20 GARDENING FOB PROFIT. 



CHAPTER III. 

 PROFITS OF MARKET GARDENING. 



This is rather a difficult if not a delicate matter 

 to touch, as the profits are so large in some instances 

 as almost to exceed belief, and so trifling under other 

 conditions as to be hardly worth naming. These lat- 

 ter conditions, however, are generally where men have 

 started on unsuitable soils, too far from market, or 

 without money enough to have ever got thoroughly 

 under way. But as the object of this work is to en- 

 deavor to show how the business can be made a profit- 

 able one, I will endeavw to approximate to our av- 

 erage profits per acre. As a rule it may be premised 

 that for every additiDnal acre over ten, the profits 

 per acre will to some extent diminish, from the fact 

 that a larger area cannot be so thoroughly worked 

 as a smaller one ; besides, there will often be a loss 

 in price by having to crowd larger quantities of pro- 

 duce into market and to leave it in 'the hands of in- 

 experienced salesmen. The majority of our products 

 are quickly perishable and must be sold when ready. 



The average profits for the past ten years on all well 

 cultivated market gardens in this vicinity have only been 

 about $200 per acre. For the five years from 1861 to 1866 

 they were perhaps twice that amount ; but those were 

 years of "war prices," such as we will be well con- 

 tent never to see again. These profits are for the 

 products of the open gardens only, not of the frames 

 or forcing-pits, which are alluded to elsewhere. These 

 amounts are for the neighborhood of New York, and, 

 I think, from the vast competition in business, are now 

 a low average for the majority of towns and cities 

 throughout the country. Certain it is that from our 



