The extension of vegetable-growing to a dis tance from market has been brought about by the enormous increase in land values near cities, the demand for products earlier in the season, and the great extension of transportation facilities. The latter cause has resulted in the development of early vegetable-growing at the South for shipment to northern markets, while the former has resulted in the removal of the growing of staple, cool season, late crops to locations more or less remote from the northern markets though perhaps in the same latitude.
It is the purpose of the present article to discuss some of the administration features of the general farm type of truck-growing, rather than intensive and specialized market-gardening [for the latter, see Cyclopedia of American Horticulture, and special books]. Statistical data do not follow this more or less arbitrary division, however, and the census figures do not greatly elucidate such a discussion as this.
Fact.rs determin;ng trucking regions. Considerations of soil and climate largely deter mine the g neral location of truck-growing areas for given crops. Of these, the climate is the more important except in the case of a few crops re lu:ring special soil conditions for their proper development.
In nearly every state in the Union there are regions well adapted in soil and climate to the production of some vegetable crop or crops. However, by no means all localities adapted to the production of certain crops have be come commercial centers for those crops. The exact location of truck growing areas within a region adapted to the production of the crops is deter mined by transportation facilities and the inclinations of the inhabitants. New shipping points are continually being developed by reason of the extension of railroad lines to new regions, and the enterprise of a few progressive men in each locality.
It is only at points where a sufficient number of men are growing the same crop or crops that are marketed at the same season to enable shipments to be made in car-lots, that good shipping facilities and desirable freight rates can be secured. In the case of some crops, such as watermelons or late cabbage, the individual grower can ship in car lots ; but with many crops, such as asparagus, green peas, muskmelons or tomatoes, an individual grower would usually be able to furnish only a small fraction of a car in any single shipment. In order, therefore, to develop a new shipping point, it is necessary that the men who wish to enter the trucking business induce a sufficient number of other men to grow the same crops to secure ade quate shipping facilities.
Marketing the product.
Usually, the growers at a given shipping point are organized into a local association whose manager attends to the icing and loading of cars and other matters of business connected with the association. The methods employed by some of the most successful associations enable the individual grower to consign his products to any firm he may choose in the city to which the car is consigned, the directors of the association usually determining at the beginning of the season what markets will be employed, though at any time during the season cars may be loaded for other markets, if a sufficient number of growers wish to patronize those markets. The products of the individual grower are sold on their own merits by the party he chooses.
Truck crops grown at a distance from market are almost invariably handled by commission men located in the large cities, and the bulk of the products will necessarily continue to be handled through the large cities as distributing points, rather than consigned to small towns at a distance from the point of production.
Trucking in relation to farm management.
As an adjunct to general farming, truck-grow ing is becoming an important factor in the agri culture of many localities ; and it is on that basis that it is destined to hold a permanent place among the activities of rural people rather than as a system of single cropping partaking of the na ture of bonanza farming, except possibly in the case of a few special crops demanding peculiar ities of soil not favorable to the production of general farm crops. Specialization in its closest sense is a frequent outgrowth of good trucking soil and climate coupled with good transportation facilities.
In general, truck crops demand heavy manuring and very thorough tillage. If a paying truck crop is to be grown, it is usually necessary so to enrich and work the soil that it will he richer in plant food and in better condition for the production of subsequent crops after the truck crop has been grown, than it was before preparations were made for growing the truck crop. So well recognized is this fact by land owners in certain regions that they will allow a tenant the use of a piece of land for a full season without the payment of rent, pro vided the area is to be planted to certain truck crops.