Truck crops: onions, celery, cucumbers, and potatoes

1909 — 2022

The intensive ring that fed two growing cities: Between the grain townships and the city tables lay the truck farms, and Quinn's 1916 survey maps them by soil: "On the sandy soil, potatoes, melons and small fruits are the principal crops, while on the muck area onions, celery and cabbage receive the most attention. Both South Bend and Mishawaka are growing rapidly, and with the increase in population there is a resulting increase in demand for special crops." Onions were the muck's measured staple among the vegetables — 239 acres devoted to the crop in 1909, "grown chiefly on the muck areas." Cucumbers were the sand's cash crop, "largely grown on the sandy soils and... sold at the salting stations, several of which are scattered through the county," at 75 cents a bushel for the small size and 35 cents for the larger, "sorted in the field by the pickers and then delivered at the station" — a pickle industry written into the farm year.

Celery Quinn names twice among the muck's principal crops, and the federal muck bulletin counts celery farms a type of their own across the district; but no census table found for this build enumerates a St. Joseph County celery acreage, and the gap is printed as such — the crop is documented as a muck specialty of the county, at a size the surviving tables do not state. The 1954 census sizes the truck sector whole: vegetables harvested for sale on 78 farms, 503 acres, sold for $94,666 (in 1949, 108 farms on 343 acres and $50,082), against 1,353 farms still raising vegetables for home use; sweet corn on 112 acres, cucumbers and pickles on 73, tomatoes on 29, cabbage on 32, cantaloups and muskmelons on 21. The potato, first of the sandy-soil crops, stood larger: 180 farms harvested Irish potatoes on 1,016 acres in 1954 for 450,305 bushels as the census printed them. In the modern counts the truck ring has thinned to a line item — vegetables, melons, potatoes and sweet potatoes sold for $1,703,000 in 2022 — its ground largely gone to the suburbs of the two cities it fed, its function moved to the market and gardens of the later entries.

Sources:

1. E. J. Quinn, "Soil Survey of LaPorte, St. Joseph, and Bartholomew Counties" (1916) — potatoes, melons and small fruits on the sand; onions, celery and cabbage on the muck; 239 acres of onions in 1909; cucumbers and the salting stations with their prices; the cities' growing demand.
2. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farmers' Bulletin 761 (1916) — celery farms as one of the district's four muck-farming types.
3. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1954 Census of Agriculture, Vol. I, Part 4 (Indiana), County Table 9, Part 3 — vegetables harvested for home use and for sale (farms, acres, dollars) and the specified vegetables, and Irish potatoes (180 farms, 1,016 acres, 450,305 bushels), for 1954 and 1949.
4. USDA, NASS, 2022 Census of Agriculture County Profile: St. Joseph County, Indiana — vegetables, melons, potatoes and sweet potatoes sold for $1,703,000.