Spring comes early in southern Illinois, and things are booming this time of year on the Ralph W. Griffith farm near Cobden in Union County.  Even when snow and cold weather plague the northern end of the state, down south the growing season already is under way.
    There are tomato and pepper plants to reset, orchards to spray and prune, plowing to be done, jonquils to pick, and a thousand and one things to do as the Griffiths head into another busy summer on their 95-acre farm.
    Maybe it sounds funny to you, but these 95 acres make more than a family-sized farm.  Today it is supporting three Griffith families and providing year-around employment for four hired men.  This is unusual for Little Egypt (that's what this section of Illinois is called) where hilly land is then and the main cash crops are apples and peaches.
    A son, Ralph, Jr., and a son-in-law, Clovis Childers, are in partnership with Ralph, Sr., in the farm's operation.  Young Ralph and his wife, Betty, are shown picking jonquils on the cover page this month.
    The older Ralph has operated this farm for more than a quarter of a century.  In this time, he has boosted its productivity thru careful farm management.  At the same time, he has cultivated specialized markets for tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and flowers.  Tomatoes end up in Wisconsin, peppers and cucumbers go to Chicago, and many thousands of beautiful, golden jonquils find a market from Laredo, Texas to Benton Harbor, Michigan, and Columbus, Ohio.
    While jonquils are not the most important part of this highly diversified farm, they certainly are the most colorful.  Flowers fill in the early spring days before other work begins.  Jonquils require little work, once they patches are set out.  Except for mowing them in the summer to control weeds, almost all of the work comes during four frenzied weeks at picking time.
    Generally, 150,000 bulbs are planted to an acre, and during the average year, each bulb will produce a flower.  They reproduce like multiplier onions; in good years, each bulb grows a small one alongside.  Plants reappear year after year, and the highest production of flowers is found in fields more than 10 years old.
    The Griffiths have found jonquil-raising to be a good business in this section of the country, chiefly because the flowers are ready for market just before Easter.  For many years now, all of the Griffiths' flowers have been sold thru large 5-and 10-cent stores and chain grocery stores.  Just about every winter, Ralph and Mrs. Griffith take an extended trip thru Midwest states to contact store managers and remind them that there will be more flowers on the way when spring comes again.
    Maybe you can delay corn-picking for weeks, but jonquils just won't wait.  The flowers must be picked the day they come in bloom--and early in the day, at that.  Often picking starts at 5 o'clock.  Generally it is completed by 10.
    As the flowers are picked, they are placed carefully in baskets and carried to the basement of the large, comfortable farm home for further processing.  Here, the flowers are made to stand in pans of cold water for a final dirk before they are counted, bunched, and wrapped.
    Stems are wrapped with wet newspaper, and the sides of the light wooden boxes are lined with wet paper before the flowers are packed inside for their long train ride.  The flowers are grouped one dozen to a bunch, and either 25 or 50 bunches to a box.  In good years, the Griffiths get as high as 15 cents a bunch for large flowers.  As a rule, the farm price averages around 10 cents a bunch.
    Ask Ralph Griffith about his farming business, and he will point out that the 3 or 4 acres of tomatoes actually have been the main crop, even tho in the past there have been 24 acres of apples, 8 acres of jonquils, several acres of cucumbers and peppers, and about 8 acres of corn on the farm.  Year in and year out, tomatoes have made money.  But the fruit crop always is a gamble, either because of weather or prices.  Before the war, tomatoes often returned $1. per plant, and the average has been 50 cents.
    Operations this year will be quite a bit larger because an additional 57 acres, about half a mile from the original farm, was bought recently and will become a part of the farming unit.  This year there will be 28 acres of apples and pears, 10 acres of new peaches, 6 acres of tomatoes, 4 acres of peppers, 3 acres of cucumbers, 20 acres of corn, and 8 acres of jonquils to look after.
    Ralph is quick to point out that there is little that is exceptional about his farming.  "Just average," he says.  "We're a little different as far as the jonquils go, but apples, peaches, tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers are grown on almost every farm for miles around.  Cobden, you know, is the largest fruit and vegetable shipping point along the entire Illinois Central Railroad system."
    Actually, there are several reasons why the Griffiths have realized as much as $2,500 an acre for tomatoes.  Perhaps the main reason is that for the last 28 years, all tomatoes have been carefully graded, boxed, and sold as fresh, quality tomatoes.  For the last 15 years, a single buyer in Wisconsin has taken all of the Griffiths' tomatoes.
    Tomatoes on this farm are pushed to arrive on the market before the northern-grown ones are ready.  In addition to the early spring in this section of the country, plants are grown to exceptionally large size in heated hotbeds before planting.  This additional push has a marked effect on the time the fruit matures.
    Cucumbers are marketed very much the same way as tomatoes.  The crop is graded and packed in baskets and then consigned thru the commission firm in Chicago.  The major part of the apple crop is sold thru the People's Fruit and Vegetable Shipping Association, the local cooperative marketing organization in the little town of Cobden.
    If you could see how the Griffiths operate, you would agree with me that there's more to do here than on a half section of land in Iowa or farther north in Illinois.  During the peak season, every available hand is busy.  Ralph's wife, Emma, sometimes finds that housekeeping is only incidental to the big job of picking and packing jonquils, apples, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.
    About a year ago, Ralph and Emma moved to Cobden, but the farm is only one and half miles away and easy to get to any time.  Two years ago, Ralph, Jr., returned from the armed forces.  He and Betty went into partnership with the folks.  Then last winter, the daughter, Barbara, and her husband, until recently in the Navy, also entered the partnership.
    Unless you have tried to retire off the farm, you wouldn't understand Ralph.  "We're supposed to be living the 'Life of Riley'," he says, "but I just can't get used to it."
    Personally, I'm guessing the trouble is that the weather is still too cold for Ralph to gather his fishing tackle and head for the family cottage on the Big Muddy River.  But there will be warmer days when the peak work season is passed.  Then retirement won't be so bad when Ralph and the boys can take off to do a little fishing together.--Verlo Butz.