and glass, selling for less than ten dollars.
Improvised greenhouse costing $00.00 which saved author, shown in photograph, at least a hundred dollars per annum in the cost of annuals
Greenhouse construction diagram
Indoors or out, seeds germinate best in clean, sifted soil that is light and porous and drains perfectly. ”

“ As a rule, however, the less we see of bedding plants in the conservatory the better, for we see enough of them in the open garden during the summer, and it is simply a tax on one’s patience—that is, on the patience of one who believes in eclectic horticulture—to pass from a blaze of geraniums in the parterre to another blaze of geraniums in the conservatory. It is neither our business nor our pleasure to denounce people who, in their horticultural enterprises, are content with some half-dozen genera of plants ”

“ The smaller and inferior logs are cut into slats, while odds and ends, cutoffs, etc., are collected and sold by the hundred pounds to pencil factories. There are many such factories in the United States now, as well as in Europe, and pencil men are scouring the cedar sections to buy all they can. The farmer who has a red cedar picket or worm fence can sell it to these companies at a round price. Pencil men are even going back over tracts from which the timber was cut twenty-five years ago, buying up the stumps. ”

“ So when the green-goods men, of whom the genial Mr. Alf Wolfe was the chief, asked Snipes to act as “trailer” for them at a quarter of a dollar for every victim he shadowed, he jumped at the offer and was proud of the position.
If you should happen to keep a grocery store in the country, or to run the village post-office, it is not unlikely that you know what a green-goods man is ”

“ The fruit grower should then go to those manufacturers of fertilizers who have the best reputation, and who give the best guarantees against deception. There are perfectly honest dealers, and it is by far the cheapest in the end to pay them their price for a genuine article. If such concentrated agents are used in connection with a green crop like clover, land can be made, and kept productive continuously. ”

“ It is a common mistake in sowing a green not to use a sufficient quantity of seed. The ground should always be thoroughly prepared and manured according to the chemical composition of the soil; then as much as five or six bushels of seed per green can be sown to advantage. ”

“ Nearness to market is the most important feature in a greenhouse. In large cities, manure, which is the chief fertilizer, can be had in most cases for the hauling. The short haul is an important item, and, most important of all, the gardener who is near the market can take advantage of high prices, if the grower is near enough to the city to make two or three trips; in such a fluctuating market as New York, it is to his advantage. ”

“ His father had been a teacher with a longing to be a farmer. Eventually, this longing had been realized in the purchase of the twenty acres in Greenstreet, at that time a village with not one street which could be called green, and without a sure water supply for irrigation, at least on the land which would grow corn and potatoes and wheat. To be sure, there was water enough of its kind down on the lower slopes, besides saleratus and salt grass and cattails and the tang of marshlands in the air. ”

“ In one department, however, there is a general change, that cannot well remain unobserved. The rich and unvarying green of the Corn-fields has entirely and almost suddenly changed, to a still richer and more conspicuous gold colour; more conspicuous on account of the contrast it now offers to the lines, patches, and masses of green with which it every where lies in contact, in the form of intersecting Hedge-rows, intervening Meadows, and bounding masses of Forest. ”

“ The great defect in handling the crop is, that there are too many men and too much machinery to do the work cheaply—moreover, the risks of depreciation are great, and the fruit is not handled on a large scale chiefly because of a lack of capital by the grower or local buyer. These defects in the present distribution of plums in New York make the price received by the grower about half that paid by the consumer and the selling of the crop a more or less speculative business. ”

“ The green-room, except where stock companies prevail—and there are not more than three or four in the United States now—has passed out of the shadow of the rigorous rules that sometime ago were posted here, and that had to be observed. ”

“ The commercial vegetable grower usually inclines toward varieties that are capable of producing a heavy yield per acre or that stand shipment and temporary storage with the least apparent loss from deterioration. In order to [Pg 96] have his products reach the consumer in an attractive condition, the commercial grower usually must harvest them before they are at their best. The channels through which vegetables and fruits pass on their way to the city consumer are devious, slow and costly. ”

“ Once the livestock begin to trample or compact the soil, tree growth slows down and when that happens it makes the tree more susceptible to attack by insects and fungi.
As to marketing trees, let's assume you have some material you want to sell. The one thing you want to know is, "how much is it worth?" That is like me asking you what my house is worth. I understand there are persons here not only from Illinois and Iowa, but from New York, West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. Prices on wood products vary not only from state to state but also within a state as well. ”

“ Peter Henderson, who has been engaged practically in vegetable gardening for over a quarter of a century, states, as a result of his experience, that capital, at the rate of $300 per acre, is required in starting a "truck farm," and that the great majority fail who make the attempt with less means. ”

“ Just ahead of us in the shop, when we got there, was an elderly gentleman who wanted some grass seed; he asked if they would tell him how to start a lawn next spring.
It was in the middle of the day—a very busy time for a shop of this kind, when city men are on their way to or from lunch, and seize a few extra minutes to buy their seeds. The shop was full—it looked as though every scrap of land within the twelve-mile radius was going to be put under cultivation—and the assistants had all [204] their work to serve everyone as quickly as they wanted to be served. ”

“ It is most important that a mixture should be chosen containing a goodly proportion of seeds corresponding to the prevailing grasses of the immediate neighbourhood, and seeds should always be obtained from a seeds merchant who is not afraid of telling you the exact composition of his mixture. Some seeds merchants sell mixtures which are not so valuable for golfing turf as they appear—it is not [81] the best kind of grass which germinates too quickly. ”

“ Whether artificial reforestation is accomplished by means of sowing seed or planting trees, the first requisite is a supply of tree seed of the desired species and of good quality. Unfortunately for the timber owner who wishes to enter upon extensive seeding operations, the business of collecting and preparing forest tree seed for market has received but little attention from old-established seed firms, and it is not always possible to purchase the species and quantity desired. ”

“ He also who had given the attention of a life to the regular routine of open field arable, without 10 acres of grass ever having been in his occupation, may find himself much at a loss in the regular purchase and sale of live stock, the profit of which depends so much on habitual skill. Add to all this the previous circumstance of laying down to grass, the business of all others of which farmers know the least, of which I have many times seen in new enclosures striking instances ”

“ Seeds bought at the grocer’s or other local dealer’s are likely to be old or inferior stock—the better class of seedsmen selling direct to the consumer only. At the end of every season seedsmen have a large stock left over. ”

“ Industrially, the difference will appear from the statement that about 70 per cent. of the population is engaged in agricultural pursuits, hence there is no active wood market as with us, except for domestic purposes, and, as the woods, like those of most tropical forest, are mainly cabinet woods, even the export trade is insignificant, amounting to hardly 3 million dollars, while minor forest products (lac, cutch and gambier, myrobalan, caoutchouc, etc.) represent about 12 million dollars. ”

“ We bought them during the panic last fall for our vines to climb over, but, as our vines died of membranous croup in November, these dogoods still remain unclum. Second-hand dirt always on hand. Ornamental geranium stumps at bed-rock prices. Highest cash prices paid for slips of black-and-tan foliage plants. We are headquarters for the century plant that draws a salary for ninety-nine years and then dies.
I do not feel much like writing in my diary to-day, but the physician says that my arm will be better in a day or two, so that it will be more of a pleasure to do business. ”

“ In a weedless soil, much of the heavy labor of growing vegetables is eliminated. In curing and preparing them for market in this way, a great amount of light, pleasant work, is available for our women co-operators. Considered as a whole, this vegetable scheme is one of the notable achievements of Solaris farm, of which the members of the company are justly proud. ”

“ The most progressive operators, however, have experimented freely in the effort to secure special results desirable for their peculiar products. Despite the diversity of practice, it is possible to find among the larger and more enterprising operators a measure of agreement, as to both methods and results, and from this to outline the essentials of a correct theory. As a result, properly seasoned wood commands a high price, and in some cases cannot be obtained at all. ”

“ Resistance, of course, counts for naught in a stock which comes from a species unsuited to the soil and climate or other circumstances of the locality in which the vineyard is to be planted. The several species used for stocks differ widely in the requirements affecting growth so that the grower must make certain that the resistant stock he selects will find congenial surroundings. ”

“ On the other hand, a large proportion of what we now consider typically fir forest has a vigorous ground cover of hemlock and cedar which may become merchantable many years before an entirely new fir crop can be grown. The presumably greater value of the latter may be consumed by the heavier carrying charge before returns are available. Certainly if the promise of profit from other species and the difficulty of establishing fir both reach the extreme, protection of the growth already started is the best forestry if it is practicable. ”

“ Any portion of such a compound existence, grafted upon another stock, or planted immediately in the ground itself and established upon its own roots, will produce a new tree like the first, being furnished with supplies of nourishment it may grow indefinitely while retaining all the qualities of the parent stock—if that be healthy and vigorous so will this—indeed new life and vigor often seem to be imparted by a congenial thrifty stock, and a fertile soil, so that there does not appear to be any reason why the variety should ever run out and disappear. ”

“ Fifty years ago the greenhouse was the luxury of the rich. It was kept to grow exotic plants for pleasure. But nowadays its use begins to be generalized. A tremendous industry has grown up lately in Guernsey and Jersey, where hundreds of acres are already covered with glass—to say nothing of the countless small greenhouses kept in every little farm garden. ”

“ We plant our young trees, especially evergreens, by the thousand—I think we have put in as many as ten thousand at once, and let them develop, to be used later in some of our planting schemes. If we transfer young trees from Pocantico to our home in Lakewood, we charge one place and credit the other for these trees at the market rate. We are our own best customers, and we make a small fortune out of ourselves by selling to our New Jersey place at $1.50 or $2.00 each, trees which originally cost us only five or ten cents at Pocantico. ”