“It used to be a saying here,” said Henry, “that a bushel of winter turnips would supply all the needs of Scoville. But that ain't exactly so now.
“The stores all want green stuff in season, and are beginning to pay cash for truck instead of only offering to exchange groceries for the stuff we raise. I guess if a man understood truck raising he could make something in this market.”
Hiram decided that this was so, on looking over the marketing possibilities of Scoville.
There was a canning factory which put up string beans, corn, and tomatoes; but the prices per hundred-weight for these commodities did not encourage Hiram to advise Mrs. Atterson to try and raise anything for the canneries. A profit could not be made out of such crops on a one-horse farm.
For instance, the neighboring farmers did not plant their tomato seeds until it was pretty safe to do so in the open ground. The cannery did not want the tomato pack to come on until late in August. By that time the cream of the prices for garden-grown tomatoes had been skimmed by the early truckers.
The same with sweet corn and green beans. The cannery demanded these vegetables at so late a date that the market-price was generally low.
These facts Hiram bore in mind as he planned his season's work, and especially the kitchen garden. This latter he planned to be about two acres in extent—rather a large plot, but he proposed to set his rows of almost every vegetable far enough apart to be worked with a horse cultivator.
Some crops—for instance onions, carrots, and other “fine stuff”—must be weeded by hand to an extent, and if the soil is rich enough rows twelve or fifteen inches apart show better results.
Between such rows a wheelhoe can be used to good advantage, and that was one tool—with a seed-sowing combination—that Hiram had told Mrs. Atterson she must buy if he was to practically attend to the whole farm for her. Hand-hoeing, in both field and garden crops, is antediluvian.
Thus, during this week and a half of preparation, Hiram made ready for the uprooting of Mrs. Atterson from the boarding house in Crawberry to the farm some distance out of Scoville.