Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 110, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1910 — FARMING INSITE CITY LIMITS. [ARTICLE]

FARMING INSITE CITY LIMITS.

Tiny 'Plots in New York Are Rented Ont to Truck Farinera. To say that farming within the boundaries of the city of New York is a profitable occupation and that it is carried on professionally with a large degree of success might seem to some an extravagant assertion. Yet John R. Bowie of the soil division of the federal department of agriculture, a New York letter to the Christian Science Monitor says, has just issued a report on the farming possibilities of this city, showing comprehensively that the best agriculture in the country is not only possible here, but carried on to a remarkable degree. Within the city boundaries unoccupied lots and unsubdivided tracts are rented out in small plots for market gardening and trucking purposes. The majority of the farms are of miniature size, some one-half or one-quarter of an acre or even only the size of a city lot. Under such cramped conditions it is necessary to do some crop moving and marketing during every month of the year. Eyen the midwinter season the farmer uses to market his root crops which have been stored waiting higher prices and the fruit picked during the autumn. With the dawn of spring the spinach and rhubarb start the crop and having been disifosed of at the city market other crops follow in a steady stream. The chief point in this intensive farming is to utilize every foot of ground to its best advantage. The onion and radish are good examples of how this is accomplished. As soon as the onion develops the slightest suspicion of a bulb it is pulled and bunched and those next it in size are given a better opportunity for growth and development. In this way not a single crop, but a continuous supply of onions and radishes is produced.