Many are the ways of arranging work in a market garden. A lady of ample means can afford to keep an experienced foreman, a large staff, and horses and vans. By paying the head man so much per cent. upon the sale of produce, his interest in the concern will be kept alive. In this case a thoroughly dependable and honest man is necessary. Should more scope for energy be needed it will be advisable for the principal to do the secretarial work, decide the rotation of crops, conduct the sale transactions, as well as attend to the social part of the business. She should also supervise most of the operations and have good skilled labour to carry out all manual work.
If it can be avoided a field should not be converted into a market garden. The money that necessarily has to be spent at the start will more quickly be repaid if land is worked which has been used as a garden before. However good the soil, climate, and situation may be, a garden can only barely pay its way during the first two years on account of the many expenses that have to be met.
As opinions can best be formed by hearing real experiences, I propose inserting the following letter, written by one who has known what it is to overcome obstacles, and finally reach well-earned success. This interesting letter and several detailed accounts of market gardens given on p. 253 show what a suitable career this is for a woman. One, too, which will bring not only health and happiness from work in the open, but considerable remuneration, if it be carefully and well conducted.
Bashley Nursery,
New-Milton, Hampshire,
October 11th, 1907.
Dear Madam,—
In answer to your request for information about my market garden here, I think it will be best if I give you a short history of the undertaking. I bought six acres of land here fifteen years ago, with a view to start a garden on a more or less remunerative footing. I had been brought up in a town, but had always been fond of botany—of plants as individuals—and as years went on, felt drawn to a country life. I got to know something of cultivated plants by studying in the Botanic Gardens at Cambridge, where I lived. I hired a quarter-acre allotment in a field let out in that way. I got very much interested in it, and decided to go in for a country life with a garden, which I hoped to make pay its way, if not more. I studied gardening for two years with a family who had taken up market gardening in Wales, and proceeded to buy a small plot of land to begin upon. I had enough capital to start a place and build a small house for myself, and, fortunately enough, means to live upon in a somewhat bare way. I did not feel the least sanguine of making ends more than meet, and this was fortunate, as for many years it was a most unpromising and expensive undertaking. I was entirely without business knowledge in general, or of any of the detailed knowledge of the horticultural trade, and also, being town-bred, I was led into many errors. The soil proved poor and sour from lack of draining, and thickly infested with wire-worms, and being far from any town (Bournemouth, nine miles, being the nearest) there was absolutely no local demand for anything. I should say one of the main points in starting any place of the kind is to be near some town. I had not originally intended to go in for market gardening, but circumstances seemed to favour it more than any other branch, of gardening, so after many misgivings and qualms at further sinking of capital, I put up a block of five greenhouses, each 100 feet by 12 feet. This necessitated having a skilled man to live on the place, and consequently the building of a cottage, as there was none near. I intended to grow tomatoes for Bournemouth market, followed by chrysanthemums and other winter crops. The first season of tomato growing proved enough of a success to encourage me to persevere, and I bought a horse and van to begin a trade with Bournemouth shops, and engaged a man as salesman. On the whole this proved a success from the first. Our chief crops to start with were tomatoes in the houses, followed by chrysanthemums for cut flowers in the winter, and out of doors a variety of plants for cut flowers, especially early flowering chrysanthemums, also strawberries, rhubarb, and vegetable marrows. After a short time we took up narcissus, forcing for a spring crop, followed by bedding plants in pots and boxes, and a variety of pot-plants, such as genistas, ferns, cyclamen, freesia, and pelargoniums.
BOXING BULBS FOR FORCING AT MISS BATEMAN’S MARKET GARDEN, BASHLEY NURSERY, NEW MILTON, HANTS.