THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 65 



and carried the vegetables to the market, for which 

 purpose one horse was kept ; when returning from 

 Paris they brought in manure, for which 100 was 

 spent every year. Another ;iOO was spent in rent and 

 taxes. But how to enumerate all that was gathered 

 every year on this plot of less than three acres, without 

 filling two pages or more with the most wonderful 

 figures? One must read them in M. Ponce's work, 

 but here are the chief items : more than 20,000 Ib. of 

 carrots ; more than 20,000 Ib. of onions, radishes and 

 other vegetables sold by weight; 6000 heads of cab- 

 bage; 3000 of cauliflower; 5000 baskets of tomatoes; 

 5000 dozen of choice fruit ; and 154,000 heads of salad ; 

 in short, a total of 250,000 Ib. of vegetables. The soil 

 was made to such an amount out of forcing beds that 

 every year 250 cubic yards of loam had to be sold. 

 Similar examples could be given by the dozen, and the 

 best evidence against any possible exaggeration of the 

 results is the very high rent paid by the gardeners, which 

 reaches in the suburbs of London from 10 to 15 per 

 acre, and in the- suburbs of Paris attains as much as 

 32 per acre. No less than 2125 acres are cultivated 

 round Paris in that way by 5000 persons, and thus not 

 only the 2,000,000 Parisians are supplied with vege- 

 tables, but the surplus is also sent to London. 



The above results are obtained with the help of warm 

 frames, thousands of glass bells, and so on. But even 

 without such costly things, with only thirty-six yards 

 of frames for seedlings, vegetables are grown in the 

 open air to the value of 200 per acre.* It is obvious, 

 however, that in such cases the high selling prices of the 

 crops are not due to the high prices fetched by early 

 vegetables in winter ; they are entirely due to the high 

 crops of the plainest ones. Let me add also that all 

 this wonderful culture is a yesterday's growth. Fifty 



* Manuel pratique de culture maraichere, by Courtois-G^rard, 4th 

 edit., 1863. 



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