422 THE POTATO 



the Chinese farmers and gardeners that came into 

 the San Francisco market with their truck. Hav- 

 ing the same inquisitive tendencies as the great Li 

 Hung Chang, he plied his farmer friends with 

 questions and came to know almost as much about 

 their business as he did about his own. One year 

 trade in Chinatown was depressingly poor. His 

 thoughts then recurred to the tales of farming 

 profits that his customers had brought him, and he 

 was not long in deciding that he could make more 

 money on the soil than he could over the counter. 



"Consequently Sing Kee struck out for the soil 

 and carried all his business instincts with him. He 

 made his first big hit in 1889 on 1,200 acres in po- 

 tatoes. White men had repeatedly gone broke on 

 this very tract of land, owing to their inability 

 to cope with the overflow. But the clever Orien- 

 tal watched the water with shrewd eyes, and at 

 just the right moment after it had receded he put 

 in his plows. The result was an average of 160 

 sacks to the acre. At the outset of the harvest 

 season that year the prevailing price of spuds was 

 50 cents. But his land rental was cheap only 

 $7 an acre and so was his labor. Even at 

 20 cents there was a fair profit in the enterprise. 

 But Sing Kee, the merchant, studied the market 

 in his stoical way and looked far ahead. All of 

 his experienced field neighbors were selling their 

 whole crop at this price, but the buyers could get 

 nothing more out of Sing Kee than a shake of the 

 head. Prices went up to 65 cents and from that 

 they eventually climbed to $1.65. Between these 

 two points the slant-eyed Oriental merchant- 

 farmer unloaded his bumper crop and made a tre- 

 mendous profit. 



"In spite of the fortune that he realized from 



