A LITTLE LAND 148 



AND A LIVING 



prices and larger yields are common enough, but 

 this is a fair average. 



The average annual yield of one acre was 

 2500 bunches; value 12 J to 25 cents per bunch; 

 the net yearly returns for ten years averaged over 

 $550 per acre.* 



Asparagus yields for thirty years, but good 

 business policy dictates renewal after ten years' 

 cropping. 



* Great stories are being told about the profits of growing 

 asparagus in California. We read of farms with over 100 acres 

 of asparagus in one field, and also of profits of $1,500 on one 

 acre. A Massachusetts asparagus grower who is ranked as a 

 large operator here, sends a clipping and writes: 



" I enclose one which tells of a profit of $1,000 per acre. 

 Now, this is for blanched asparagus and is a long way ahead of 

 anything we can show. Incidentally the white asparagus is not 

 fit to eat, but if they get such ' profits ' they do not care much 

 for the quality. In New Jersey one man writes me of $1,500 

 profit on three acres exclusive of freight and commission. My 

 best yield on a 15-acre field was $450 per acre. One of my towns- 

 men received last year $1,000 from 1J acres, and another $450 per 

 acre, but the rust had not hurt them much. Who under the sun 

 can tell a 'bigger story* than a California westerner? Even 

 Eastern people who go there catch the * fever.' My wife came 

 home from Los Angeles a few years ago and told me that some 

 of the guests in a large hotel in Californa had to walk half a 

 mile to their meals in the building! It reminded me of a Nova 

 Scotia man who said they had trees so tall down there that it 

 took a man and a small boy to look to the top of them. But 

 really large stories are true in California.** 



Rural New Yorker, May 95, 'OT. 



