122 TOMATO CULTURE 



reasonably hope for one as for the other. Of this total 

 yield, from lo to 25 per cent, of the fruit should be 

 such as, because of earliness and quality, can be sold 

 as extras, and there is usually from 5 to 10 per cent., 

 and sometimes a much larger per cent., which should 

 be rejected as unsalable. The selected fruit should 

 net from $1 to $5 a bushel, the common from 30 to 

 75 cents — making the returns for a 200-bushel yield 

 well sold in a nearby market $70 to $350, and propor- 

 tionately larger, for a better yield. In practice I have 

 known of crops which gave a profit above expenses of 

 over $1,000 an acre. This came, however, from ex- 

 ceptionally favorable conditions and skilled marketing, 

 and I have known of many more crops where, though 

 the fruit was equally large and well grown, the profit 

 was less than $100. 



In this country a greenhouse is seldom used solely 

 for the growing of tomatoes, but other crops — such 

 as lettuce — are grown in connection with the tomatoes, 

 so that it is impracticable to give the cost of produc- 

 tion. As grown at the Ohio state experiment station — 

 and the crop ripened in late spring or early summer 

 and sold on the market of smaller cities — greenhouse 

 tomatoes have yielded about two pounds a square foot 

 of glass and brought an average price of 12 cents per 

 pound. In other cases yields as high as 10 pounds a 

 foot of glass and an average price of 40 cents a 

 pound have been reported. 



