THE PROFITS OF QUINCE CULTURE. 81 



CHAPTER XVI. 

 THE PROFITS OF QUINCE CULTURE. 



THE profit of quince raising depends, first, on the vari- 

 ety raised, some being too unfruitful to ever yield profit- 

 able crops ; next, on the skill and care of the cultivator, 

 the best varieties being unprofitable when neglected ; and, 

 lastly, on the demands of markets. Hitherto there has 

 been a market for even poor quinces; but as crops increase, 

 only good fruit will be in demand at paying prices. 



N. Ohmer, of Dayton, Ohio, reported, in 1869, that he 

 had two acres in quinces ; that three-fourths of an acre, 

 ten years planted, had yielded crops six years regularly; 

 and that in 1868 he gathered from three-quarters of an 

 acre 300 bushels, which he sold at $2.50 a bushel, whole- 

 sale. A New York cultivator of the Rea's Mammoth 

 raised on a third of an acre a crop worth $500. I have 

 found a ready market for quinces when well put up in 

 both tin and glass cans, at paying prices, in the markets 

 of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and smaller cities. 



My first planting of the Meech's Prolific was only 

 eight feet apart, quincunx, and the trees averaged half a 

 peck when five years old ; doubled it the next year, and 

 trebled it when seven years old. Taking one year with 

 another, my entire crop has averaged $2.50 a bushel. I 

 found, when the trees were eight years old, that they 

 averaged $1.22 a tree that year, being about $450 an acre. 

 The Rea's has yielded a crop next in value to the Prolific 

 at my place in Vineland, N. J. 



By the report of the New Jersey Horticultural Society 

 for 1884, it will be seen that C. L. Jones had a yield of 

 782, making seven and a half bushels, from two trees in 

 his yard at Newark. He sold many of them at $6 a 

 hundred, realizing $22.50, besides having 200 for himself 



