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Think of the immense quantities of fruits and vegetables that are used daily on the tables of a great city such as New York or Chicago. As we travel up and down the streets of any great city, we see rows of buildings, sometimes built in solid blocks and sometimes a little distance apart. Some have trees and small lawns in front of them; others are without even this touch of nature. Nowhere, except in the outskirts, do we find gardens.

These people depend upon others to furnish them with their vegetable food.

Now let us make some excursions into the region surrounding one of these cities. For miles and miles we see on every hand truck farms or market gardens. The main business of those who live in these districts is to furnish food for the people of the city, so that the latter may devote their time to their various occupations.

We see growing potatoes, cabbages, tomatoes, beans, peas, squashes, turnips, onions, sweet corn, celery, melons, and many other things. Usually all of these will be found in one garden, but sometimes the farmer raises only a few kinds, or perhaps but one.

Market gardening is very common in Germany, Holland, Italy, China, and in other densely populated countries. Therefore we often find people who have come from these countries to America engaged in this business. Chinese gardeners are seldom seen in the East, but on the Pacific coast they raise most of the vegetables used in the cities and towns.

In the early spring, before the ground is warm enough to make seeds grow, the gardener starts his plants in "hotbeds." These are long wooden boxes, or frames, without bottoms, covered with glass. They are usually placed on the south side of some building or high fence. The glass covers allow the warm sunshine to enter the "beds" freely, but they prevent the rapid escape of the heat. You see now why they are called "hotbeds." They are like small greenhouses.

A little later in the spring the fields are thoroughly cultivated and the plants transplanted. Of course only the vegetables desired for the early market are started in this way. What advantage is there in having the vegetables ready for the market very early in the season?

Vegetable farming is not easy work, although it is a pleasure to see things grow day by day as you care for them, and as nature supplies her sunshine and her rain. The fields must be cultivated almost constantly, to keep the soil loose, as well as to remove the weeds. Much of the weeding has to be done by hand, which is tedious work.

We want our vegetables fresh every morning; and as the truck farms are at some distance from the city, the farmer must load up his wagon the night before. Of course much produce is sent to the cities on trains, but where farmers live near enough to deliver it themselves, their crops are more profitable to them. Why?