Tumbledown Farm .9 Acres (give or take an acre or two)

Introduction

I hope it is no egotism to state that in both the Floral and Vegetable departments of Horticulture, in which I have been engaged for the past eighteen years, I have been eminently successful. Now, we know, that success only is the test of good generalship, and it follows that, having been successful, I have thus earned my title to merit. From this standpoint, I claim the right to attempt the in­struction of the student of horticulture in the tactics of that field.

We have very few works, either agricultural or horti­cultural, by American authors, whose writers are practical men, and fewer still of these who are men that have "risen from the ranks." The majority of such authors being ex­-editors, lawyers, merchants, etc., men of means and edu­cation, who, engaging in the business as a pastime, in a year or two generously conclude to give the public the benefit of their experience--an experience, perhaps, that has been confined to a city lot, when the teachings were of the garden, or of a few acres in the suburbs, when the teachings were of the farm.

INTRODUCTION. VII

The practical farmer or gardener readily detects the ring of this spurious metal, and excusably looks upon all such instructors with contempt. To this cause, perhaps more than any other, may be attributed the wide-spread preju­dice against book-farming and book-gardening, by which thousands shut themselves off from information, the pos­session of which might save years of useless toil and privation.

I have some pride under present circumstances, in say­ing, that I have had a "working experience" in all departments of gardening, from my earliest boyhood, and even to-day am far more at home in its manual operations than its literature, and have only been induced to write the fol­lowing pages at the repeated solicitations of friends and correspondents, to whose inquiries relative to commercial gardening, my time will no longer allow me to reply individually. T­he work has been hurriedly written, at intervals snatched from the time which legitimately be­longed to my business, and therefore its text is likely to be very imperfect. I have endeavored, however, to be clear as possible, avoiding all abstruse or theoretical questions, which too often serve only to confuse and dishearten the man who seeks only for the instruction that shall enable him to practice.

Although the directions given are mainly for the market garden, or for operations on a large scale, yet the amateur or private gardener will find no difficulty in modifying them to suit the smallest requirements. The commercial gardener, from the keen competition, ever going on in the vicinity of large cities, is, in his operations, taxed to his utmost ingenuity to get at the most expeditious and

VIII GARDENING FOR PROFIT.
economical methods to produce the finest crops-methods, that we believe to be superior to those in general use in private gardens, and which may, with profit, be followed.

Our estimates of labor, I trust, will not be overlooked; for, I know, it is no uncommon thing for gentlemen to expect their gardeners to do impossibilities in this way. The private garden cannot be properly cropped and cared for with less labor than can our market gardens, and these, we know, require nearly the labor of one man to an acre, and that too, with every labor-saving arrangement in practice. When the care of green-houses, or graperies, is in addition to this, extra labor must be given accordingly, or something must suffer.

The greatest difficulty that has presented itself to me in giving the directions for operations, has been the dates; in a country having such an area and diversity of temper­ature as ours, directions could not well be given for the extreme, so as the best thing to be done under the cir­cumstances, I have taken the latitude of New York as a basis, and my readers must modify my instructions to suit their locality. The number of varieties of each vegetable described here, is very small in comparison with those that are known, or the seeds of which are offered for sale. I have given only such, as I have found most serviceable. Those who wish for a more extended list are referred to the excellent work by Fearing Burr, Jr., on Garden Vegetables.