AMOUNT OF CAPITAL REQUIRED. 13 



ru I in my immediate neighborhood within the last five 

 years, where steady industrious men have utterly failed, 

 and lost every dollar they possessed, merely by attempt- 

 ing the business with insufficient capital. A few years 

 ago, a man called upon me and stated that he was about 

 to become my neighbor, that he had leased a place of 

 twenty acres alongside of mine for ten years, for $600 per 

 year, for the purpose of growing vegetables, and asked 

 me what I thought of his bargain. I replied that the 

 place was cheap enough, only I was afraid he had got too 

 much land for that purpose, if he attempted the working 

 of it all. I further asked him what amount of capital he 

 had, and he told me that he had about $1000. I said that 

 I was sorry to discourage him, but that it was better for 

 him to know that the amount was entirely unadequate to 

 begin with, and that there was not one chance in fifty that 

 he would succeed, and that it would be better, even then, 

 to relinquish the attempt ; but he had paid $150 for a 

 quarter's rent in advance, and could not be persuaded from 

 making the attempt. The result was as I expected ; he be- 

 gan operations in March, his little capital was almost swal- 

 lowed up in the first two months, and the few crops he had 

 put in were so inferior, that they were hardly worth send- 

 ing to market. Without money to pay for help, his place 

 got enveloped in weeds, and by September of the same 

 year, he abandoned the undertaking. 



Had the same amount of capital and the same energy 

 been expended on three or four acres, there is hardly a 

 doubt that success would have followed. Those who wish 

 to live by gardening, cannot be too often told the danger 

 of spreading over too large an area, more particularly in 



