312 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



supplied, but a large share of the one hundred and twenty 

 million to one hundred and forty million pounds of cheese 

 exported from year to year is credited to this district, bring- 

 ing a vast amount of money from Europe, a part of which is 

 contributed to the aid of the Western wheat-growing. Going 

 still nearer to the sea-board, to Dutchess and Westchester 

 and the fruitful sand of Long Island, we find more people 

 and less wheat, and a soil devoted to market gardening, 

 yielding, under the most favorable circumstances, a gross 

 product worth a thousand dollars per acre, — enough to buy 

 a quarter section of superior wheat-land west of the Missis- 

 sippi. In the immediate neighborhood of New York City 

 the product of market gardening swells to millions of dollars. 

 Ten years ago the census reported more than a million 

 dollars' worth in Queen's County alone, and the present enu- 

 meration must when tabulated show an immense increase for 

 this suburban district. The neighborhood of Boston and 

 Philadelphia and every other large city is moiiopolized by 

 market gardens, and the country about Norfolk, Va., is 

 mainly devoted to fruit and vegetables for Northern con- 

 sumption. The fruits of the country, a perishable commod- 

 ity, must be produced as near as possible to the point of 

 principal consumption. The domestic fruits alone furnish a 

 trade of large volume and value. New York City has a 

 trade in domestic fruits of more than nine millions of dollars ; 

 Chicago, which supplies the great North-west, has about as 

 much ; and the other large cities of the country would swell 

 the total amount to about sixty million dollars, including 

 the great amount now sent from our southern latitudes. 

 Could all the fruits sold in small cities and villages be added, 

 and those consumed on farms and village lots be enumerated, 

 it is probable, judging from careful deductions from available 

 data, that the annual value of the fruits of the United States 

 would not fall much below two hundred million dollars. 



Thus the distribution of farm products is found to arise 

 from a multiplicity of causes : soil, climate, nearness to large 

 cities, prices of land and labor, facility for obtaining labor 

 at required times or seasons, skill in special industries de- 

 veloped by long practice, conservative persistence in time- 

 honored usage, and many other causes, serve to distribute in 



