150 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
MARKET GARDENING. 
Prize Essay. 
BY J. B. ROOT, ROCKFORD, ILL. 
Rules and instructions for growing vegetables for market, 
for a few years past, have received much attention from the 
pens of experienced and skillful gardeners. Early in 1867, 
Peter Henderson of New York, published his book on “Gar¬ 
dening for Profit,” which had a large sale, and with those hor- 
ticultura'lly inclined became the subject and center of a vast 
deal of study and speculation. It read as well as a first class 
romance, and yet was so thoroughly practical and bore such 
proof that it came from a horny-fisted tiller of the soil, that 
there seemed no Archilles’ heel where we could thrust in the 
dart of criticism. So beautifully did he picture it, and figure 
out the gains in his gardens near the great metropolis of $400 
to $800 per acre, that every owner of a ten acre lot was sure 
his next year’s income could not fall short of $4,000, and per¬ 
haps $8,000. 
Under the stimulus of such hopes, many a narrow-chested 
young man in the professions, or mercantile pursuits, ordered 
to seek health only in the open air, invested near town, be¬ 
lieving “ten acres” enough to make a large income. Owners 
of a few acres formerly growing a few small fruits and perhaps 
the coarser vegetables, at once, with Henderson in hand, de¬ 
voted their attention to market gardening as a profession. In 
the vicinity of our western towns, and I presume the eastern 
also, the number and average of market gardens tripled and 
quadrupled. In the spring of 1868, perhaps no class of men 
in the whole country were so hopeful or more energetic than 
our young gardeners, who at once demonstrated that they un- 
