The Canadian Horticulturist. 237 



grades, for my apples. A net profit of $50.00 an acre is 200 per cent, on the 

 cost of good potato land at the present low prices of Vermont farms. And 

 yet " farming don't pay." 



Newport, Vt. T. H. HOSKINS. 



P.S. — Reading this over I fear you may get the impression that I made 

 $50.00 per acre on potatoes last season. I got less than half an average 

 crop, and came out just even at fifty cents per bushel. No profit. 



T. H. H. 



SMALL ORCHARDS. 



©NE of the mistakes of the times is the popular belief that everything in a 

 business way must be big. This idea has grown out of our haste to 

 grow wealthy and from superficial calculation, such as, if one acre pays 

 $100, 100 acres would pay $10,000, and 1,000 acres would pay $100,000. Men 

 seldom make such money out of very large orchards, and, while a source of 

 envy to small holders, they are often, in fact, just holding on or running 

 ahead on borrowed capital. The men who make money and get rich out of 

 horticultural pursuits are generally those who do not attempt more than they 

 can look after personally. From ten to eighty acres are the sized tracts which 

 pay the highest per cent, of profit, if they are properly conducted. The 

 idea that a living cannot be made out of a small place has retarded many 

 from going into a business in which they might now be making an independ- 

 ent living. There is a vast amount of waste from one cause or another ; 

 the taxes are up, the cost of cultivation is great, and the amount of money 

 invested in machinery, stock, etc., is a considerable item. The fighting of 

 insects and partial or entire failure of a crop upon a very large place means, in 

 many cases, ruin, because the expenditures have been so great and the percent, 

 of profit so small in proportion that it is difficult to recover from such a blow. 

 The small holder has correspondingly small expenses, has little trouble 

 on account of incompetent help, and the lost motion is a small consideration. 

 He can superintend the work himself and save the waste. His expenses 

 being much less and the profits much greater in proportion, and the time at 

 his disposal greater, calamities do not fall upon him so heavily. The trouble 

 with many of our fruit growers, who complain of poor prices and hard times, 

 is that they are trying to do entirely too much and are too high-toned to 

 raise in connection with their fruit that which they use daily upon their 

 tables. Many of them have neither a cow, pig-sty, pasture-land, chicken- 

 yard, vegetable garden or berry patch ; in fact, they look upon all economical 

 measures as beneath their notice. Eveything used in the family or stable 

 must be purchased out of the profits from the fruit, and if there are no profits 

 there is nothing with which to purchase, and the money must be borrowed. 

 — Anderson (Cat.) Enterprise, 



