MARKET GARDENING AROUND NEW YORK. 



MARKET GARDENING AROUND NEW YORK. 



BY PETER HENDERSON. 



(Read before the Annual Meeting of the National Association of 



Nurserymen, Florists, and Seedsmen, held at Dayton, Ohio, 



June i6th, 1881.) 



PROBABLY nowhere, in this or any other country, is the 

 business of Market Gardening better done than in the 

 vicinity of New York city. The reason for this is prob- 

 ably to be found in the fact, that New York, being the 

 great depot for all the nationalities of Europe, gets from 

 them the various methods there practised; in addition to 

 this, and what may have even more to do with it, our 

 higher-priced labor forces us to adopt plans entirely un- 

 thought of there. Certain it is, that, so far as the practi- 

 cal work in use for cultivation is concerned, our methods, 

 in nearly all operations, are quicker done here than there, 

 and are equally as well done. 



In the immediate suburbs of New York, where the 

 lands are rapidly being taken for building sites, many of 

 the market gardeners pay as high as $100 rent per acre 

 annually, and that, too, in most cases, without a lease. 

 All such lands, of course, are cultivated to their fullest 

 capacity, and even at present prices (which are hardly 

 yet up to those of ante-war times) bring an average gross 

 income of about $1,000 per acre. 



A great advantage is found in having the lands for 

 growing vegetables as near to the city as possible. The 

 saving in hauling of manure is one important item; but 



