1856.] Prices and Profits of Agricultural Products. 121 



bushels, can not fail to fi!! us with amazement at the capacity of our 

 country for the production of this royal boon to mankind, i he profits 

 of this crop may be seen from the following tabular estimate : 



PROFIT. 



In Ohio— Average cost of raising corn, per bushel, 15 cents; average value, 35 cents. 133 per cent 



In Indiana— " " " " ]2 " " •• 30 •• 150 " " * 



In Kentucky— " " " •• «• " '• 15 <« .. .. 33 .. j„q .. „ 



In Illinois— " " " •• •♦ " acre, $4 " «• |22 450 " " 



Turning from the cereal products, let us examine the figures in rela- 

 tion to the rearing of live stock. The cost of raising cattle m the West- 

 em States iij from $10 to $12, to bring them to the age of three years; 

 value then, from $20 to $25 ; profit is about 100 per cent. Cost of rear- 

 ing horses to four years old, from $4 » to $50 ; value, from $80 to $100 ; 

 profit, about 70 per cent. The cost to rear mules to the same age, 

 about $40; the value then, $80 to $100; profit, about 120 per cent. 

 Cost of rearing swine, $2 per 100 pounds; average value, $4 50 per 

 100; profit, 125 percent. 



Look, also, into the profits of the orchard products. Apples, as it is 

 shown, can be grown for 2J cents per bushel. With the orchard, there 

 is no interest on the value of land to be considered while the orchard is 

 growing, inasmuch as its uses, aside from this, are of sufiScient value to 

 pay the interest on the capital invested in the land. The value of the 

 fruit itself is well known to all ; and when compared with the cost of 

 production, the profit is enormous — so great, indeed, that it becomes 

 manifest that our supplies of fruit bear no just proportion to the 

 demand in the country. Under appropriate culture, an orchard of 

 apple-trees will yield, in seasons of ordinary abundance, an average 

 crop of eight bushels to the tree ; fifty trees can be well cultivated on 

 an acre ; this gives, as our product, four hundred bushels to the acre. 

 The cost may be stated thus : 



Cost of one acre of land, say $jO 00 



" " fifty apple-trees ]0 00 



" *' setting out 5 00 



$55 00 



Annual interest and tax on this, say 5 00 



Add for annual care and cost of manure 10 00 



$70 00 

 And at an average value of thirty cents per bushel, the yield from 

 one acre thus pe?-wa?<e«% stocked is $120 per annum — about four 

 times as much as can be realized from the same ground in grain. And 

 this estimate is certainly low, as can be shown by many well-attested 

 instances. E. J. Hand, of Monroe county, N. Y., sold, in 1845, $440 



