Prices fluctuate greatly from year to year. In a season of low prices producers are likely to conclude that the vegetable business is being overdone. The next year, perhaps, prices are higher, the growers prosper, and increased areas are planted the following year. Prices for the past 10 years probably averaged as high as for the previous decade. This would not hold in all sections, but population is increasing rapidly and more vegetables will be required to meet future demands. Again, meat products will doubtless continue to bring higher and higher prices, and thus increase the demand for vegetables. Then, too, there is a growing sentiment for the use of more vegetables as well as more fruits, and this tendency will be for the benefit of commercial gardeners.

The large city markets are often crowded with a surplus of certain vegetables, but strictly high-grade products nearly always command good prices. The need of our cities is not more vegetables but better vegetables. When the problems of distribution and other questions concerning the marketing of produce have been satisfactorily solved, vegetable growers will be able to operate to better advantage and with greater surety.

Many important local markets are poorly supplied. In some sections little attention is given to grading and attractive marketing, and the offerings of locally grown vegetables are light during most of the year. Under such conditions wide awake growers should succeed. The production of special crops, as celery, onions, lettuce and cabbage, on a large scale, should not be undertaken without full assurance that soil, climate, labor, transportation and market conditions are favorable.