and attractive work.

And now we pass on to fruit and vegetables. Let us go outside Paris and
visit the establishment of a market-gardener who accomplishes wonders
(ignored by learned economists) at a few miles from the academies.

Let us visit, suppose, M. Ponce, the author of a work on
market-gardening, who makes no secret of what the earth yields him, and
who has published it all along.

M. Ponce, and especially his workmen, work like niggers. It takes eight
men to cultivate a plot a little less than three acres (2.7). They work
twelve and even fifteen hours a day, that is to say, three times more
than is needed. Twenty-four of them would not be too many. To which M.
Ponce will probably answer that as he pays the terrible sum of L100 rent
a year for his 2.7 acres of land, and L100 for manure bought in the
barracks, he is obliged to exploit. He would no doubt answer, "Being
exploited, I exploit in my turn." His installation has also cost him
L1,200, of which certainly more than half went as tribute to the idle
barons of industry. In reality, this establishment represents at most
3,000 work-days, probably much less.

But let us examine his crops: nearly ten tons of carrots, nearly ten
tons of onions, radishes, and small vegetables, 6,000 heads of cabbage,
3,000 heads of cauliflower, 5,000 baskets of tomatoes, 5,000 dozen of
choice fruit, 154,000 salads; in short, a total of 123 tons of
vegetables and fruit to 2.7 acres--120 yards long by 109 yards broad,
which makes more than forty-four tons of vegetables to the acre.

But a man does not eat more than 660 pounds of vegetables and fruit a
year, and two and one-half acres of a market-garden yield enough
vegetables and fruit to richly supply the table of 350 adults during the
year. Thus twenty-four persons employed a whole year in cultivating 2.7
acres of land, and only five working hours a day, would produce
sufficient vegetables and fruit for 350 adults, which is equivalent at
least to 500 individuals.

To put it another way: in cultivating like M. Ponce--and his results
have already been surpassed--350 adults should each give a little more
than 100 hours a year (103) to produce vegetables and fruit necessary
for 500 people.

Let us mention that such a production is not the exception. It takes
place, under the walls of Paris, on an area of 2,220 acres, by 5,000
market-gardeners. Only these market-gardeners are reduced nowadays to a
state of beasts of burden, in