Landreth on Capital Required 



23 



a few tons of fertilizers. Their laborers and teams are 

 always on hand for the working of moderate areas. In 

 addition to their usual expenses of the farm, they 

 would not need to have a cash capital of beyond $20 

 to $25 dollars per acre for the area in truck. Other 

 men, in ordinary farming districts, purchasing or rent- 

 ing land, especially for market -gardening, taking only 

 improved land of suitable aspect, soil and situation, 

 and counting in cost of building, appliances and labor, 

 would require a cash capital of $80 to $100 per acre. 

 For example, a beginner in market -gardening in South 

 Jersey, on a five -acre patch, would need $500 to set 

 up the business and run it until his shipments began to 

 return him money. With the purpose of securing in- 

 formation on this interesting point, the writer asked 

 for estimates from market -gardeners in different locali- 

 ties, and the result has been that from Florida the 

 reports of the necessary capital per acre in land or its 

 rental (not of labor), fertilizers, tools, implements, 

 seed and all the appliances, average $95, from Texas 

 $45, from Illinois $70, from the Norfolk district of 

 Virginia the reports vary from $75 to $125, accord- 

 ing to location, and from Long Island, New York, the 

 average of estimates at the east end are $75, and at 

 the west end, $150. 



Market -gardeners, living ten miles out of Phila- 

 delphia, on tracts of twenty and thirty acres, devoting 

 all their land and energies to growing vegetables, 

 sometimes paying $40 per acre for rent, estimate that 

 the necessary capital averages from $200 to $300 per 

 acre, according to the amount of truck grown in hot- 



