32 The Profitableness of Fruit -Culture. 



THE PROFITABLENESS OF FRUIT- CULTURE. 



It seems hardly necessary, at this late day, to write an article in proof 

 of the text with which we have started ; and yet we believe there is much 

 remaining to be said in regard to the profits of successful fruit-culture. 

 We do not wish to mislead our readers by giving, as is often done, the 

 product of some remarkable tree or vine, and arguing from that how much 

 fruit can be produced on an acre. We know grape-vines that are said to 

 yield a thousand pounds yearly of excellent fruit ; and, as eight to ten hun- 

 dred grape-vines can be grown to an acre, consequently the yield must be 

 eight hundred thousand pounds, or four hundred tons : when the truth is, 

 that three or four tons of good grapes would be a fair average yield. Neither 

 would it be any nearer the truth to give the product of a pear-tree as twenty- 

 five bushels, — the quantity we have known to be raised on a single tree, — 

 and say, as an acre will afford room for two hundred trees, the yield of 

 fruit must be five thousand bushels, which, at three dollars a bushel (a rea- 

 sonable price, surely), would be fifteen thousand dollars. Now, it is not 

 necessary to resort to any such mode of reasoning to prove the case 

 strongly enough to satisfy any reasonable person. All fruits are not alike 

 profitable, nor are the same fruits equally profitable in every part of the 

 country : consequently, each section should cultivate that which is best 

 adapted to its market, and will give the best returns. 



Formerly the facilities for transporting fruit to a distance were very poor, 

 and few would have dreamed of sending the most perishable of the summer 

 fiuits hundreds of miles to market ; yet now, under the new regime, straw- 

 berries are picked in New Jersey in the afternoon, and the next day they 

 are on the tea-table of the Boston merchant. The same is true of black- 

 berries, raspberries, peaches, and other fruits, that are shipped daily, in their 

 season, in immense quantities, from the place of their growth to the best 

 market. Were it impossible to do this, we could not, with so great confi- 

 dence, declare the profitableness of fruit-culture. What v-^ould it avail the 

 Jersey farmer, if his vines were loaded with the finest and largest strawber- 

 ries, if his only market were the villages of his own neighborhood ? It may 

 be said that he would not enter upon its culture, or, at any rate, not so far 



