Commercial Horticulture - With Chapters on Vegetable Production and Commercial Fruit Growing

Various

Description

This comprehensive guide to gardening for profit comprises six thorough and detailed sections by various experts on the subject. It is extensively illustrated with black and white drawings, forming a complete how to guide. Commercial Horticulture takes a comprehensive and informative look at the subject, and is a fascinating read for any gardener. Contents Include: Vegetable Production for the Markets; Commercial Fruit-growing; Commercial Glasshouse Work; Tomato and Cucumber Culture; Mushroom Growing; Commercial Bulb Growing. This book contains classic material dating back to the 1900s and before. The content has been carefully selected for its interest and relevance to a modern audience.

Sujets

• Agronomie
• Agronomy for Sustainable Development
• Crop Science
• Sciences et techniques
• Agronomy
• Technology
• Engineering
• Agriculture

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 28 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9781528763653
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Commercial Horticulture
By
Various Authors
Copyright 2013 Read Books Ltd.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Farming
Agriculture, also called farming or husbandry, is the cultivation of animals, plants, or fungi for fibre, bio-fuel, drugs and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the development of civilization. It is hence, of extraordinary importance for the development of society, as we know it today. The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation of Latin agricult ra , from ager , field , and cult ra , cultivation or growing . The history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by vastly different climates, cultures, and technologies. However all farming generally relies on techniques to expand and maintain the lands that are suitable for raising domesticated species. For plants, this usually requires some form of irrigation, although there are methods of dryland farming. Livestock are raised in a combination of grassland-based and landless systems, in an industry that covers almost one-third of the world s ice- and water-free area.
Agricultural practices such as irrigation, crop rotation, fertilizers, pesticides and the domestication of livestock were developed long ago, but have made great progress in the past century. The history of agriculture has played a major role in human history, as agricultural progress has been a crucial factor in worldwide socioeconomic change. Division of labour in agricultural societies made (now) commonplace specializations, rarely seen in hunter-gatherer cultures, which allowed the growth of towns and cities, and the complex societies we call civilizations. When farmers became capable of producing food beyond the needs of their own families, others in their society were freed to devote themselves to projects other than food acquisition. Historians and anthropologists have long argued that the development of agriculture made civilization possible.
In the developed world, industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture has become the dominant system of modern farming, although there is growing support for sustainable agriculture, including permaculture and organic agriculture. Until the Industrial Revolution, the vast majority of the human population laboured in agriculture. Pre-industrial agriculture was typically for self-sustenance, in which farmers raised most of their crops for their own consumption, instead of cash crops for trade. A remarkable shift in agricultural practices has occurred over the past two centuries however, in response to new technologies, and the development of world markets. This also has led to technological improvements in agricultural techniques, such as the Haber-Bosch method for synthesizing ammonium nitrate which made the traditional practice of recycling nutrients with crop rotation and animal manure less important.
Modern agronomy, plant breeding, agrochemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers, and technological improvements have sharply increased yields from cultivation, but at the same time have caused widespread ecological damage and negative human health effects. Selective breeding and modern practices in animal husbandry have similarly increased the output of meat, but have raised concerns about animal welfare and the health effects of the antibiotics, growth hormones, and other chemicals commonly used in industrial meat production. Genetically Modified Organisms are an increasing component of agriculture today, although they are banned in several countries. Another controversial issue is water management ; an increasingly global issue fostering debate. Significant degradation of land and water resources, including the depletion of aquifers, has been observed in recent decades, and the effects of global warming on agriculture and of agriculture on global warming are still not fully understood.
The agricultural world of today is at a cross roads. Over one third of the worlds workers are employed in agriculture, second only to the services sector, but its future is uncertain. A constantly growing world population is necessitating more and more land being utilised for growth of food stuffs, but also the burgeoning mechanised methods of food cultivation and harvesting means that many farming jobs are becoming redundant. Quite how the sector will respond to these challenges remains to be seen.
CONTENTS
XIII.-COMMERCIAL HORTICULTURE
1. V EGETABLE P RODUCTION FOR THE M ARKETS
B Y H. V. TAYLOR, O.B.E., A.R.C.S., B.Sc.(Ht. Hons.)
I. C HANGES IN M ARKET G ROWIN
II. V EGETABLE G ROWING UNDER G LASS
III. G ROWING AND M ARKETING V EGETABLE C ROPS
2. C OMMERCIAL F RUIT-GROWING
B Y A. S. GALT
I. F IRST C ONSIDERATIONS
II. L OCALITY , S ITE AND L AY-OUT
III. P LANTING
IV. G ENERAL U PKEEP
V. G RANDING , P ACKING AND M ARKETING
3. C OMMERCIAL G LASSHOUSE W ORK
B Y WILFRED CORBETT
Advisory Officer in Glasshouse Work, Kent Education Committee
I. S ITE AND L AY-OUT
II. G REENHOUSE C ONSTRUCTION , H EATING AND H YGIENE
III. T HE C ULTIVATION OF G LASSHOUSE C ROPS : C HRYSANTHEMUMS AND C ARNATIONS
IV. B ULBOUS F LOWER P RODUCTION : S WEET P EAS
4. T OMATO AND C UCUMBER C ULTURE
B Y JAMES W. CRAIG
I. C OMMERCIAL T OMATO C ULTURE
II. C UCUMBER C ULTURE
5. M USHROOM G ROWING
B Y W. M. WARE, D.Sc.
South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye, Kent
I. M ETHODS OF C ULTIVATION
II. P REPARATION OF C OMPOST
6. C OMMERCIAL B ULB G ROWING
B Y W. E. COLE, N.D.A.(Hons.), N.D.D.(Hons.), N.D.H., F.S.I.
I. T HE E CONOMIC O UTLOOK
II. C LIMATE : P HYSICAL C ONDITIONS
III. N ARCISSI C ULTURE
IV. T ULIPS
V. H YACINTHS , G LADIOLI, AND M ISCELLANEOUS B ULBS
XIII-COMMERCIAL HORTICULTURE
I. VEGETABLE PRODUCTION FOR THE MARKETS
B Y H. V. TAYLOR, O.B.E., A.R.C.S., B.Sc.(Ht. Hons.)
Horticulture Commissioner, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries

CHAPTER I
Changes in Market Growing
At the beginning of the century vegetables were grown almost exclusively by market gardeners, and in consequence vegetable growing and market gardening were thought to mean the same thing. Now, market gardening is less simple, for the production of certain types of vegetables has been taken up by farmers, and market gardeners dare not attempt to produce these by their usual methods. Crops like Brussels sprouts, peas, c., fitted in the farm rotation, and their cultivation could be managed with the normal farm machinery. In fact, whilst they were a little more difficult to grow than root crops, the vegetables could be marketed right away and a cash return secured. Such is the explanation offered for the rapid increases in the acreages of such crops as Brussels sprouts (124%), cauliflower and broccoli (70%), celery (46%), rhubarb (45%), peas (20%) and cabbage (18%). The figures in brackets give some measure of the increase of acreage to these crops made during the past ten years.
At the lower prices obtainable the crops mentioned above scarcely prove remunerative to grow on highly rented land by hand methods common to the market garden industry. They prove attractive, however, as a farm crop in a rotation, for costs are lower when horses and tractors do most of the work and home-made dung and fertilizers are used. The problem for the market gardener to decide is whether the farmers will continue to produce Brussels sprouts, celery, rhubarb, peas, c., or whether these will be forsaken and the production of wheat, mangolds, swedes, c., resumed. This aspect will have to be watched and studied and systems of production modified in consequence. The market gardener may cease to produce Brussels sprouts, peas, celery or cabbage, or perhaps he too will be able to mechanize his methods, and so remain a producer.
Machinery has come to stay in vegetable growing, and provided the area cultivated is large enough the costs of production can be lowered considerably. Caterpillar tens and other tractors are now used to secure deep and perfect cultivation that was once thought could only be secured by hand-digging. Machines are available that plant any Brassica plant-Brussels sprout, cabbage and cauliflower-giving each one a measured quantity of water and pressing the soil tightly round the plant. Special ploughs have been invented for moulding up the celery ridges and for lifting the matured crowns. With suitable ploughs and disc harrows even asparagus crops can be grown with but a fraction of the hand labour needed in the past.
For the Brassic , celery, carrots, parsnips and peas, machinery reduces costs, and in consequence the grower of these has to have a mechanical sense and fit his planting schemes to a standard pattern. Further information on Machinery in Vegetable Production is given by S. J. Wright in Scientific Horticulture , Vol. III, published by the Horticultural Education Association, S.E. Agricultural College, Wye, Kent.
T ARIFFS ON V EGETABLES
Another big factor that will cause important changes in vegetable growing is the imposition of tariffs on imported vegetables. At first these were just luxury tariffs and imposed only on early vegetables; but when revised later on they were stabilized for certain vegetables over their whole period of home production. The tariffs