150. Greenbacks in Greenings.—It is a fact that forty apple trees of the R. H. Greening variety on a single acre have yielded a crop worth $400.
151. Plums of Gold.—A widow has in her garden twelve plum trees from which she regularly receives $60 a year.
152. The Raspberry Acre.—“There are repeated instances of $400 and even $600 being made clear from a single acre of raspberries.” See Morris’ “Ten Acres Enough.”
153. Profits in Big Peaches.—When ordinary peaches were selling at 25 cents a bushel, a grower received $2 a bushel. This is how he did it. When the fruit was as large as a hickory nut, he employed a large force of laborers and picked off more than one-half the fruit. The rest ripened early, grew large, and were of excellent quality. His net profit that year from eleven acres was between $3,000 and $4,000.
154. Easy Tomatoes.—An easy crop, requiring little care. Says a grower in New Jersey: “My single acre of tomatoes netted a clear profit of $120. I am aware that others have realized more than double this sum, but they were experienced hands, while I was new to the business.” Four hundred dollars per acre has frequently been realized from this crop. One person had four acres from which he received from $1,500 to $2,000 annually.
155. Assorted Strawberries.—Here is the experience of a novice: “I ran a ditch through my wet and almost worthless meadow land, and set it out with strawberry plants. The second year I had an enormous crop. The larger berries were separated from the smaller, and the show thus made by the assorted fruit was magnificent. For 600 quarts I received $300, it being a little early for strawberries in the New York market.” It pays to grow early and large fruit.
156. Livings in Lettuce.—Fifteen thousand heads can be set upon an acre. These at the average price of $1.50 per hundred means $225 per acre. Five acres of this crop should give a fair-sized family a good living. It is an auxiliary crop and may be sowed between heads of cabbage.
157. Sovereigns in Spinach.—There are few more important crops in market. It requires little labor, can be cultivated evenings and mornings by a busy man, and pays about $75 an acre.
158. Thousand-Dollar Celery.—Celery may be grown as a second crop after beets, onions, or peas are cleared up. A little reckoning in the number of heads per acre shows that if the grower could get the consumer’s price of eight or ten cents a head, it would yield a clear profit of $1,000.
159. Fortunes in Water-cress.—“I have no doubt,” says a large grower, “that in situations where irrigation could be used at pleasure, or regular plantations made as for cranberries, judging from the enormous price water-cress sells at, picked as it is in the present haphazard way, an acre would sell for $4,000 or $5,000.”