VIII GARDENING FOR PROFIT. 



I have some pride, under present circumstances in say- 

 ing that I have had a working experience in all depart- 

 ments of gardening, from my earliest boyhood, and even 

 to-day am far more at home in its manual operations than 

 its literature, and have only been induced to write the 

 following pages at the repeated solicitations of friends 

 and correspondents, to whose inquiries, relative to com- 

 mercial gardening, my time will no longer allow me to 

 reply individually. I have endeavored, in this work, 

 to be as concise and clear as possible, avoiding all abstruse 

 or theoretical questions, which too often serve only to 

 confuse and dishearten the man who seeks only for the 

 instruction that shall enable him to practice. 



Although the directions given are mainly for the mar- 

 ket garden, or for operations on a large scale, yet the 

 amateur or private gardener will find no difficulty in 

 modifying them to suit the smallest requirements. The 

 commercial gardener, from the keen competition ever 

 going on in tho vicinity of large cities, is, in his opera- 

 tions, taxed to his utmost ingenuity to get at the most 

 expeditious and economical methods to produce the finest 

 crops methods that we believe to be superior to those 

 in general use in private gardens, and which may, with 

 profit, be followed. 



Our estimates of labor, I trust, will not be overlooked ; 

 for I know it is no uncommon thing for gentlemen to 

 expect their gardeners to do impossibilities in this way. 

 The private garden cannot be properly cropped and cared 

 for with less labor than can our market gardens, and 

 these, we know, require nearly the labor of one man to 

 an acre, and that, too, with every labor-saving arrange- 



