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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Three Acres And Liberty, by Bolton Hall
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+Title: Three Acres And Liberty
+
+Author: Bolton Hall
+
+Release Date: October, 2003 [Etext# 4509]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 27, 2002]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Three Acres And Liberty, by Bolton Hall
+*********This file should be named trcrs10.txt or trcrs10.zip*********
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+Created by: Steve Solomon ssolomon@soilandhealth.org
+Edited by Charles Aldarondo Aldarondo@yahoo.com
+
+
+
+
+
+THREE ACRES
+
+AND
+
+LIBERTY
+
+BY
+
+BOLTON HALL
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"THINGS AS THEY ARE," "THRIFT," ETC.
+
+REVISED EDITION
+
+_"A sower went out to sow and he sowed that which was in his heart
+--for what can a man sow else!"_  From "THE GAME OF LIFE."
+
+_Or, as the Vulgate has it,--
+
+"Exitt qui seminat seminare semen suum."_
+
+NEW YORK
+
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+1918
+
+All rights reserved._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Copyright 1907 and 1918
+
+By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1907.
+
+Reprinted April, July, 1907; March, 1908; June,
+
+September, 1910; April, 1912; April 1914.
+
+New edition, revised February, 1918.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+
+
+
+We are not tied to a desk or to a bench; we stay there only because
+we think we are tied.
+
+In Montana I had a horse, which was hobbled every night to keep him
+from wandering; that is, straps joined by a short chain were put
+around his forefeet, so that he could only hop. The hobbles were
+taken off in the morning, but he would still hop until he saw his
+mate trotting off.
+
+This book is intended to show how any one can trot off if he will.
+
+It is not a textbook; there are plenty of good textbooks, which are
+referred to herein. Intensive cultivation cannot be comprised in any
+one book.
+
+It shows what is needed for a city man or woman to support a family
+on the proceeds of a little bit of land; it shows how in truth, as
+the old Book prophesied, the earth brings forth abundantly after its
+kind to satisfy the desire of every living thing. It is not
+necessary to bury oneself in the country, nor, with the new
+facilities of transportation, need we, unless we wish to, pay the
+extravagant rents and enormous cost of living in the city. A little
+bit of land near the town or the city can be rented or bought on
+easy terms; and merchandising will bring one to the city often
+enough. Neither is hard labor needed; but it is to work alone that
+the earth yields her increase, and if, although unskilled, we would
+succeed in gardening, we must attend constantly and intelligently to
+the home acres.
+
+Every chapter of this book has been revised by a specialist, and the
+authors wish to express their appreciation of the aid given them,
+particularly by Mr. E. H. Moore, Arboriculturist in the Brooklyn
+Department of Parks; Mr. Collingwood of the Rural New Yorker and Mr.
+George T. Powell; and to thank Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright, and also
+Mr. Joseph Morwitz, for many valuable suggestions; also all those
+from whom we have quoted directly or in substance.
+
+We have endeavored in the text to give full acknowledgment to all,
+but in some cases it has been impossible to credit to the originator
+every paragraph or thought, since these have been selected and
+placed as needed, believing that all true teachers and gardeners are
+more anxious to have their message sent than to be seen delivering
+it.
+
+In truth, teaching is but another department of gardening.
+
+Practical points and criticisms from practical men and women,
+especially from those experiences in trying to get to the land, will
+be welcomed by the authors. Address in care of the publishers.
+
+The Report of the Country Life Commission, with Special Message from
+the President of the United States, is especially important as
+showing the connection of Intensive Cultivation with Thrift for war
+time.
+
+It tells us that:
+
+"The handicaps (on getting out of town) that we now have specially
+in mind may be stated under four heads: Speculative holding of
+lands; monopolistic control of streams; wastage and monopolistic
+control of forests; restraint of trade.
+
+"Certain landowners procure large areas of agricultural land in the
+most available location, sometimes by questionable methods, and hold
+it for speculative purposes. This not only withdraws the land itself
+from settlement, but in many cases prevents the development of an
+agricultural community. The smaller landowners are isolated and
+unable to establish their necessary institutions or to reach the
+market. The holding of large areas by one party tends to develop a
+system of tenantry and absentee farming. The whole development may
+be in the direction of social and economic ineffectiveness.
+
+"A similar problem arises in the utilization of swamp lands.
+According to the reports of the Geological Survey, there are more
+than 75,000,000 acres of swamp land in this country, the greater
+part of which are capable of reclamation at probably a nominal cost
+as compared to their value. It is important to the development of
+the best type of country life that the reclamation proceed under
+conditions insuring subdivision into small farms and settlement by
+men who would both own them and till them.
+
+"Some of these lands are near the centers of population. They become
+a menace to health, and they often prevent the development of good
+social conditions in very large areas. As a rule they are extremely
+fertile. They are capable of sustaining an agricultural population
+numbering many millions, and the conditions under which these
+millions must live are a matter of national concern. The Federal
+Government should act to the fullest extent of its constitutional
+powers in the reclamation of these lands under proper safeguards
+against speculative holding and landlordism.
+
+"The rivers are valuable to the farmers as drainage lines, as
+irrigation supply, as carriers and equalizers of transportation
+rates, as a readily available power resource, and for raising food
+fish. The wise development of these and other uses is important to
+both agricultural and other interests; their protection from
+monopoly is one of the first responsibilities of government. The
+streams belong to the people; under a proper system of development
+their resources would remain an estate of all the people, and become
+available as needed.
+
+"River transportation is not usually antagonistic to railway
+interests. Population and production are increasing rapidly, with
+corresponding increase in the demands made on transportation
+facilities. It may be reasonably expected that the river will
+eventually carry a large part of the freight that does not require
+prompt delivery, while the railway will carry that requiring
+expedition. This is already foreseen by leading railway men; and its
+importance to the farmer is such that he should encourage and aid,
+by every means in his power, the large use of the rivers. The
+country will produce enough business to tax both streams and
+railroads to their utmost.
+
+"In many regions the streams afford facilities for power, which,
+since the inauguration of electrical transmission, is available for
+local rail lines and offers the best solution of local
+transportation problems. In many parts of the country local and
+interurban lines are providing transportation to farm areas, thereby
+increasing facilities for moving crops and adding to the profit and
+convenience of farm life. However, there seems to be a very general
+lack of appreciation of the possibilities of this water-power
+resource as governing transportation costs.
+
+"The streams may be also used as small water power on thousands of
+farms. This is particularly true of small streams. Much of the labor
+about the house and barn can be performed by transmission of power
+from small water wheels running on the farms themselves or in the
+neighborhood. This power could be used for electric lighting and for
+small manufacture. It is more important that small power be
+developed on the farms of the United States than that we harness
+Niagara.
+
+"Unfortunately, the tendency of the present laws is to encourage the
+acquisition of these resources on easy terms, or on their own terms,
+by the first applicants, and the power of the streams is rapidly
+being acquired under conditions that lead to the concentration of
+ownership in the hands of the monopolies. This constitutes a real
+and immediate danger, not to the country-life interests alone, but
+to the entire nation, and it is time that the whole people become
+aroused to it.
+
+"The forests have been exploited for private gain not only until the
+timber has been seriously reduced, but until streams have been
+ruined for navigation, power, irrigation, and common water supplies,
+and whole regions have been exposed to floods and disastrous soil
+erosion. Probably there has never occurred a more reckless
+destruction of property that of right should belong to all the
+people.
+
+"The wood-lot property of the country needs to be saved and
+increased. Wood-lot yield is one of the most important crops of the
+farms, and is of great value to the public in con trolling streams,
+saving the run-off, checking winds, and adding to the attractiveness
+of the region. [Taken up in a special chapter of this book.]
+
+"In many regions where poor and hilly lands prevail, the town or
+county could well afford to purchase forest land, expecting thereby
+to add to the value of the property and to make the forests a source
+of revenue. Such communal forests in Europe yield revenue to the
+cities and towns by which they are owned and managed."
+
+These revenues would furnish good roads even in the poorest and most
+sparsely settled districts.
+
+There are a number of other reasons why people do not like to live
+outside of cities--or do not succeed in farm work. There is the
+difficulty of finding help. This, how. ever, rejoices the heart of
+the modern sociologist. Consider--we first teach our children
+independence and train them for everything but farm help or
+household services. Then we degrade the "help" below a mill "hand"
+so that people will not even sit at table with them at an hotel.
+Next we fix a theory of conduct for them that keeps them constantly
+under orders and pay them wages that make it hardly possible for
+them to rise above the station to which we have appointed them.
+
+Finally, when we move away from the haunts of men out to
+Sandtown-by-the-Puddle we blame them that they do not rush to join
+us. Most of them would be happier in penal servitude than in the
+country. The work is as hard and requires as much skill as a
+mechanic's work, besides personal qualities that are demanded of no
+mechanic, and commands half its wages.
+
+Those who, like Henry Ford, can afford to pay mechanics' wages for
+help can get all they want.
+
+Many people go to the country without plan, preparation, or
+vocation, to make a living. They usually start to build a bungalow
+but seldom get further than the bungle. Don't build anything without
+plan. Get a comfortable house proof against cold and heat as soon as
+possible and, above all, well ventilated. At present the air in the
+country is good, because the farmers shut all the bad air up in
+their bedrooms.
+
+They say
+
+"The farmer works from sun to sun
+For the summer's work is never done."
+
+We might add, it's never even half done--naturally. A donkey engine
+can work like that, but then it hasn't any brains. No man can work
+from sun to sun all summer and think at all or be good for anything
+at the end of it.
+
+Above all things don't work long hours, even in learning, with the
+idea of saving that way. All up-to-date employers are agreed that an
+eight-hour day produces more and better results than a ten-hour day
+and that a twelve-hour day brings sheriffs and suicides instead of
+profits.
+
+That's just as true of the individual worker as it is of the factory
+"hand." Yet most men and a few women proudly say that they "work
+like a horse" (it's usually not true). They don't; a horse won't
+work and can't work over eight hours a day steadily. Neither can
+you: you may keep buzzing around much longer--but the best work
+requires the best conditions and the best hours. You think, or you
+flatter yourself that you think, that it is necessary; but nothing
+is necessary that is stupid and wrong. It is hardly too much to say
+that when we are tired out or ill either we have been doing the
+wrong thing or doing it wrong.
+
+There is besides, as an anti-rusticant, railroad discrimination in
+favor of long hauls, but the main reason that the small farms of the
+Eastern Coast are less settled than those farther west is the great
+difficulty in getting farm loans or loans on farm buildings. New
+York companies and others in the great cities will loan on farms
+west of the Alleghenies, but even the otherwise excellent eastern
+Building Loan Associations usually restrict themselves to places
+within twenty-five miles of a city. The Jewish Agricultural and
+Industrial Aid Society will help approved Jewish farmers to buy and
+build: and there is a Federal Land Bank in Springfield, Mass., which
+lends to some Farmers' Associations, of which some four thousand are
+already formed. It is hoped that the State Land Bank of New York
+City may improve the situation in New York for Farmers'
+Organizations, but "generally nearly all available funds of the
+local banks seem to be drawn off for investments in Wall Street."
+
+However, it is not to be forgotten that this difficulty is reflected
+in the lower prices of eastern Land.
+
+One more thing that keeps many people from the country and drives
+some people back to the city is the mosquito (of course there are
+mosquitoes in town, but we are not out as much, so we notice them
+less). Mosquitoes breed or rather we breed them, in still water in
+which there are no fish, in pools, hollows in trees, wells, etc.,
+and above all in old tin cans. They can no more breed without water
+than sharks could.
+
+Mosquitoes do not breed in grass, but rank growths of weeds or grass
+may conceal small breeding puddles, and form a favorite nursery for
+Mamma Skeet. A teacupful of water standing ten days is enough for
+250 wrigglers; their needs are modest.
+
+Different species of mosquitoes have as well-defined habits as other
+birds and are classified as follows: Domestic, Migratory, and
+Woodland.
+
+The common domestic or pet species breed in fresh water, usually in
+the house yard, fly comparatively short distances, and habitually
+enter houses. They winter in cellars, barns, and outhouses. Some of
+them are conveyors of malaria.
+
+The Migratory Species breed on the salt marshes, fly long distances,
+do not habitually enter houses, and are not carriers of diseases so
+far as known.
+
+Certain varieties of Woodland Mosquitoes breed only in woodland
+pools, appearing in the early spring, and travel a greater distance
+than the domestic species. They are not usually troublesome indoors.
+
+It has been proved that malaria is transmitted only by certain
+species of Anopheles, one of which is the domestic mosquito.
+Eliminate this one species of mosquito and the disease will
+disappear as a direct consequence. So if you hear that pretty little
+song in the house, don't swear, thank the Lord that effects always
+follow causes. You need never be without a bite in the house if you
+have a nice cesspool handy for Sis Mosquito, for each one will have
+a first-class feed with you every second or third day.
+
+They are needless and dangerous pests or pets. Their propagation can
+be prevented by draining or filling wet areas, by emptying or
+screening water receptacles, and by spraying with oil where better
+measures are not available. Oil should be sprinkled in any
+cesspools, sewers, and catch basins, rain barrels, water troughs,
+roof gutters, marshes, swamps, and puddles that cannot be done away
+with. All ponds and large bodies of water should have clean sharp
+edges, because in shallow, grassy edges larvae of the malarial
+species are commonly found. Large ponds with clean edges, inhabited
+by fish or predatory insects, are safe; smaller ponds, if wind
+swept, and all ponds in the "ripple area" are safe. All rain pools,
+stagnant gutters, overgrown edges of large ponds, and all
+receptacles holding water not constantly renewed, are dangerous. You
+raise most of your own mosquitoes.
+
+Now a word specially concerning this revised edition.
+
+The farm papers are supported mainly by men with large acreage, it
+is the rise in value of these acres more than the rise in farm
+products that has pulled the land-owning farmers out of the hole
+that they were in up to about the year 1900. Farmers' knowledge,
+liking, and equipment was for big fields, half cultivated, and at
+first they did not like to hear that they had been wasting so much
+of the labor that had bent their backs. Nor did they want to hear
+that it would have been far more profitable to them to have
+cultivated a few acres and left the goats and hogs or sheep to
+attend to the rest as wild land until the long-expected settlers
+came along to buy the land at dreamland prices.
+
+Consequently, all the faults in the book there were, and some more
+besides, have been picked out by these critics. It is surprising as
+well as a notable compliment to the agricultural experts who revised
+the first edition that, with one exception, no material error or
+omission has been pointed out.
+
+The more so because there is absolutely no limit to the advances in
+methods and results in doing things, and in growing things, all born
+of intelligent toil. Your suggestions may help the world to better
+and bigger things. If you will listen at the 'phone you may sometime
+hear a conversation like this:
+
+"Hello, this is Mrs. Wise, send me two strawberries, please." "You'd
+better take three, Madam, I've none larger than peaches to-day."
+"All right; good-bye."
+
+You may sometime see that kind of strawberry in New Jersey at
+Kevitt's Athenia, or Henry Joralamon's, or in the berry known by
+various names, such as Giant and different Joe's. But lots of people
+have failed in their war garden work even on common things; lots
+more ought to have failed but haven't--yet. Years ago, we, the book
+and its helpers, started the forward-to-the-land movement which has
+resulted in probably two million extra garden patches this war year.
+I have had carloads of letters, at least hand carloads, about the
+book, but not one worker who even tried to follow its counsels has
+reported failure.
+
+So don't let us have a wail from you because your "garden stuff
+never comes up." Of course it doesn't; you have to bring it up, just
+like a baby. That's what I've been crying for long years in the
+wilderness ever since the first edition of this book. The Three
+Acres may be bought on credit but eternal vigilance is the price of
+Liberty and crops. To raise good crops costs time and attention and
+sweat of body and of brains.
+
+Here is a chunk of wisdom out of the excellent Garden Primer (which
+you can get free by asking me for it):
+
+"One hour a day spent in a garden ten yards long by seven wide will
+supply vegetables enough for a family of six"; but the value of this
+remark lies in the application of it. If you figure a bit on that
+you will find that ten minutes a day will provide enough for one
+person, but six hours once a week won't do. Six hours a day will
+bring up a baby; but two days a week is criminal neglect for the
+other five days. If you once let the weeds get a good start, say
+after a rain, they will make even the angels swear. It's regular
+attention that the baby and the garden and your education and your
+best girl will require.
+
+If you want more minute instructions about how to grow each
+vegetable, put in words that anybody can understand without getting
+a headache or a dictionary, look up "The Garden Yard" by the Author.
+It is in nearly all libraries now, and it is the only book that
+makes perfectly plain everything that a plain man needs to know
+about growing plain things
+
+So there is little to add in this new edition except to reinforce
+what was not strong enough. In the present jumping market to revise
+the prices quoted would be absurd, but it may be noted that, as in
+the prices of 'cowers, the minimum prices are still about correct,
+but the maximum prices have jumped almost out of sight. Every year
+there are more and more very wealthy people who will pay nearly any
+price for the very best. The world seems to be dividing into those
+who have to count their pennies and those who couldn't count their
+thousands. Of course, where war has prohibited the importation of
+the strong bulbs and roots needed for forcing flowers, the prices
+are about what any one who has any chooses to ask. Monopoly can
+always get its own price.
+
+This New Edition does not attempt to bring prices quoted up to date.
+In these times not even a stock exchange telegraph ticker can do
+that. Prices of goods in general have advanced at least 80 per cent.
+By the day that this book is off the press they may have decreased,
+or more likely advanced some more. The next day they may slump.
+Prices of labor advance more slowly and do not slump so fast. Wages
+of men gardeners have risen perhaps 50 per cent in the last ten
+years, but women and children have learned to do much of the work.
+They do the work cheaper because most of them have some one on whom
+they can partly depend for support.
+
+Similarly, when an example of total product given in the earlier
+edition is still typical and has stood investigation, it is not
+discarded in favor of a more modern instance.
+
+It would have been easy to have revised all the figures, but of
+little advantage to our readers. For example, it is encouraging to
+the citizen to know that the average wheat yield per acre has
+increased more than two bushels since the first edition of this
+book, but it would not help the garden maker. The increase of
+possible products tends to counterbalance the increased cost of
+labor. So only the musty parts have been cut out of the book, which
+is more needed now than ever.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I: Making a Living--Where and How
+
+Chapter II: Present Conditions
+
+Chapter III: How To Buy The Farm
+
+Chapter IV: Vacant City Lot Cultivation
+
+Chapter V: Results To Be Expected
+
+Chapter VI: What An Acre May Produce
+
+Chapter VII: Some Methods
+
+Chapter VIII: The Kitchen Garden
+
+Chapter IX: Tools And Equipment
+
+Chapter X: Advantages From Capital
+
+Chapter XI: Hotbeds And Greenhouses
+
+Chapter XII: Other Uses Of Land
+
+Chapter XIII: Fruits
+
+Chapter XIV: Flowers
+
+Chapter XV: Drug Plants
+
+Chapter XVI: Novel Live Stock
+
+Chapter XVII: Where To Go
+
+Chapter XVIII: Clearing The Land
+
+Chapter XIX: How To Build
+
+Chapter XX: Back To The Land
+
+Chapter XXI: Coming Profession For Boys
+
+Chapter XXII: The Wood Lot
+
+Chapter XXIII: Some Practical Experiments
+
+Chapter XXIV: Some Experimental Foods
+
+Chapter XXV: Dried Truck
+
+Chapter XXVI: Home Cold Pack Canning
+
+Chapter XXVII: Retail Cooperation
+
+Chapter XXVIII: Summer Colonies For City People
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MAKING A LIVING--WHERE AND HOW
+
+
+
+
+
+By thought and courage, we can help ourselves to own a home,
+surrounded by acres of fruit and vegetables, flowers and poultry,
+and learn the best methods so as to insure success.
+
+In olden times any one could "farm," but it is necessary to-day to
+teach people to obtain a livelihood directly from the earth.
+Scientific methods of agriculture have revealed possibilities in the
+soil that make farming the most fascinating occupation known to man.
+People in every city are longing for the freedom of country life,
+yet hesitate to enter into its liberty because no one points the
+way.
+
+Most sociologists are agreed that the great problem of our day is to
+stop the drift of population toward the cities. Seeing the
+overcrowding, the want and misery of our great towns, the
+philanthropist chimes in with "Get the people to the country, that
+is the need."
+
+But there is no such need. Man is a social animal, he naturally goes
+in flocks, he earns more and learns more in crowds. To transport him
+to the country, even if he would stay, which happily he won't, would
+be to doctor a symptom. As in typhoid, what is needed is not to
+suppress the fever, that is easy, but to remove the cause of it.
+
+It is not the growth of the cities that we want to check, but the
+needless want and misery in the cities, and this can be done by
+restoring the natural condition of living, and among other things,
+by showing that it is easier and making it more attractive to live
+in comfort on the outskirts of the city as producers, than in the
+slums as paupers.
+
+We know already that the natural and healthy life is, that in the
+sweat of our faces we should eat bread. We observe that everything
+we eat or use or make comes from the earth by labor; but no one
+knows how abundantly the Mother can supply her children. It is well
+said that no man yet knows the capacity of a square yard of earth.
+
+The farmer thinks that he has done well if he gets a hundred and
+fifty or two hundred bushels of potatoes from an acre; he does not
+know that others have gotten 1284 bushels.
+
+("Mr. Knight, whose name is well known to every horticulturist in
+England, Once dug out of his fields no less than 1284 bushels of
+potatoes, or thirty-four tons and nine hundreds weight (about 34
+bushels to the ton), on a single acre; and at a recent competition
+in Minnesota, 1120 bushels, or thirty tons, could be ascertained as
+having been grown on one acre." P. Kropotkin's "Fields, Factories
+and Workshops," page 114.)
+
+Let us realize what an acre means. An acre is a square about 209
+feet each way, 4840 square yards of land. A New York City avenue
+block is about 200 feet long from house corner to house corner. It
+has eight city lots 25 X 100 in its front; about double that space
+(17-2/5 lots) makes an acre.
+
+An ordinary one-horse cart holds twenty bushels, so then a full crop
+of potatoes from that space would fill 56 carts.
+
+To raise potatoes as an ordinary farmer raises them, requires him to
+go over the ground not less than a dozen times, plowing, harrowing,
+marking, planting, cultivating, three times weeding, three times for
+bugs, and digging; it would pay him to go over it much oftener.
+
+If he plants his rows of potatoes three feet apart, to allow for
+horse cultivation, he has 69 rows of 200 feet each; which makes him
+walk at least thirty-three miles over each acre. If he has a
+twenty-acre lot in potatoes, he walks each year more than 650 miles
+over the field and gets, let us say, 150 bushels of poor potatoes
+per acre, or 3000 bushels off his twenty-acre field.
+
+Now suppose he cultivates the soil, instead of just "raising a
+crop," and gets 600 bushels of fine potatoes to the acre, he need
+plant only five acres, walk only 200 miles, and, because his
+potatoes are choice and early, get many times the price that his
+pedestrian neighbor gets. It is much easier to grow 200,000 lb. of
+feed on one acre than to grow them on ten acres.
+
+To cultivate is to watch the soil as you would watch your cooking
+and to tend the crop as you would tend your animals. The crop is as
+alive as the stock and as easily gets sick.
+
+If an ordinary farmer rents 60 acres at $5.00 per acre, a moderate
+rent for good land, he pays out in cash $300, besides farm wages. If
+he buys it, his interest and taxes will amount to nearly as much;
+but if he tills but five acres intelligently, he can get as much out
+of it as out of an ordinary farm, and even if his rent be as high as
+$30 per acre for well situated land, he is $150 to the good;
+besides, doing the work himself, he has no drain of capital for
+wages.
+
+Large barns and shelter for help being unnecessary, he can live in a
+cheap shack till he accumulates enough for proper buildings. Many of
+the successful vacant lot farmers live in a tent or in shanties made
+of old boxes and such like.
+
+Of course, if we have the knowledge and ability and the capital and
+can give it the attention, it is more profitable to cultivate on a
+large scale than on a small one, because in that case each worker
+necessarily produces more than he gets as wages--and we pocket the
+difference.
+
+Most American farmers are holding land that somebody ought to pay
+them a bonus for working, else they must come out of the little end
+of the horn. They get poor or poorly situated land, because it costs
+less, and then put three or four hundred dollars' worth of labor and
+money a year into the land and take out four or five hundred
+dollars' worth of crops.
+
+The farmer thinks he must have big fields to feed his cattle, and
+that he must have cattle to keep the big fields fertilized, so he
+raises hay.
+
+In that he makes two mistakes; hay, like most other low-priced
+crops, is risky--the cost of harvesting is high and the margin of
+profit small. A week of wet weather at cutting time or the
+impossibility of getting enough men and machines in the week when it
+should be cut, may make a loss.
+
+But the scientific dairy man does not take that risk, nor let his
+cattle use up this fodder by wandering over the fields in search of
+tid-bits of grass or clover, or, goaded by the flies, trampling more
+grass than they eat and wasting their manure.
+
+He keeps the cows in cool sheds, feeds them on cut fodder, and saves
+every ounce of the manure.
+
+The modern cow is a ruminating machine for producing milk and cares
+little for exercise and needs little. To exploit the cattle as
+employers exploit the factory hands, he gives the cows a cool, shady
+place and food, and they stand there all day long to their profit
+and his.
+
+(United States Agricultural Bulletin No. 22 says: "The New Jersey
+Experiment Station has been conducting a practical trial in soiling
+dairy cows for a number of years past, and finds that complete
+soiling is entirely practicable, i.e. that green foliage crops may
+serve as the sole food of the dewy herd, aside from the grain
+ration, without injury to the animals and with a considerable saving
+in the cost of milk.
+
+"Under the soiling system a large number of animals can be kept upon
+a given acreage and by allowing open-air exercises in a large yard
+or pasture the practice has been demonstrated as entirely feasible
+for dairy animals.
+
+"One acre of soiling crops produced sufficient fodder for an
+equivalent of 3 cows for six months. Rye, corn, crimson clover,
+alfalfa, oats and peas, and millets have been found to furnish food
+more economically than any other green crops in that locality. A
+grain rotation was always fed in addition to the soiling crops.")
+
+Although we can feed a cow on less than an acre by raising forage
+crops, she needs to be milked every day at regular hours, and the
+milk, as well as the cans and the cow, need to be cared for--and she
+cannot wait.
+
+The stock-raiser has a different proposition; he needs fields and
+grass; but if time and available labor is limited, we had better
+specialize on the garden--unlike the farmers.
+
+The farmers are not to blame that they do not usually cultivate the
+land intelligently. They are mostly cut off from the educational
+advantages of the cities by distance and by bad roads.
+
+Usually, that is because, desirable land being held at speculative
+prices, they are forced to places where the farm itself is worth
+less than the good improvements on it cost. Sometimes it is because,
+also, the land is poor or worn out; more often because it is
+thoughtlessly managed, nearly always because the land-hungry farmer
+has taken ten times as much land as he needs for farming. In the
+hope of a rise that often does not come, nearly all have bought more
+land than they can take good care of with limited capital and
+scarcity of help.
+
+In addition, the farms have held out such poor prospects of fortune
+that the smarter and more enterprising boys and girls have left them
+for the towns, leaving behind the duller and more conservative to
+the mercy of the railroads and other monopolies. What wonder, then,
+that the overworked and struggling farmer finds little chance to
+study, or to investigate and invest in fertilizers or even in modern
+methods of agriculture.
+
+No wonder farming does not pay if a "farmer" means a stupid man with
+neither training for, nor knowledge of, his business. Those who have
+the knowledge seldom have the experience and those who have the
+experience seldom have the knowledge.
+
+The bonanza farms of the West are other samples of great areas of
+the most productive land in the United States being used most
+unscientifically. By the methods used, the land produces less per
+acre than land in the East which is not so good. Accordingly, we
+find that the bonanza farm plan, where great areas of wheat are
+worked by machines with labor employed only in the seed time and
+harvest, is rapidly breaking up. As the land becomes valuable and is
+taxed, such wasteful, wholesale methods do not pay as well as it
+pays to rent or sell the land to farmers, who each for themselves
+attend to details of the business. Consequently, most of those farms
+are being sold off. The whole amount of wheat ever raised on them,
+however, is small compared to the rice, millet, and wheat raised in
+China, India, and Russia, and is insignificant compared to the
+amount of produce grown on the myriad little farm plots.
+
+A comparison of productions as taken from the 12th and 13th United
+States Censuses in the bonanza farm states shows that the yield of
+wheat was:
+
+while New England shows 23.5 bu. per acre.
+
+In 1899 In 1909
+
+Minnesota 14.5 bu. per acre 17.4
+North Dakota 13.5 bu. per acre 14.3
+South Dakota 10.5 bu. per acre 14.6
+
+By 1917 these largely increased, but the differences remain.
+
+"The average extent of land tilled by one family in Japan does not
+exceed one hectare" (2.471 acres), less than two and a half acres.
+("Japan in the Beginning of the Twentieth Century," page 89.
+Published by the Department of Agriculture and Commerce of Japan.)
+
+"Farm households contain on an average 5.8 persons, of whom two and
+a half persons per family may be regarded of an age capable of doing
+effective work."
+
+"So that here we have more than one person working on each acre and
+each acre supporting more than two persons, notwithstanding that
+their 22,000,000 tenant farmers pay sometimes four fifths of their
+product as rent." (Same, page 103.)
+
+Denmark, one of the best agricultural countries and probably one of
+the happiest communities on earth, reported
+
+1,900 farms of 250-300 acres,
+74,000 farms averaging 100 acres,
+150,000 farms averaging 7 to 10 acres,
+1,050 cooperative dairies, and so on.
+
+And so impressed has the ruling class there become with the
+advantage of this that the Government will supply the poor worker
+nine tenths of the means necessary to buy a small farm.
+
+Says Kropotkin, "the small island of Jersey, eight miles long and
+less than six miles wide, still remains a land of open field
+culture; but, although it comprises only 28,707 acres (nearly 45
+square miles), rocks included, it nourishes a population of about
+two inhabitants to each acre, or 1300 inhabitants to the square
+mile, and there is not one writer on agriculture who, after having
+paid a visit to this island, does not praise the well-being of the
+Jersey peasants and the admirable results which they obtain in their
+small farms of from five to twenty acres--very often less than five
+acres--by means of a rational and intensive culture.
+
+"Most of my readers will probably be astonished to learn that the
+soil of Jersey, which consists of decomposed granite, with no
+organic matter in it, is not at all of surprising fertility, and
+that its climate, though more sunny than the climate of the British
+Isles, offers many drawbacks on account of the small amount of sun
+heat during the summer and of the cold winds in spring."
+
+("The successes accomplished lately in Jersey are entirely due to
+the amount of labor which a dense population is putting on the land;
+to a system of land-tenure, land-transference, and inheritance very
+different from those which prevail elsewhere; to freedom from State
+taxation; and to the fact that communal institutions have been
+maintained down to quite a recent period, while a number of communal
+habits and customs of mutual support, derived there-from, are alive
+to the present time." (Fields, Factories and Workshops.")
+
+"It will suffice to say that on the whole the inhabitants of Jersey
+obtain agricultural products to the value of $250 to each acre of
+the aggregate surface of land." (Same, page 113.))
+
+In a small plot the character of the soil is of little consequence.
+We hear of one garden in New York City on the roof of a big building
+where the janitor smuggled up the needed soil in baskets.
+
+The school gardens in New York City, some in a space as small as a
+hearth rug, one yard by two, show how to use a very small patch of
+land to the best advantage. Nor need it take more time than you can
+afford.
+
+"Some of the cultivators of city lots on Long Island who kept count
+of the number of days they worked, show the surprising conclusion
+that they earned, not farm wages (seventy-five cents a day with
+board and lodging for the worker), but mechanics' wages (four
+dollars per day) for every working day; as, for instance, a
+stone-cutter, assisted by his two boys, worked fifty hours and made
+$120.23." ("Cultivation of Vacant Lots, New York," page 12); and
+four city lots is a very little farm.
+
+But though one may not own even a little farm, almost any one who
+wants to can have a home garden--it needs but a small plot of land.
+Nor need we be discouraged because acquaintances who play at
+gardening tell us that their vegetables cost them more than if they
+bought them.
+
+They naturally would, with thoughtless methods of cultivation, with
+the selection of crops and the purchase of seeds left to an
+uneducated man who does all his work the way he saw his grandfather
+do it.
+
+Nor are we to be discouraged even by the "gentleman farmer" who
+runs a model farm, a model of how not to do it, for, notwithstanding
+its large capital, it seldom pays.
+
+I am passing such a farm now as I write in the train--it is
+surrounded by a cut stone wall. Do you suppose the owner business
+would pay if it were run in the same way that his farm is run? We
+know the story of the white sparrow to find which would bring luck
+to the farm--but it was out only at daybreak; the farmer got up each
+morning to find the sparrow and found a lot of other things to
+attend to, which did bring luck to the farm. I don't think the owner
+of that wall worked at it, at daybreak.
+
+The time is not far distant when the builders of homes in our
+American cities will be compelled to leave room for a garden, in
+order to meet the requirements of the people In the mad rush for
+wealth we have overlooked the natural state, but we see a healthy
+reaction setting in. With the improvements in steam and electricity,
+the revolutionizing of transportation, the cutting of the arbitrary
+telephone charges, it is becoming possible to live at a distance
+from our business. May we not expect in the near future to see one
+portion of our cities devoted entirely to business, with the homes
+of the people so separated as to give light, sunshine, and air to
+all, besides a piece of ground for a garden sufficient to supply the
+table with vegetables?
+
+You raise more than vegetables in your garden: you raise your
+expectation of life.
+
+Life belongs in the garden. Do you remember--the first chapters of
+Genesis show us our babyhood in a garden--the garden that all
+babyhood remembers, and the last chapter of the Apocalypse leaves us
+with the vision of the garden in the Holy City, on either side of
+the river, where the trees yield their fruits every month and bear
+leaves of universal healing. Just so will it be in our holy cities
+of the future--the garden will be right there "in the midst."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+PRESENT CONDITIONS
+
+
+
+
+
+Up to the Civil War and for some years after, our people were almost
+wholly agricultural. National activity contented itself with
+settling and developing the vast areas of the public lands, whose
+virgin richness cried aloud in the wilderness for men.
+
+The policy of the government, framed to stimulate rapid occupation
+of the public lands, had attracted hordes of settlers over the
+mountains from the older states, and immigration flowed in a steady
+stream into the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi.
+
+A system had grown up in the South almost patriarchal, based upon
+cultivation by slave labor of enormous areas devoted exclusively to
+cotton. In the North, New England had developed some few centers of
+industry, drawing their support from the manufacture of the great
+Southern staple. New York, Boston, and Philadelphia were growing as
+outlets for foreign commerce, but as yet manufacturing flourished
+but feebly and in few localities.
+
+Such manufacturing and commercial enterprises as existed had been
+laboriously built up by long years of honest working. The free lands
+of the government, by giving laborers an alternative, kept up wages,
+forcing employers to bid against each other for labor; and monopoly
+thus being checked, individual equality was possible.
+
+The mineral resources of Pennsylvania and Ohio were all but
+unsuspected, and the calm of a people devoted to the peaceful
+pursuits of agriculture rested over the country.
+
+Railroads were few and inefficient: telegraph lines but in their
+infancy. Intercourse among the people, outside of a narrow fringe on
+the Atlantic coast, was cumbersome, and impeded by many obstacles.
+Primitive conditions everywhere prevailed, and communities brooded
+in silence, growing stragglingly in sluggish indifference, content
+with coarse food and coarser living.
+
+Such, in general, were the conditions up to 1861. Then came the
+storm of shot and shell, the rain of blood, the elemental rage of
+passion called the Civil War. There was a total upset of business.
+Such periods of hard times as had occurred prior to that time had
+been caused by the tinkering of untrained minds with the money
+system or by land speculation, and not by lack of access to the
+riches of nature. After four years our people awoke, as from a
+nightmare, to find the old life swept away forever. In the South,
+the Confederates, bitter and sullen, groping amid the ruins of their
+institutions, sought to find some substitute for the agricultural
+despotism exercised for generations by their slaveholding families.
+In the East, the first families of the Revolution, secure in their
+preeminence, assumed again the manufacturing-banking-social
+prestige. The far West was still almost unknown, and remained in
+possession of the buffalo and the Indian. Settlers poured, in
+increasing numbers on to the unappropriated lands still left in the
+states of the central West, and the center of political power
+shifted rapidly to this fertile region.
+
+Already men of keen insight foresaw a time when oil, timber, coal,
+and iron must become the stay of a vastly expanding industrial
+system, and bent their energies to secure the chief sources of
+supply. From the nature of their work the men who built railways
+first became aware of the riches of nature, and aided by an enormous
+public sympathy with their efforts, monopolized all the natural
+opportunities of value. Coupled with industrial development was the
+gradual appropriation of the land. The time soon arrived when the
+late comers either stayed in the manufacturing centers at the
+railways terminals or were pushed farther and farther away from the
+centers. As the landowning families multiplied, the young men were
+confined to the same choice. Forced off the land, the tendency has
+been to crowd the brainiest blood of America into the cities. In
+addition, the competition of the new Western lands, brought into use
+by railway development, has exiled the youth of New England, who
+found in their rocky acres no incentive to toil. They, too, joined
+the ever-increasing flow to the cities, and entered into the savage
+competition of our great towns.
+
+In our time the pendulum has swung to its extreme. At every
+depression of business, armies of the unemployed perish in sight of
+the land they abandoned in the hope of a brighter future. Their
+children have forgotten the traditions of the soil, and the energies
+of our people must now be concentrated to reverse the aimless tide
+of human sufferers, which under stress continues to flow city-ward,
+and to send it to repeople the silent places whence it came. The
+fight will not be easily won. Changes in the national land policy
+are imperative. To give one generation privileges which enslave all
+who succeed it, is intolerable and will not be permanently endured.
+
+It is easy to determine upon a policy in the quiet of the study;
+different is the problem of applying a comprehensive scheme to
+repeople the idle land. In the first place, where is the idle land?
+In all parts of our country it exists in abundance. Almost every
+state in the Union has lands which either have never been alienated,
+or which have reverted to the state through nonpayment of taxes. In
+the East, particularly, the competition of Western lands, aided by
+discriminating freight rates, now so notorious, has resulted in the
+abandonment to the mortgagee of vast areas in New York, Connecticut,
+New Hampshire, Maine, and to some extent in New Jersey. These are
+now largely resold.
+
+Declining fertility and exorbitant and oppressive transportation
+charges have helped to keep these lands out of use, and some still
+lie idle and neglected, to excite the wonder of the social and
+economic student. To use the abandoned lands of the East, equal
+rates on agricultural products is a basic necessity.
+
+The first step, now well under way, is railroad control by the
+Government. Equal access to transportation is as essential as equal
+access to land, for transportation is indeed an attribute of land.
+
+Extending the inquiry westward, the coal and oil areas of
+Pennsylvania and Ohio are all controlled by a few hands. The
+original fertility of the farming areas of these states, together
+with the fact that they have been producing for only about a
+century, has enabled them to hold their own until recently, but now
+only the best located tracts are in maximum production, and this can
+he maintained only by the most advanced agricultural science. In
+spite of greater advantages, the crowded cities and deserted country
+districts are beginning to repeat in the fertile alluvial valleys of
+the interior, the tragic story of the East.
+
+In the Mississippi valley, conditions seem better. Values of farming
+lands are increasing rapidly; the farms are rich and growing richer;
+food products are cheap and abundant; certain staples are produced
+in enormous quantities and sent to feed the cities of the East and
+the industrial population of Europe. The railroads transport these
+products nearly one thousand miles for the same prices as they
+charge in the East for transporting them one hundred miles. Wealth,
+activity, and political power concentrate at the inlet and outlet of
+the railway funnel, leaving vast areas of unused and unusable land
+between the terminals. Access to markets determines value. That is
+why the favored lands of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, and
+Wisconsin, one to two thousand miles from market, have risen in
+value to as high as three hundred dollars per acre, and the lands of
+New England, New York, and New Jersey go begging at twenty to sixty
+dollars per acre, unless they lie within the artificial prosperity
+of the cities.
+
+Farther west in the irrigated regions of Colorado and Utah,
+restricted areas are held for special fruit crops, at prices ranging
+from three hundred to two thousand dollars and up, per acre. But
+here, again, monopoly, now a monopoly of natural opportunity, is a
+factor in creating prices; on this, however, the vast irrigation
+projects of the government, bringing into use larger and larger
+areas of these favored lands, were expected to exercise a check. Up
+to 1918 little has been sold. Their reclamation cost too much.
+
+The willingness of the Southern planters to sell their lands, and so
+to release them for intensive cultivation, has partly turned the
+tide of immigration from the Eastern ports to the South, and the
+market garden system is reaching increasing areas. The development
+of factories to make cotton fabrics and to utilize the formerly
+wasted cotton seed by turning it into meal for cattle and other
+animals, as well as into the various food products, such as
+cotton-seed oil, cottolene, etc., has stimulated the use of the
+waste land around these budding factory centers, thus tending to
+encourage intensive use of small, well-located tracts.
+
+With a climate much milder and more equable than that of the
+Northern states, with a potential fertility of soil, equally great
+under proper management, the South is making greater strides than
+any other part of the country.
+
+The foregoing shows that in every section opportunities of getting
+the people to the land exist. Where a man should go is determined by
+a variety of things. If he be a newly arrived immigrant used to land
+work in Southern Europe, he would find his best chance in the South;
+if a German or Russian, or from any of the Northern European
+countries, he would find the beet-sugar sections of Michigan
+Colorado, or California more to his liking; if American born,
+without much knowledge of out-door work, and feeling the need of
+social life, the cheap farms of New York, New Jersey, and New
+England would probably be most attractive.
+
+Many persons write me that I say it is necessary to get good land
+near population or with cheap and assured transportation
+facilities--and that it must not cost more than it is worth for
+gardening. "I find," they say, "that such acres are held as 'lots'
+at wildly speculative prices" and they ask "Where can I find such
+land?" But this is a book on agricultural use of land. Why land
+costs too much and where the remedy lies are other questions, dealt
+with in my "Things as They Are."
+
+However, probably the best chances now for intensive cultivation are
+in New Jersey, in the backwoods of the Middle states now made
+accessible by cheap autos--and in the South.
+
+What can be undertaken with good prospects of success will be
+outlined in the following chapters.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HOW TO BUY THE FARM
+
+
+
+
+
+Before the purchase of the land for a home in the country, some
+consideration ought to be given to probable increase in land values.
+Even if you are primarily interested in your early sales of produce,
+you will not object to reaping an additional profit from the
+presence of other people.
+
+Inasmuch as density of population determines land values, it follows
+that vacant land near a large city at $100 per acre may be cheaper
+than similar land at a distance would be at $10 per acre. If you buy
+real estate, you become a silent partner who does nothing, but takes
+most of the profits of the business of others.
+
+Some persons see so clearly that money is often easily gotten by
+investing in land, that sometimes they make mistakes, in trying to
+get in. It is as easy to be a lamb in the real estate market as it
+is in the stock market.
+
+Foresight, judgment, and experience or luck are essential to success
+in real estate dealing, but help, at least in keeping out of danger,
+may be had by following a few simple rules, if one can command a
+little capital, borrowed or owned.
+
+The following points, suggested by a professional land shark, will
+certainly be of interest and possibly of profit to the intending
+buyer. I believe myself that they contain the whole philosophy of
+land speculation.
+
+For a sure profit buy low-priced land, keeping as near the "raw
+material" as possible; high-priced property is risky and expensive
+to carry. An acre which costs one or two hundred dollars, or ten
+dollars per lot, will cost but six to twelve dollars per year to
+carry and half a dollar for taxes, and if a stable does come next
+you, why, you can sell your land for a blacksmith shop.
+
+Besides this, a ten-dollar lot, if restricted for residence or
+available for business, often advances to $100 in a year; one good
+house which some one else built near it may raise its value that
+much.
+
+If the land _is _high priced, see that there is some kind of a
+building on it; even a shanty will usually bring in enough or save
+you enough by its use to pay the taxes; so you will have that
+working for you whilst you are away.
+
+If possible, buy at auction and of reputable people who are not
+boomers, or at least buy at forced sale; that is how real estate is
+sold when it must be sold. Choose lots level with the curb and on
+high ground, lest the expense of grading and sewering eat up your
+profit.
+
+Keep in mind that in buying land for speculation one really buys the
+opportunity to tax other people, by taking part of their earnings in
+the shape of rent or price. Do not then be deluded by boom schemes
+in inaccessible or desolate places; choose rather that land which in
+the natural course of events others must have in order to work or to
+live.
+
+Home buying in small communities is safer than in the outskirts of a
+large city, because public improvements are much less costly. If you
+put $500 in a $5000 home and carry the balance on mortgage, an
+assessment of $1000 for streets or sewers, which helps the vacant
+lots, will probably put you out of business. Whether for use or
+speculation, buy in an established neighborhood or where the
+circumstances and neighbors are such that restrictions or
+expenditures will make its character sure. The increase in your land
+value depends first upon the presence, then upon the efforts, of
+others; it is by their labor you hope to profit.
+
+Therefore, buy property on leading thoroughfares; except in a very
+small section devoted to the residence of millionaires, the price of
+residence property has a limit; even there the merest accident or
+the whim of fashion may destroy the value, but there is no telling
+what figure business property may reach.
+
+Do not build unless you have to. It is rare that a building pays
+five per cent net on the value of the land and the cost of the
+house. "Who buys a house already wrought, gets many a brick and nail
+for naught." If, however, you can get a piece of ground in a growing
+neighborhood and live on it till you can sell at an advance, that is
+the safest, and surest of investments. It delivers you from the
+power of the landlord.
+
+Lastly--in real estate--don't bite off more than you can chew.
+
+Most of these rules apply to the purchase of suburban land. In farm
+buying, keep as close to your market as you can. See that railway
+facilities are all right; get land likely to be needed for other
+purposes. The best way to begin is by securing all information
+possible from state agricultural departments. Write to the
+industrial agents of important railroads traversing the section in
+which you want to locate. They have detailed information regarding
+land, markets, social conditions, etc.; get from the United States
+Agricultural Department a map showing the soil survey of the section
+of your choice. It must be borne in mind that personal aid is not to
+be expected from State Agricultural Departments, Bureaus of
+Immigration, railway companies, or any public agency.
+
+From the big farm agencies run for profit you can get lists of
+thousands of properties for sale. Some State Agricultural
+Departments cooperate with real estate men in their own states, by
+referring inquiries for farms to them. Some states issue from time
+to time lists of "abandoned farms," but these change so constantly
+that they help but little except in the way of suggestion.
+
+When you start farm-hunting take along a good map. Then you will
+know a few things on your own account. Verify railroad maps and
+"facts," as they are often biased. Don't waste your time wandering
+around a strange locality by yourself. The local real estate man
+knows more about his community than you can learn in five years. In
+trying to find out things for yourself you will waste in aimless
+journeys, undertaken in ignorance of real conditions, more time and
+money than a real estate man's commission amounts to.
+
+The only way to form a correct idea of the production of any given
+section is to examine a particular farm in detail. Within
+well-recognized limits, all tile farms thereabouts will be found of
+similar character. Before spending money to look at land, learn all
+you can by correspondence. Whether it is more profitable in the long
+run to buy that good plot of land in a high state of cultivation
+with good buildings on it, at a high price, than to buy this
+exhausted piece of land with poor buildings or none at all, is a
+question for the individual to decide. It depends on your energy,
+grit, age, and how much money you have. It is much easier to take
+advantage of what the other fellow has done, than it is to build
+from the stump. You must bear in mind, however, that well kept land
+in a high state of cultivation seldom goes begging in the market. On
+the whole, if you have the capital to do it, you can make the
+biggest wages by buying rough or neglected land, and hewing it into
+shape.
+
+If you have a knowledge of soils, you may be able to find land that
+will grow something that no one supposes it will grow. This will be
+particularly useful in the case of land thought to be valueless. The
+lands about Miles, Michigan, were considered sterile until some one
+found out that they would grow mint, a valuable crop, which made the
+land salable at high prices.
+
+Get hold of a desirable bit of the earth. All that men wear or eat
+or use; everything--shelter, food, tools, and toys comes from the
+land by labor. Even the capital used to make more of those things is
+taken from the land. The employer and the capitalist are, at bottom,
+only men who control the land or its products, who own rights of
+way, mining rights, or the fee of valuable lands. Thousands have
+"made" money by finding unexpected products in their land or of
+their lands, oil, coal, mineral, plants; thousands more because
+their land was needed by some one else, and they were paid to get
+out of the way.
+
+To speculate on these chances is risky business; to keep land that
+enables you to make good pay while you wait, is profitable.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+VACANT CITY LOT CULTIVATION
+
+
+
+
+
+In this book, necessarily, we have to take much upon the reports of
+others, checking them by our own judgment and experience. The
+startling accounts of what has been done and is being done on plots
+of about a quarter acre to each family, however, can be easily
+re-verified by any one who will go or write to Philadelphia, or
+examine any present experiment or model gardens. These show what can
+be done even by unskilled labor, with hardly any capital, on small
+plots where the soil was poor, but which are well situated.
+
+The directors say: "The first Vacant Lot Cultivation Associations
+were organized when relief agencies were vainly striving to provide
+adequate assistance for the host of unemployed. The cultivation of
+vacant city lots by the unemployed had already been tried
+successfully in other cities. The first year we provided gardens,
+seeds, tools, and instruction only, for about one hundred families
+on twenty-seven acres of ground. At a total cost to contributors of
+about $1800, our gardeners produced $46,000 worth of crops."
+
+The applicant is allowed a garden on the sole condition that he
+cultivate it well through the season, and that he do not trespass
+upon his neighbors. He must respect their right to what their labor
+produces. A failure to observe these rules forfeits his privilege.
+
+During twenty years, more than eight thousand families have been
+assisted, many old people who could no longer keep up the rapid pace
+of our industrial life, cripples whose physical condition held them
+back in the race for work, persons who on account of sickness or
+other misfortunes have been thrown out of the competition in modern
+business, and unfortunate beings who, though clear in mind and
+strong in muscle, have been forced to the ranks of the
+unemployed--these have all had an opportunity opened to them:
+opportunity to enjoy all of the fruits from nature's great
+storehouse which their own labor and skill might secure.
+
+The war has forced France, Italy, and England similarly to utilize
+natural opportunities for subsistence in their enormous tracts of
+unproductive lands. In Mexico all proprietors will be required to
+designate what they propose to cultivate and the remainder will
+either be allotted temporarily for agricultural purposes to those
+desiring them or it will be cultivated under government management.
+There is no remedy like that for poverty.
+
+The first man who applied for a vacant lot garden came to the
+Philadelphia office after the announcement in the papers, so weak
+and emaciated that the doctor was afraid the poor fellow would be
+unable to get out of his office without assistance. He was a widower
+with three girls and a boy, the oldest girl about seventeen.
+
+He received a garden which contained only about one fifth of an
+acre. Later he observed that a part of another little farm was left
+untouched on account of being very rough, full of holes, and covered
+with stone and bricks. Part of this farm was below the street grade
+and subject to overflow, but it was larger than the others--nine
+tenths of an acre. He offered to exchange, saying he did not mind
+the extra work.
+
+His offer was accepted. In a few days the stones and bricks had been
+thrown into the holes and covered with dirt. The low places had been
+filled in. It was a work in which the whole family joined. A small
+house was rented in the immediate neighborhood in lieu of their one
+room near the foul alleys of the city slum.
+
+Every inch of the soil was utilized. A rosy hue took the place of
+the pale, wan cheek of a few months before. And now the harvest has
+come, and the winter's store can be enumerated. Thirty bushels of
+potatoes, four bushels of turnips, one bushel of carrots, thirty
+gallons of sauerkraut, fifteen gallons of catsup, five gallons of
+pickled beans, one hundred quarts of canned tomatoes, fifty quarts
+of canned corn, twenty quarts of beans, one thousand or more fine
+celery stalks, and many other things. Warm clothing has replaced the
+badly worn garments of nine months ago. A few pieces of furniture
+have been added. The boy has been provided with a small capital for
+his little business. ("Vacant Lot Cultivation," Reprint from N. Y.
+_Charities Review._) Better labor would of course get even better
+results.
+
+The personal benefits that have come to a few individual cases, are
+largely the same that all the gardeners enjoyed in New York and
+elsewhere.
+
+An old colored woman--a grandmother--who had just been released from
+one of the hospitals where she had been treated for a long time for
+pleurisy, asked for a garden. It was more than a mile to the nearest
+plot, but she was quite willing to go even that distance if she
+could get a garden. At first, owing to her weakened condition, she
+was forced to work slowly and for short periods only, but a little
+assistance enabled her to get a garden started. The work proceeded
+so well that more land was added to her small holding, and most of
+her waking hours were now spent either in or near the garden,
+working among the tender plants or watching them grow. Before the
+season was half spent she had developed one of the best gardens in
+the whole plot. Her surplus produce became so large that she had to
+devote most of her time to gathering and selling it. Finally she
+rented a small shed on a prominent street and passers-by often
+stopped, and regular customers came to buy the freshly gathered
+produce, the supply being not only abundant, but of great variety.
+
+One of the best gardens, from the standpoint of value of produce as
+well as for the varieties of products it contained and the artistic
+arrangement, was worked by a man who had but one arm. Many other
+successful and profitable gardens were cultivated by men and women
+of an age when we generally expect them to depend entirely upon
+others for support.
+
+Many incidents were found where such habits as drinking and loafing
+around saloons and clubs and abusing the family have been checked on
+account of the gardener's time and attention being occupied in the
+little farm.
+
+One of the workers came for work in a condition of mind and body
+which rendered his services almost worthless. He was scarcely able
+to carry on his work for a minute beyond what he was shown. Each new
+move had to be explained constantly, and even then he was often
+found doing the work in the wrong way only a few minutes afterwards.
+Before long, however, he began to see that his place had its
+responsibilities and that the work of Mother Nature depended on his
+doing his part and doing it well. By the time the crops were ready
+to gather and market he came to realize that the cost of production
+must come under the amount received from the sale of the produce so
+as to prevent loss. By the end of the season he had learned so to
+utilize his time and to organize his work and execute our plans that
+we were able to recommend him to a farmer who was looking for a
+handy man about the place.
+
+In twenty years our Associations have made demonstrations of the
+following facts, each demonstration proving more clearly than the
+former ones:
+
+First. That many people out of employment must have help of some
+kind.
+
+Second. That a great majority of them prefer self-help, and many
+will take no other. Nearly all are able and willing to improve any
+opportunities open to them.
+
+Third. That to open opportunities to them does not pauperize or
+degrade, but has the opposite effect of elevating and ennobling. It
+quickly establishes self-respect and self-confidence. The best and
+most effective way of helping people in need is to open a way
+whereby they may help themselves. The most effective charity is
+opportunity accompanied with kindly advice and a personal interest
+in those less fortunate than ourselves.
+
+Fourth. That the offering of gardens to the unemployed with proper
+supervision and some assistance by providing seeds, fertilizers, and
+plowing accompanied with instruction, is the cheapest and easiest
+way of opening opportunities yet devised.
+
+Fifth. That it possesses many advantages in addition to providing
+profitable employment; among others, that the worker must come out
+into the open air and sunshine; must exercise, and put forth
+exertion,--all of which are conducive to health, and, most important
+of all, he knows that all he raises is to be his own. This is the
+greatest incentive to industry.
+
+The Vacant Lot Cultivation system is a school wherein gardeners are
+taught a trade (to most of them a new trade), farming, which offers
+employment for more people than all the other trades and professions
+combined: a trade susceptible of wide diversification and offering
+many fields for specializing. But little capital is required; any
+other field would require large outlay. Its greatest advantage,
+however, is that the idle men and the idle land are already close to
+each other--the men can reach their gardens without changing their
+domiciles or being separated from their families.
+
+It was not until after several years that the full effect of the
+work was realized. A few gardeners each year from the beginning
+have, after one or two years' experience, taken small farms or plots
+of land to cultivate on their own account, or have sought employment
+on farms near the city; but the number is quite small compared to
+the whole number helped. Now more than ten per cent of those that
+had gardens previously have for the last two years been working on
+their own account. Out of nearly eight hundred gardeners, more than
+eighty-five either rented or secured the loan of gardens that season
+and cultivated them wholly at their own expense, and many others
+would have done so had suitable land been available. The number of
+gardens forfeited on account of poor cultivation or trespassing was
+only two out of 800 plots given out.
+
+The first important advance was early in the spring of 1904, when it
+became known that a large tract of land that had been in gardens for
+several years would be withdrawn from use. A number of the gardeners
+came together to talk over the situation. One proposed that they
+form a club to lease a tract of land and divide it up among
+themselves. The plan was readily agreed to, and a nine-acre tract on
+Lansdowne Avenue was rented at $15 per acre per annum. Some sixteen
+families became interested' and Mr. D. F. Rowe, who had been one of
+the most successful gardeners, became manager They had the land
+thoroughly fertilized and plowed, and then subdivided. Some took
+separate allotments, as under the Vacant Lot Association's plan, and
+others worked for the manager at an agreed rate of wages per hour.
+The whole nine acres were thoroughly well cultivated, and a
+magnificent crop harvested.
+
+As soon as there was produce for sale, a market was established on
+the ground and a regular delivery system organized which later
+attracted much attention. It was carried on by the children, of nine
+to twelve years of age, from the various families. Each child was
+provided with a pushcart. There were many and various styles, made
+from little express wagons, baby coaches, and produce boxes
+
+The children built up their own routes, and went regularly to their
+customers for orders. They made up the orders, loaded them into
+their little pushcarts, charged themselves up with the separate
+amounts in a small book, and at the end of each day's sales each
+child settled with the manager and was paid his commission (twenty
+per cent of the receipts) in cash. These little salesmen and
+salesgirls often took home four to five dollars per week and yet
+never worked more than three to five hours per day. The work was
+done under such circumstances that to them it was not work but play.
+You can get the full report from the Philadelphia "Vacant Lot
+Cultivation Associations." It's interesting.
+
+"The greatest value that our little garden has brought us," said a
+French woman, mother of a goodly number of rather small children,
+"has not been in the fine vegetables it has yielded all summer, or
+the good times that I and the children have had in the open air, but
+in the glasses of beer and absinthe that my husband hasn't taken."
+"Quite right, mother, quite right," came from a man near by. "The
+world can never know the evil we men don't do while we are busy in
+our little gardens."
+
+Further, pillage of crops, which was always urged as an objection to
+raising fruits or truck on open grounds, has proved to be a baseless
+fear. Where any of the gardeners are allowed to camp or put up
+shacks on the patches, theft does not occur and various
+superintendents repeat that "the few and trivial cases of stealing
+from vacant lot plots or school gardens were almost all at the
+places that were fenced."
+
+Perhaps our locks and bolts tend to suggest breaking in.
+
+The Garden Primer issued by the New York City Food Supply Committee
+gives simple but incomplete directions for planting and tending a
+vegetable garden. For those who need that sort of thing, these are
+just the sort of thing they need. They will be useful if you do not
+follow them. The Primer tells you how to get some kind of parsnips,
+chard, spinach, common onions, radishes, cabbage, lettuce, beets,
+tomatoes, beans, turnips, peas, peppers, egg plants, cucumbers,
+corn, and potatoes.
+
+Don't grow these things, unless it be for your own immediate use.
+Every one grows them and ripens them all at the same time. In many
+places these are given away or thrown away this year. Grow anything
+that every one wants and has not got, like okra, small fruits, etc.;
+you can get a much better return in cash or in trade than by
+spending your time "like other folks" who do not think.
+
+So I refer to these directions for their instruction, and for your
+warning However, they give the following admirable injunctions.
+
+"Help Your Country and Yourself by Raising Your Own Vegetables."
+
+As we will likely have to send to Europe in coming years as much or
+even more food than we did last year, there is only one way to avoid
+a shortage among our own people, that is by raising a great deal
+more than usual. To do this we must plant every bit of available
+land. (Of course, we can't; the owners won't let us. Ed.)
+
+If you have a back yard, you can do your part and help the world and
+yourself by raising some of the food you eat. The more you raise the
+less you will have to buy, and the more there will be left for some
+of your fellow countrymen who have not an inch of ground on which to
+raise anything.
+
+If there is a vacant lot in your neighborhood, see if you cannot get
+the use of it for yourself and your neighbors, and raise your own
+vegetables. An hour a day spent in this way will not only increase
+wealth and help your family, but will help you personally by adding
+to your strength and well-being and making you appreciate the Eden
+joy of gardening. An hour in the open air is worth more than a dozen
+expensive prescriptions by an expensive doctor.
+
+The only tools necessary for a small garden are a spade or spading
+fork, a hoe, a rake, and a line or piece of cord.
+
+First of all, clear the ground of all rubbish, sticks, stones,
+bottles, etc. (especially whisky bottles).
+
+Choose the sunniest spot in the yard for your garden.
+
+Dig up the soil to a depth of 6 to 10 inches, using a spade or
+spading fork. (Deeper for parsnips and some other roots. Ed.) Break
+up all the lumps with the spade or fork.
+
+If you live in a section where your neighbors have gardens, you
+might club together to hire a teamster for a day to do the plowing
+and harrowing for you all, thus saving a large amount of labor.
+
+After your garden has been well dug, it must be fertilized before
+any planting is done. In order to produce large and well-grown crops
+it is often necessary to fertilize before each planting. Very good
+prepared fertilizers can be bought at seed stores, but horse or cow
+manure is much better, as it lightens the soil in addition to
+supplying plant food. Use street sweepings if you can get them.
+
+The manure should be well dug into the ground, at least to the full
+depth of the top soil. The ground should then be thoroughly raked,
+as seeds must be sown in soil which has been finely powdered.
+
+Lay out the garden, keeping the rows straight with a line. Straight
+rows are practically a necessity, not only for easier culture but
+for economy in space.
+
+After you have marked all of your rows, the next step is opening the
+furrow. (A furrow is a shallow trench.) That is done with the hoe.
+(Best and quickest with a wheel hoe. Ed.) After the furrow is
+opened, it is necessary that the seed be sown and immediately
+covered before the soil has dried In covering the seeds the soil
+must be firmly pressed down with the foot. This is important.
+
+In buying seed it is best to go to some well-established seed house,
+or, if that can't be done, to order by mail rather than to take
+needless chances. With most kinds of seeds a package is sufficient
+for a twenty-foot row.
+
+Begin to break up the hard surface of the soil between the plants
+soon after they appear, using a hand cultivator or hoe, and keep it
+loose throughout the season. This kills weeds; it lets in air to the
+plant roots and keeps the moisture in the ground.
+
+By constantly stirring the top soil after your plants appear, the
+necessity of watering can be largely avoided except in very dry
+weather. An occasional soaking of the soil is better than frequent
+sprinkling. Water your garden either very early in the morning or
+after sundown. It is better not to water when the sun is shining
+hot.
+
+The planting scheme can be altered to suit your individual taste.
+For instance, peas and cabbage are included because almost everybody
+likes to have them fresh from their garden; but they occupy more
+space in proportion to their value than beets and carrots. Therefore
+a small garden could be made more profitable by omitting them
+altogether, or cutting them down in amount and increasing the amount
+of carrots, beets, and turnips planted; or any of the vegetables
+mentioned which may not be in favor with the family can be left out.
+
+The kind of season we have would change the date of planting. In
+raising vegetables, as in everything else, one should use one's
+common (or garden variety of) sense. A good rule is to wait until
+the ground has warmed up a bit. Never try to work in soil wet enough
+to be sticky, or muddy; wait until it dries enough to crumble
+readily.
+
+Gardening is not a rule of thumb business. Each gardener must bring
+his plants up in his own way in the light of his own experience and
+in accordance with the conditions of his own garden. A garden lover
+who has a bit of land will speedily learn if his eyes and his mind,
+as well as his hands, are always busy, no matter how meager his
+knowledge at the beginning.
+
+There is plenty of land--if you can only get it.
+
+Says Carl Vrooman, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, in regard to
+the food problem:
+
+"Millions of acres of farm land are being held out of use and other
+millions of acres are being cultivated on a wasteful and inefficient
+basis. Land values have risen at an unprecedented rate. They are
+based not upon what the farm will earn at the present time, but on
+an expectancy of what it will be worth in the future. The farmer's
+son or the tenant farmer, with little or no capital, cannot hope to
+acquire possession of a farm w hen the price of land is SO high that
+his earnings would not pay the interest on the investment. The
+result is that land remains idle or in the hands of tenants, and
+thousands of farmers' boys desert the country for the city.
+
+". . . . What we need, and need badly, is a program of taxation
+which, without throwing additional burdens on the bona fide farmer,
+will place land now idle within the reach of men of limited means
+who possess the ambition and the ability to cultivate it."
+
+You can see that poor ignorant people, women, boys, cripples, old
+men, often on less than 100 X 150 feet each, not only in
+Philadelphia, but as war gardeners in New York, and most other
+towns, have been able to support themselves by their work on the
+land. You can do much better.
+
+To be sure, they had valuable land and often seeds free, but for
+such little pieces of land these are small items, and many of them
+had no certainty of having the land even for a second year,
+consequently they could not have hotbeds or any permanent
+improvement. You can make all these things.
+
+Then what can you do? Only remember they had intelligent instruction
+and did the work themselves, and got the whole product; often the
+children helped--they thought it fun. It does not pay to farm a
+small piece of land where all the workers have to be hired. Nor does
+it pay if one calculates merely to stick in seeds with one hand and
+pull out profits with the other.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED.
+
+
+
+
+
+"If we get every one out on the farms, then there will be an
+over-production of farm products and a fall in prices."
+
+True, but there are farmers who could do better in towns; what we
+want to do is to make it easy for people to get on the land about
+the cities, then it would be equally easy for those farmers who are
+better adapted for city life to get near the cities.
+
+Under present conditions, where the worker is forced out fifteen or
+twenty miles from the town by the high price of land and the large
+amount of land required, the farmer is as much cut off from the city
+as the city dweller is cut off from rural life.
+
+We need not be afraid to teach men better ways; there will always be
+plenty too stupid or too old or too isolated to learn; these will
+remain a bulwark against too sudden change.
+
+Dr. Engel, former head of the Prussian Statistical Bureau, informs
+us that "Scientific farming succeeds because a given amount of
+effort, when more intelligently directed, produces greater results.
+Inasmuch, then, as the amount of food which the world can consume is
+limited, the smaller will be the number of farmers required to
+produce the needed supply, and the larger will be the number driven
+from the country to the city. It has already been observed that if
+34 scientific methods were universally adopted in the United States,
+doubtless one half of those now engaged in agriculture could produce
+the present crops, which would compel the other half to abandon the
+farm." This is "Engel's Law."
+
+This "argument" assumes that we are now utilizing all the land
+possible and that every one is fully supplied with food. But when we
+consider the great masses of people in the slums of all cities who
+are always underfed and whose constant thought is about their next
+meal; when we see hundreds of able-bodied men waiting in line until
+midnight for half a loaf of stale bread, surely it seems that there
+is a possibility of keeping all of the present farmers at work, if
+not of finding new fields for others, if we make our conditions such
+that there will be opportunities for every able-bodied worker to
+labor at remunerative employment.
+
+Professor L. H. Bailey, a most industrious and accurate observer,
+says: "Dr. Engel's argument rests on the assumption that
+agriculture produces only or chiefly food; but probably more than
+half of the agricultural products of the United States is not food.
+It is cotton, flax, hemp, wool, hides, timber, tobacco, dyes, drugs,
+flowers, ornamental trees and plants, horses, pets, and fancy stock,
+and hundreds of other non-edible commodities. The total food produce
+of the United States, according to the twelfth census, was
+$1,837,000. The cost of material used in the three industries of
+textile, lumber and leather manufactories alone was $1,851,000,000.
+
+"Dr. Engel thinks that the outlay for subsistence diminishes as
+income increases; but comforts and luxuries increase in intimate
+ratio with the income, and the larger part of these come from the
+farm and forest. Dr. Engel, in fact, allows this, for he says that
+'sundries become greater as income increases."'
+
+We have already abundance of information about almost every county
+in the Union, published by Boards of Trade and land boomers, like
+the following about "Oxnard, Ventura County, the center of the
+famous lima bean district in California. For a year the returns from
+farm products alone, in this vicinity, are estimated at over
+$2,000,000. The sugar factory, which uses 2000 tons of beets every
+twenty-four hours, requires the yield of about 1900 acres every
+season. The beet crop is rotated with beans, and the factory's
+supply is kept good by systematic methods. Two thousand head of
+cattle are being fattened at the present time in the company's yard
+on the beet pulp. Much of the pulp is also sold to local stockmen,
+who value it highly for feed. The factory turns out 5000 bags of
+sugar every day." And again:
+
+"Eastern farm lands steadily declined in price up to about 1902, so
+that Eastern land sold for less than Western land of the same
+quality and of like situation; but the tide seems at last to have
+turned, and much money is now being made in buying up cheap farms
+and especially in sub-dividing them for small cultivators."
+
+That sort of thing is interesting; but it is not what a man wants to
+know--he is anxious to learn how much he can make and where and how
+to do it.
+
+The man who seeks a comfortable living will do better to rent on
+long lease or buy a few acres convenient to trolley or railroad
+communication with a city; besides the returns which will come to
+the farmer from the use of a few acres, if he is the owner he will
+get a constant increase in the value of the land, due to the growth
+of the city. If the city grows out so that the land becomes too
+valuable to farm, he will be well paid for leaving.
+
+(Although progress is continually forcing laborers back upon less
+desirable land, their loss, unless they are the owners, is the
+landowner's gain.)
+
+The amount of product to be grown for one's own use depends on the
+size of the family and its fondness for vegetables.
+
+"An area of 150X100 feet [about two fifths of an acre] is generally
+sufficient to supply a family of five persons with vegetables, not
+considering the winter supply of potatoes; but the acres must be
+well tilled and handled." (Bailey, "Principles of Vegetable
+Gardening.")
+
+"The produce that could thus be obtained from an acre of land well
+situated would abundantly supply with nearly all the vegetables
+named, nineteen families, comprising in all 114 individuals."
+
+In our garden we must know what we want and know how to get it.
+
+(It is impossible to treat exhaustively of the various crops in a
+book of this kind. On onion culture alone there are four standard
+books, besides seven or eight recent experimental station bulletins.
+
+"In a family garden 100 X 150 feet (which equals six New York City
+lots), the rows running the long way of the area, eight or ten feet
+may be reserved along one side for asparagus, rhubarb, sweet herbs,
+flowers, and possibly a few berry bushes. A strip twenty feet wide
+may be reserved for vines, as melons, cucumbers and squashes. There
+remains a strip seventy feet wide, or space for twenty rows three
+and one half feat apart. This area is large enough to allow of
+appreciable results in rotation of crops; and i! it is judiciously
+managed, it should maintain high productiveness for a lifetime."
+(Bailey, "Principles of Vegetable Gardening."))
+
+"The things to be considered in the home garden are: (1) a
+sufficient product to supply the family; (2) continuous succession
+of crops; (3) ease and cheapness of cultivation; (4) maintenance of
+the productivity of the land year after year.
+
+"The ease and efficiency of cultivation are much enhanced if
+all crops are in long rows, to allow of wheel-tool tillage either by
+horse or wheel-hoe."
+
+The experience of the Vacant Lot Gardeners (Chapter IV) shows that
+if the land be near a large market where the product can be peddled
+or sold by the producers or by those (as in Mr. Rowe's case), with
+whom he directly deals, more than twenty-five dollars capital is not
+necessary, but Peter Henderson ("Gardening for Profit") estimates
+that to get the best results, $300 capital per acre is required for
+anything less than ten acres.
+
+Where the land is favorably situated a fortune may be made in
+cultivation of a few acres--with brains.
+
+Quinn says ("Money in the Garden") that he knows a large number of
+market gardeners worth from ten to forty thousand dollars each, none
+of whom had five hundred dollars to begin with.
+
+If one has not enough money to get all that can be gotten out of his
+plot, it is best to put part of the land into clover to fit it for
+later use or to use it for raising grass.
+
+Results undoubtedly come from hard work; but it is not necessary, in
+order to cultivate a little land successfully, that you should work
+all day on your hands and knees; if you can raise fruit or nuts,
+this is not needed at all.
+
+But for vegetables a certain amount of it is necessary--when there
+is a large job of that kind of weeding to be done, you can hire
+Italians or other foreigners to do it better and cheaper than you
+can do it yourself. Those who will read this book can earn more with
+their heads than their hands; but when weeding is needed after a
+sudden shower and there is no one else, you must do some of it
+yourself; the weather will not wait for you to "get a man," and if
+you are not willing to do such things, your chances of success are
+greatly lessened.
+
+Here is the experience of one who "got a man":
+
+"My garden, to begin with, was in the most rudimentary condition,
+having been allowed to run to grass. After digging up a spot about
+ten feet square in the turf, taking the early morning for the work,
+I decided that it would require all summer to get the garden fairly
+spaded up, so I hired a stalwart Irishman to do the work for me,
+which he did in a week, charging me nine dollars for the job. As he
+professed to be also an expert in planting vegetables, I bought a
+supply of seeds in the city and intrusted them to him, assuring
+myself that once in the ground the rest of the work would fall to
+me; if I could not keep a garden patch fifty feet square clear of
+weeds, I had better abandon the business at once, and all hopes of
+making a living out of scientific gardening. The beginning was an
+unfortunate one. The weather happened to be first very wet, and then
+so dry and hot that my vegetables were unable to break their way
+through the baked earth. When my peas and beans still gave no signs
+after being in the ground for two weeks, I discovered that the whole
+work would have to be done over again. A Presidential campaign was
+beginning, which kept me in town often late at night, so that the
+chief labor of the garden fell to my faithful Irishman, who got far
+more satisfaction out of it than I did. The vegetables finally did
+come up above the surface, and many an evening I finished a hard
+day's work by pumping and carrying hundreds of gallons of water to
+pour upon potato plants, tomatoes, beans, and other things which a
+friend of mine, an expert in such matters, assured me were
+curiosities of malformation and backwardness. My Irishman told me
+that it was all for want of manure, and by his advice I bought six
+dollars' worth of manure from a neighboring stable, and had it
+spread over the ground. The bills for my garden were meanwhile
+mounting up. I had begun the spring with a garden ledger, keeping an
+accurate account of every penny spent, and hoping to put on the
+other side of the page a tremendous list of fine vegetables. The
+accounts are before me now, and I presume that every one who has
+been through the same experience has preserved some such record."
+(Naturally, if he began that way.) ("Liberty and a Living," by P. G.
+Hubert.)
+
+If your idea of farming is to bury "some seeds" in untilled ground,
+regardless of suitability, and "wait till they come up," you will
+wait in vain for a decent crop.
+
+Says Professor Roberts in the "Farmstead" (Macmillan), "Mushrooms
+sell at fifty cents per pound; maize for one half cent per pound.
+Why? Because anybody, even a squaw, can raise maize, but only a
+specially skilled gardener can succeed in mushroom culture."
+
+But enough has been said to show that you must cultivate with
+brains. The Germans say, "What your head won't do, your legs have
+to."
+
+"We'll have a little farm,
+A pig, a horse and cow
+And you will drive the wagon
+While I drive the plow,"
+
+is very pretty. The horse and the pigs are practical, if you can
+take care of them yourself; pigs are good farm catch-alls. If you
+have to pay a man to do it, you had better hire your horses and buy
+your pork.
+
+Two well-groomed, healthy cows, one calving in the spring and one in
+the autumn, can be made a source of profit, and of valuable manure,
+if you have land enough in a neighborhood where up-to-date parents
+are willing to pay ten to twenty cents a quart for pure milk for
+their infants or even for family use. But your land and your own
+baby's care and milk will probably be enough for you to attend to
+promptly and thoroughly every day--and night.
+
+It is an age-old experience that if we take care of a little land,
+the land will take care of us. In Ferrero's "Grandezza e Decadenza
+di Roma" is an interesting account of Marcus Terentius Varro's "De
+Re Rustica." Varro wrote in the year 37 B.C., and as he was then
+eighty years old, he had seen the transformation of Italy from an
+agricultural to a manufacturing, trading community and the
+accompanying wreck of the old agricultural system, which, of course,
+he laments.
+
+The growth of vast landed estates largely held by imperial
+favorites, as Pliny said, destroyed Italy. So fearful has the
+destruction been that it is only in our generation that the Campagna
+at Rome, which was once an intensely fruitful quilt of garden
+patches, has been reclaimed from the fever-smitten swamp to which
+vast landlordism had reduced it.
+
+In the third book of "De Re Rustica," Varro recommends as his
+remedy, intensive cultivation close to the cities, and the breeding
+of "fancy stock," including pigeons' snails, peacocks, deer, and
+wild boars.
+
+He tells how an aunt of his made 60,000 sesterces ($3000) in one
+year by raising thrushes for the Roman market, at a time when an
+excellent farm of about 200 acres only yielded 30,000 sesterces per
+annum. He quotes another case of one who made 40,000 sesterces per
+annum from a flock of one hundred peacocks, by selling the eggs and
+the young. Those old Roman women weren't so slow.
+
+Ferraro calls Varro's work one of the most important for the history
+of ancient Italy and says historians have made a mistake in not
+reading it.
+
+At the time of the migration of the barbarians (350 to 750 A.D.),
+the lot of each able-bodied man was about thirty morgen (equal to
+twenty acres) on average lands, on very good ground only ten to
+fifteen morgen (equal to seven or ten acres), four morgen being
+equal to one hectare. Of this land, at least a third, and sometimes
+a half, was left uncultivated each year. The remainder of the
+fifteen to twenty morgen sufficed to feed and fatten into giants the
+immense families of these child-producing Germans, and this in spite
+of the primitive technique, whereby at least half the productive
+capacity of a day was lost. (From "The State," by Franz
+Oppenheimer, p. 11.)
+
+In the Orange Judd prize contest, merely for the clearest account of
+a garden, not for results at all, a number of the contestants raised
+produce at the rate of $150 to $400 per acre and over, even in
+semi-arid regions; for instance, L. E. Burnham says that he raised
+on his first garden of about one third of an acre in eastern
+Massachusetts, garden stuff which he sold to summer cottagers for
+$61.69.
+
+This took about eight days' work, nearly all with a wheel hoe.
+
+Remember about the present increased and changing prices and costs?
+At the present writing, 1917, the advances in costs and prices would
+probably average about three quarters, and those of common labor
+perhaps one third over those given in the text. In other respects,
+the instances and authorities, still pertinent, have been retained
+in this revision.
+
+It would have been waste, not thrift, to get a new authority to tell
+us that straw makes the cleanest mulch for strawberries; that's the
+reason they were called strawberries; and they grew just the same
+way ten years ago.
+
+L. E. Dimosh of Connecticut raised on one quarter of an acre
+$146.21, of which over $85 was profit.
+
+In other cases the profits were $142 (Gianque, Nebraska) per acre;
+and over $295 (Dora Dietrich, Pennsylvania); with the rather
+exceptional profit at the rate of $570 (Mrs. Hall, Connecticut).
+Some showed a loss.
+
+Some of the town or city lots yielded very high profits; one of a
+third of an acre gave a profit of $224.33 (Edge Darlington, Md.).
+
+The summary "based upon the reports of five hundred and fifteen
+gardens in nearly every state and territory and in Canada and the
+provinces, may be considered accurate and reliable. Covering such a
+vast territory local conditions are avoided." It shows that "the
+average size of farm gardens was 24,372 square feet, or about half
+an acre, the average labor cost $26.34, the average value of product
+was at the rate of $170 per acre, and the net profit over $80 per
+acre."
+
+To get results we must first learn and then teach what we know. The
+finest game in the world is to teach. No one ever knows anything
+thoroughly till he tries to teach it.
+
+When you tell a person how to do a thing, he doesn't know how to do
+it himself. When you show him how to do it, still he doesn't know
+that he could do it himself. But when you get him to do it himself,
+then he knows.
+
+Country boys will believe that early tomatoes can be raised by
+starting them in the house; but like the rest of us they don't know
+how to do it, and when spring comes and it is time to do such
+things, they are busy on the farm. There are several schools trying
+the experience of allowing the children to plant in window boxes in
+early April and are showing them how to do it. But as there is not
+room for all the children to plant in these window boxes, there is a
+new idea which originated in the country, where the children are
+engaged in the fall and the spring assisting their parents at
+agricultural work.
+
+It was hard to get up any interest in school gardens, but it was all
+the more important that they should have agricultural instruction in
+the winter time.
+
+At Berkeley Heights, N. J., we devised this simple plan, and it
+works. We made a number of wooden boxes, one foot wide, two feet
+long, so they will just fit on the ledge of a school desk. They are
+only three inches deep, with a bottom of tin, turned up at the
+edges, or of well painted pine, white-leaded at the joints. There is
+no drainage, since we discovered that if they are not watered too
+much, they do better without drainage. The holes usually made in the
+bottoms of flower boxes carry off a lot of plant food with the water
+that runs through.
+
+Now, how to store these boxes when they are not in the sunny places
+near the windows? Why, we set up four posts of one-inch stuff at the
+four corners, so that the box looks like a kitchen table turned
+upside down (see illustration). Now the boxes filled with earth and
+with the young plants growing can be stored at night, one on top of
+the other, by the wall of the schoolroom.
+
+If it is going to be cold, and over Sundays, the pile of them can be
+covered with newspapers, which keep them from getting chilled and
+from drying up, or the boxes can be covered and carried home by the
+children. We found that for most plants nine inches is high enough
+for the posts, and that well-seasoned one-inch lumber is heavy
+enough not to warp if it is painted inside and out, and it is not
+too heavy to lift.
+
+By the way, better paint the joints before the sides are nailed
+together. It makes them more water-tight. Four screws at the corners
+will make them still tighter.
+
+The scholars raise lettuce, parsley, onions, and strawberries, and
+all kinds of small plants, as well as flowers, in the winter; and
+when the plants get too big or two crowded for the boxes, they are
+separated and transplanted into other boxes to be taken home.
+
+This was so successful that we devised a big window box which is
+suited for home use also; it is just as wide as the window and half
+as long again as it is wide. But this box does not stand outside on
+the window sill; if it did, the plants would freeze. One end only
+rests on the inside window sill where it gets the sun; the end is
+supported by two legs of the same height that the window sill is
+from the floor.
+
+When a nice warm day comes, the other end of the box is pushed out
+of the window and the sash closed down on it to keep it from falling
+out. A couple of cleats or nails in the window jamb help to hold it
+in place.
+
+Of course, the box has to be watched and taken in if it turns cold,
+but it's astonishing how much can be raised and how much more can be
+learned out of season by the school desk boxes and the home window
+sliding boxes.
+
+Try it and see for yourself.
+
+The children can learn as much about some things from a box 2X1 ft.
+as they can from a children's garden. Here are a couple of samples
+of what the kids themselves in a city school think of it.
+
+"DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
+
+_"Office of the Principal of Public School No. 7_
+
+"VAN ALST AVE., ASTORIA, QUEENS
+
+"I inclose a few compositions that were written by some of our boys
+and girls of the Fourth Year. You will recognize the descriptions of
+your Garden Trays for classroom use Unfortunately the free space in
+the classroom is limited, so we have found it necessary to allow
+each pupil only part of a box.
+
+"The children themselves are delighted, as you can see by their
+compositions.
+
+"Very sincerely yours, (Signed)"
+
+AGNES A. CORDING
+
+"Asst. Principal."
+
+P. S. No. 7
+
+Grade 4 A--April 2l, 1915.
+
+Arthur Miller, Age 10
+
+OUR GARDEN
+
+At first we planted radishes then onions and lettuce and beans and
+sunflowers. Each one of us have 1/4 of a box. When we had finished
+that we brought them up to the front of the room and then watered
+them and went home.
+
+Anna Duerr, Aye 8
+
+MY GARDEN
+
+I have a garden. It is a box. I have a quarter of a box for my very
+own. My garden has five rows. In the first there are radishes, in
+the second lettuce, in the third onions, in the fourth beans, in the
+fifth sunflowers. I hope my garden grows up.
+
+Of course these are only preparatory for profitable work. We have
+cases in which $2000 has been recorded from sales in one year from
+one acre, and many cases in which at least $1000 worth of produce
+has been sold from an acre. These are sales, not profits.
+
+Such results are not due to the boundless and fertile soil of the
+new world nor to small farming alone--they are due to intelligence.
+
+Professor Ronna gives the following figures of crops per acre at
+Romford (Breton's Farm): 28 tons of potatoes (say 952 bushels), 16
+tons of marigold, 105 tons of beets, 110 tons of carrots, 9 to 20
+tons of various cabbages, and so on.
+
+It was suggested to the Agricultural Department that it might fix
+standards of what is a good attainable crop.
+
+On every golf links we have what is called a Bogie score posted up.
+That is a score that a certain mythical Captain Bogie, supposed to
+be an average good player, could make on those links. On one typical
+club-course, for instance, the Bogie score is 42. Though it has been
+done in 37, the ordinary player congratulates himself when he gets
+down to the Bogie score.
+
+Now, if there were standards attainable to ordinary intelligent and
+good cultivation set in each section, it would enormously encourage
+farmers to reach them, which may be of great importance.
+
+One of the heads of the Department replied as follows:
+
+'"In regard to fixing a standard for each farmer to strive to
+attain, I think that a very good idea; but the standard for each
+crop in each particular locality would necessarily be somewhat
+different from that in every other locality. Persons who have had
+experience in experimental work keenly appreciate these points. The
+work which is done upon one soil formation under different climatic
+conditions in one season, does not necessarily find a duplicate in
+any other locality, and the experience is that what is accomplished
+in one year would not be duplicated on the same soil and under the
+same management again in several years, for the conditions under
+which agriculture is carried on are so many of them outside of the
+control of the operator that it is very difficult to predict results
+or to attain any fixed standard. This is necessarily so with an
+operation which has so many uncertain factors to deal with as
+agriculture. Humidity of the atmosphere and of the soil, the
+available plant food in the soil, methods of tillage, fertilizers
+used, recurrence of frosts, amount of sunlight, the altitude and
+latitude of different localities, all have a bearing upon crop
+production. It is, therefore, very difficult to fix any approximate
+standard or average production for any particular locality without
+basing it upon a long series of years. I think, however, that it is
+a subject worthy of agitation, and it might inspire agriculturists
+to better work were such an ideal fixed upon."
+
+This indicates that each experiment station or progressive farmer or
+teacher of agriculture might advantageously establish the local
+"Bogie score" of what might fairly be expected.
+
+We know how misleading averages are. The man who tried to wade
+across a stream whose average depth was two feet, was drowned. "The
+writer used to go to a fishing club of which Cornelius Vanderbilt
+was a member. One of the standard jokes there was that the thirty
+members are worth on an average over two million apiece, that is,
+Cornelius sixty millions, and the rest of us (comparatively)
+nothing. Which are you to be? A Vanderbilt among cultivators, or
+the other fellow who makes the 'average'?" ("Money Making in Free
+America," by the Author.)
+
+But even making all allowances we see that we must cultivate much
+better than the "average," to make anything more than the farmer's
+hard living off the land. Peter Dunne tells us what kind of a grind
+that is.
+
+"This pa-aper says th' farmer niver sthrikes. He hasn't got th' time
+to. He's too happy. A farmer is continted with his farm lot. There's
+nawthin' to take his mind off his wurruk. He sleeps at night with
+his nose against th' shingled roof iv his little frame home an'
+dhreams iv cinch bugs. While th' stars are still alight he walks in
+his sleep to wake th' cows that left th' call f'r four o'clock. Thin
+it's ho! f'r feedin' th' pigs an' mendin' th' reaper. Th' sun arises
+as usual in th' east, an' bein' a keen student iv nature he picks a
+cabbage leaf to put in his hat. Breakfast follows, a gay meal
+beginnin' at nine an' endin' at nine-three. Thin it's off f'r th'
+fields where all day he sets on a bicycle seat an' reaps the bearded
+grain an' th' Hessian fly, with nawthin' but his own thoughts an' a
+couple iv horses to commune with. An' so he goes an' he's happy th'
+livelong day if ye don't get in ear-shot iv him. In winter he is
+employed keeping th' cattle fr'm sufferin' his own fate an' writin'
+testymonyals iv dyspepsia cures." ("Mr. Dooley Says.")
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WHAT AN ACRE MAY PRODUCE
+
+
+
+
+
+We have shown what an acre has produced. You must figure out for
+yourself what you can make your acres produce and what the product
+can be sold for.
+
+All progress in agriculture has come heretofore through experiments,
+made mostly by uninformed and untrained men. What may not be done by
+practical learning and applied intelligence?
+
+The wonderful recent advances have been made in just that way.
+
+"The modern improved methods in agriculture, known collectively as
+intensive farming, have nearly all had their origin in the hands of
+truck farmers and market gardeners. No class of the rural population
+is more alert in utilizing the newest researches and discoveries in
+all lines of agricultural science, and none keeps in closer touch
+with the agricultural colleges and experiment stations."
+("Development of the Trucking Interests," by F. S. Earle.)
+
+Still, it is not advisable for the ordinary city dweller, however
+intelligent, without other means and without either experience or
+study, to cast himself upon a small patch of ground for a living;
+but if he can give it most of his time mornings and evenings, or if
+he sees, as many do, that he will be forced out of a position, it
+would be well for him seriously to consider intensive cultivation as
+a resource.
+
+It would be the greatest blessing to our day laborers if they could
+secure an acre of land which they could till in conjunction with
+their other labor. If time and change 90 works upon society as to
+put the laborer out of a job, he will be safe in his acre home and
+can live from it and be happy and contented.
+
+The time required to cultivate an acre is much less than is
+generally supposed.
+
+The maximum time required seems to be that given in the University
+of Illinois Experiment Station at Urbana, Bulletin 61, by J. W.
+Lloyd, at the rate of 140 hours (say 14 days) with one horse and 250
+hours (say 25 days) for hand labor. With a great variety of crops,
+or with poor labor add one half to this time allowance. The results
+vary greatly.
+
+An acre of northeastern Long Island will produce 250 to 400 bushels
+of potatoes at a selling price of fifty to seventy five cents per
+bushel, which wholesale, at those figures much below present prices,
+bring an income of $125 to $300 to the grower. The actual cash
+outlay in one instance was:
+
+Seed Potatoes
+
+$10.00
+
+Commercial Fertilizer
+
+13.00
+
+Spraying for blight and pests
+
+4.00
+
+TOTAL
+
+$27.00
+
+250 bu. selling at the minimum price
+
+$125.00
+
+Less the cash outlay
+
+27.00
+
+Income to the grower from an acre
+
+$98.00
+
+A production of 400 bushels costs no more cash outlay per acre,
+while the income is big wages to the farmer.
+
+If but one acre be grown and hand labor is used, the labor might
+cost an average of $40 per acre, with wages at $1.35 to $1.50 per
+day, and if the produce is shipped any distance by rail and
+consigned, it would cost $40 to $50 to pay selling charges, leaving
+you a profit of about $30 per acre on this crop. Other crops in the
+rotation might not be so profitable, hence it is not fair to figure
+an income on one. But, of course, in the above estimate, we are
+considering mainly the cases where the gardener does the work and
+earns the wages himself.
+
+An acre will bear if devoted to each crop, of:
+
+Blackberries, 10,000 qt., which at 7 cent a qt., would bring $700.00
+Dewberries, 9,000 qt., say at 7 cent a qt. 630.00
+Gooseberries, 250 bu. at $2.00 a bu. 500.00
+Strawberries, 8,000 qt. at 5 cent a qt. 400.00
+Currants, 3000 plants yield 6000 bu. 200.00
+Raspberries, per acre 200.00 to 600.00
+Peaches, per acre 200.00 to 400.00
+Pears, per acre 200.00 to 500.00
+Apples, per acre 100.00 to 500.00
+Grapes 100.00
+
+Five, or even three acres will give a good living if this can be
+approximated:
+
+An acre will produce in vegetables--either
+
+Asparagus, 3000 bunches at 20 cent a bunch, would be $600.00
+Cauliflower, 100 to 300 bbl. at $1.50, say 450.00
+Onions, 600 bu. at 75 cent per bu. 450.00
+Cabbage Seed, 1000 lb., at 40 cent a lb. 400.00
+Brussels sprouts, 3000 qt. at 10 cent a qt. 300.00
+Celery, 600 bunches at 5 cent a bunch 300.00
+Parsnips, 300 bu. at 1.00 a bu. 300.00
+Lettuce, 9000 heads at 3 cent a head 270.00
+Lima Beans, 50 bu. at $5.00 a bu. 250.00
+
+We may hope to get from an acre, respectively in
+
+Potatoes, 300 bu. at 75 cent a bu, would be $225.00
+Cabbages, 20 tons at $10.00 a ton 200.00
+Carrots and Beets, 200 to 400 bu 150.00
+Tomatoes, 200 crates at 75 cent a crate 150.00
+Early Peas, 50 bu. at $2000 a bu. 100.00
+Turnips, 400 bu. at 25 cent a bu 100.00
+Spinach, 100 bbl. at 50 cent a bbl. 50.00
+
+Mr. D. L. Hartman, whose experience in the North is given on a later
+page, has since moved to Little River, Florida. He writes in 1917:
+
+"I have recently sold the last strawberries of a small plot. Owing
+to a combination of circumstances it produced, I think, the largest
+value per area of any crop I have ever cultivated. The main factors
+were high prices realized and heavy yield.
+
+Area of plot, a trifle over one fifth acre. Total yield, 2295
+quarts, total receipts, $ 4703.80.
+
+First berries picked January 2nd; last berries picked June 26th;
+Variety, Brandywine.
+
+"This shows a yield of 11,107 quarts per acre worth at the same
+rate, $3398.00.
+
+"The fruit was all sold to stores in Miami (five miles distant) and
+brought an average you notice of 30-2/3 cents per quart for the
+crop, the highest bringing fifty cents per quart. The average price
+during the ordinary seasons is about twenty cents per quart. My
+ordinary average yield is less than half of this yield or about 5000
+quarts per acre, and that is much above the average of most yields
+of other growers. The crop was started with northern plants, set
+just as for matted rows in the North, then early in November plants
+were dug up and set out in order in rows 12 inches apart and 8-1/2
+inches apart in the row, leaving every fifth row vacant for paths.
+It is super close culture; one plant per square foot for the total
+area or a little more.
+
+"I often think that if I were operating in the North again I would
+like to try strawberries the same way, except that I would do the
+transplanting September 1st instead of November 1st as here, since I
+would expect them to grow larger and of course I would plan to mulch
+them during the winter. It would take a lot of planting but I think
+it would insure a tremendous yield. I find that the digging and
+planting including watering of 1500 plants makes ten hours' work
+with elimination of all waste motion."
+
+You will not get as good results as Mr. Hartman's average, unless
+you learn as much as he has learned; he has succeeded by
+well-directed work in different places and circumstances
+
+The South and West are not the only places in the United States
+where a man can live on one acre of ground, by intensive culture and
+with irrigation. The Eastern and Middle States can present just as
+good, if not better, opportunities, especially where land in small
+tracts is available near the large cities.
+
+_The Farmers' Advocate _(Topeka, Kansas) says of lands which ten
+years ago were among the much advertised "abandoned farms" of the
+eastern states: "All over the eastern states where farming twenty
+years ago was pronounced a failure under Western competition there
+has sprung. up this intensive cultivation. Violets are grown in one
+place and tuberoses by the acre in another. Celery is making one
+man's large profit near Williamsburg. Special fruits are cultivated.
+Currants are grown by the ton and sold by the pound, yielding a
+profit. This is in progress over the entire range of farming."
+
+At Hyde Park, a little village three miles north of Reading, Pa.,
+there is a small farm owned by Oliver R. Shearer, who may be said to
+be one of the most successful farmers in the United States. This
+farm contains 3-1/2 acres, only 2-1/2 of which are cultivated, but
+they yield the owner annually from $1200 to $1500. From the profits
+of his intensive farming, Mr. Shearer has paid $3800 for his
+property, which, besides the land, consists of a modern two-story
+brick house, with barn, chicken-yard, and orchard, the whole
+surrounded by a neat fence. He has also raised and educated a family
+of three children.
+
+There are no secrets, Mr. Shearer says, about his method of farming.
+A study of conditions, the application of common-sense methods and
+untiring energy, he asserts, will enable others to do what he has
+done, but that most men would kill themselves with the work.
+
+In an agricultural exchange a small farmer tells that he makes a
+living and saves some money from a ten-acre farm. Before he was
+through paying for his land, which cost $100 an acre, building his
+house, fences, and outbuildings, he went in debt $1300, having about
+the same amount to start with. He is near a good market, and in five
+years has paid off the debt, and has been getting ahead ever since.
+He raises poultry and small fruits, and says that it is a good
+combination, as most of the work with poultry comes in winter, while
+he can do nothing out of doors. He maintains that a ten-acre farm
+rightly managed will bring a good living, including the comforts and
+some of the luxuries of life, and says: "This I have fully
+demonstrated, and what I have done others may do."
+
+_Maxwell's Talisman _says:
+
+"E. J. O'Brien of Citronelle, Alabama, received $170 clear from an
+acre of cucumbers shipped to the St. Louis market. He was two weeks
+late in getting them on the market. He says those two weeks would
+have meant nearly double the net returns. He does not consider this
+an extraordinary return and hopes to do better next year."
+
+"Professor Thomas Shaw writes of a plot of ordinary ground in
+Minnesota comprising the nineteenth part of an acre, which for years
+kept a family of six matured persons abundantly supplied with
+vegetables all the year, with the exception of potatoes, celery, and
+cabbage. In addition, much was given away, more especially of the
+early varieties, and in many instances much was thrown away."
+
+"In the market-gardens of Florida we see such crops as 445 to 600
+bushels of onions per acre, 400 bushels of tomatoes, 700 bushels of
+sweet potatoes; which testify to a high development of culture."
+
+We select from Bailey's "Principles of Vegetable Gardening" the
+following general estimates:
+
+_Beets--_Average crop is 300-400 bushels per acre.
+
+_Carrots--_Good crop is 200-300 bushels per acre.
+
+_Cabbage--_8000 heads per acre.
+
+_Potatoes--_The yield of potatoes averages about 75 bushels per
+acre, but with forethought and good tillage and some fertilizer the
+yield should run from 200 to 300 bushels, and occasionally yields
+will much exceed the latter figure.
+
+_Rhubarb--_From 2 to 5 stalks are tied in a bunch for market, and an
+acre should produce 3000 dozen bunches.
+
+_Salsify--_Good crop 200-300 bushels per acre.
+
+_Onions--_A good crop of onions is 300-400 bushels to the acre, but
+600-800 are secured under the very best conditions.
+
+The price per ton for horseradish varies from ten to fifty dollars,
+and from two to four tons should be raised on an acre, the latter
+quantity when the ground is deep and rich and when the plants do not
+suffer for moisture.
+
+Averages are very misleading and it would be better to pay little
+attention to them. They are like the average wealth possessed by a
+class of twenty schoolchildren. The schoolmaster who had $20 asked
+what was the average wealth of each, if the total wealth of the
+class was $20. The brightest boy answered, "One dollar." The
+schoolmaster asked Tommy at the foot of the class if he did not
+think they would be a prosperous class. He answered, "It depends on
+who has the 'twenty.'"
+
+But, all the more, good averages imply some wonderful yields. The
+following are actual averages in the United States Twelfth and
+Thirteenth Census Report, respectively.
+
+Flowers and plants, $2014 and $1911; nursery products, $170 and
+$261; sugar cane, $87 (4 tons per acre) and $5540; small fruits, $81
+and $110; hops, $72 (885 lb. per acre) and $175; sweet potatoes, $37
+(79 but per acre) and $55; hemp, $34 (794 lb. per acre) and $54;
+potatoes, $33 (96 bu. per acre) and $45; sugar beets, $30 (7 tons
+per acre) and $54; sorghum cane, $21 (1 ton per acre) and $23;
+cotton, $15 (4-10 bale per acre) and $25.70 flaxseed, $9 (9 bu. per
+acre) and $14; cereals, $8 and $11.40.
+
+Specialties, however, often do much better. For example, R. B.
+Handy, in Farmers' Bulletin No. 60, United States Department of
+Agriculture, tells us that a prominent and successful New Jersey
+grower says:
+
+"I cannot give the cost in detail of establishing asparagus beds, as
+so much would depend upon whether one had to buy the roots, and upon
+other matters. Where growers usually grow roots for their own
+planting the cost is principally the labor, manure, and the use of
+land for two years upon which, however, a half crop can be had.
+
+"The cost of maintaining a bed can only be estimated per acre as
+follows:
+
+Manure (applied in the spring) $25.00
+Labor, plowing, cultivating, hoeing, etc 20.00
+Cutting and bunching 40.00
+Fertilizer (applied after cutting) 15.00
+
+Total $100.00
+
+"An asparagus bed well established, say five years after planting,
+when well cared for should, for the next ten or fifteen years, yield
+from 1800 to 2000 bunches per annum, or at 10 cents per bunch
+(factory price) $180 to $200."
+
+"If the rent, labor, etc., for a crop of asparagus is $200 per acre,
+and the crop is three tons of green shoots at $100 per ton, on the
+farm, the profit is $100 per acre. If we get six tons at $100 per
+ton, the profit, less the extra cost of labor and manure, is $400
+per acre." ("Food for Plants," by Harris and Myers, page 19.)
+
+Around Bethlehem, Indiana, the farmers raise hundreds of tons of
+sunflower seed every year, and the industry pays better than
+anything else in the farming line. A good deal of the seed is made
+into condition powder for stock, occasionally some is made into
+so-called "olive oil" which is said to surpass cotton-seed oil.
+Large quantities are used for feeding parrots and poultry, or
+consumed by the Russian Hebrews who eat them as we would eat
+peanuts.
+
+A careful investigation made in 1898 of the value of certain
+productions taken from farms in New York State shows that the
+culture of apples is very profitable. From twenty adjoining farms in
+one neighborhood in western New York, the report gave an average
+annual return of $85 per acre at the orchard, covering a period of
+five years. Another report gave an average of $110 annual income per
+acre for three years, and these results were obtained where only
+ordinary care was given to the orchard. But note this.--
+
+One orchard, where the trees had been well sprayed to protect the
+fruit from insect injuries, and the soil well cultivated and
+properly fertilized, gave a return in one year of $700 per acre, and
+for three years an average income of $400 per acre.
+
+One man bought a farm of 100 acres in Central New York with a
+much-neglected orchard upon it of 30 acres, paying $5000 for the
+whole. He cultivated the orchard, pruned and sprayed the trees
+thoroughly, and in seven months from the time he purchased the farm,
+sold the apple crop from it for $6000 cash.
+
+"Peanuts: Culture and Uses," by R. B. Handy in Farmers' Bulletin No.
+25 of the United States Department of Agriculture says:
+
+"According to the Census the average yield of peanuts in the United
+States was 17.6 bushels per acre, the average in Virginia being
+about 20, and in Tennessee 32 bushels per acre. This appears to be a
+low average, especially as official and semiofficial figures give 50
+to 60 bushels as an average crop, and 100 bushels is not an uncommon
+yield. Fair peanut land properly manured and treated to intelligent
+rotation of crops should produce in an ordinary season a yield of 50
+bushels to the acre and from 1 to 2 tons of excellent hay. (Of
+course better land with more liberal treatment and a favorable
+season will produce heavier crops, the reverse being true of lands
+which have been frequently planted with peanuts without either
+manuring or rotation of crops.) Besides the amount of peanuts
+gathered, there are always large quantities left in the ground which
+have escaped the gathering, and on these the planter turns his herd
+of hogs, so that there is no waste of any part of the plant."
+
+Tobacco is a paying crop if the soil is just right. Two thousand
+pounds per acre can be raised on favorable sites. Connecticut
+tobacco brings, in ordinary times, from twenty to thirty cents a
+pound; from four to over six hundred dollars being the possible
+return.
+
+Some Connecticut soils raise Sumatra tobacco equal to the imported
+crop that sells in this country at fancy prices. The Department of
+Agriculture claims that the Cuban type of tobacco can be closely
+approximated in Pennsylvania and Ohio. But it must be remembered
+that the soil is of paramount importance in tobacco raising. The
+Department has prepared soil maps of most of the important tobacco
+districts of the United States. If you think your land may be suited
+to tobacco, apply there for information. You may make your land
+invaluable.
+
+D. L. Hartman, _Rural New Yorker, _gave the following facts and
+figures: "During last season the sales from one acre of early
+tomatoes amounted to $454, and from a trifle more than two and one
+half acres, including the acre of 'earlies,' the remainder
+mid-season and late plantings, the total sales amounted to over
+$900. From a little less than one acre and a half $555 worth of
+strawberries were sold, while the returns from early cabbages during
+the last few years have been at the rate of about $300 per acre.
+These statements are not made in the spirit of challenge. The
+results are gratifying to me, because larger than anticipated; but
+much greater values can be and are produced. In fact, the limit of
+value that may be grown on an acre of land no one can tell. I have a
+small plot of ground containing less than one sixth of an acre,
+planted one year with radishes and lettuce, followed by eggplant and
+cauliflower, and the next year to radishes alone, followed by
+egg-plant, and each year the total sales amounted to over $200, at
+the rate of $1200 per acre. Greatly exceeding even this was a
+smaller plot, measuring 20 X 65 feet, last year, planted first to
+pansies, plants sold when in bloom, followed by radishes, of which
+one half proved to be a worthless variety (it lay idle long enough
+to have produced another crop of radishes), then half was planted to
+late lettuce, the other half being sown for winter cabbage, plants
+yielding no cash return. Yet the total sales for the season from
+this small plot, less than one thirty-second of an acre, was $86.78
+at the rate of the surprising sum of $2780 per acre, and could
+easily have been raised to the rate of $4,000, and that without the
+use of any glass whatever, Truly the possibilities of the soil are
+unknown."
+
+The cooperative features used by Northeastern Long Island intensive
+farmers are worthy of imitation. In the community of Riverhead a
+club buys at wholesale rates commodities which the farm and
+household require. The club does a large business, and has a high
+rating in the commercial agencies. In another instance at Riverhead
+an association markets the crop of cauliflower, sending cars of such
+produce to Cincinnati and Chicago. These are the best forms of
+cooperation.
+
+"In the market-gardening sections the banks show prosperity. In the
+towns of Riverhead and Southold there are savings banks with
+deposits of $4,000,000 each, and five business banks which are doing
+a thriving business. In this stretch of thirty miles on eastern Long
+Island the farms are mostly free from encumbrance of any kind.
+
+" It should be noted, however, that their towns have the open Sound
+with its bays which furnish open ways for transportation and an
+unowned field for work." (From circular of the Long Island Guild of
+New York City.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOME METHODS
+
+
+
+
+
+We must not put all our time into one crop unless we are rich enough
+to do our own insurance; for drought, or damp; or accident,
+ill-adapted seed, or general unfavorable conditions may make
+failures of one or more crops. But in variety and succession of
+crops is safety and profit. In order to succeed, crop must be made
+to follow crop, so that the ground is used to its full capacity. To
+leave it fallow for even a week is to invite weeds and to lose much
+of the advantage of tillage, as well as so much time.
+
+In the North, seeds of many kinds should be sown from the first of
+March to the first of August; in the South they should be sown m
+every month.
+
+By following the simple time tables for planting you will find work
+ready and crops maturing and ready for sale in every month in the
+year.
+
+There is an admirable table of the time to plant, given in "How to
+Make a Vegetable Garden," though it does embrace some weird
+vegetables, explaining, for instance, that pats-choi is used like
+chards, and that "Scolymus is sowed like Scorzonera."
+
+One can live while waiting for the crops to come up, for many crops
+mature rapidly.
+
+Specialties give employment only during a few months of each year
+and bring returns only at periods of the year, but the returns can
+be made almost immediate and the work almost continuous.
+
+Long Island and Jersey farmers in marketing their crops sell
+
+Spinach and Radishes in April
+Peas, Early Onions, and Lettuce in May
+Asparagus and Strawberries in June
+Tomatoes, Cucumbers, and Cabbage Seeds in July
+Early Potatoes, Peaches, and Beans in August
+Onions and Potatoes in September
+Celery in October
+Cauliflower in November
+Cauliflower and Brussels Sprouts in December
+Cauliflower and Brussels Sprouts in January
+Brussels Sprouts in February
+Brussels Sprouts in March
+
+This order of crops can be varied to suit conditions.
+
+"The old practice of growing vegetables in beds usually entails more
+labor and expense than the crop is worth; and it has had the effect
+of driving more than one boy from the farm. These beds always need
+weeding on Saturdays, holidays, circus days, and the Fourth of July.
+Even if the available area is only twenty feet wide, the rows should
+run lengthwise and be far enough apart (from one to two feet for
+small stuff) to allow of the use of the hand wheelhoes, many of
+which are very efficient. If land is available for horse tillage,
+none of the rows should be less than thirty inches apart, and for
+late growing things, as large cabbage, four feet is better. If the
+rows are long, it may be necessary to grow two or three kinds of
+vegetables in the same row; in this case it is important that
+vegetables requiring the same general treatment and similar length
+of season be grown together. For example, a row containing parsnips
+and salsify, or parsnips, salsify, and late carrots would afford an
+ideal combination; but a row containing parsnips, cabbages, and
+lettuce would be a very faulty combination. One part of the area
+should be set aside for all similar crops. For example, all root
+crops might be grown on one side of the plot, all cabbage crops in
+the adjoining space, all tomato and eggplant crops in the center,
+all corn and tall things on the opposite side. Perennnial crops, as
+asparagus and rhubarb, and gardening structures, as hotbeds and
+frames, should be on the border, where they will not interfere with
+the plowing and tilling." ("Principles of Vegetable Gardening," page
+31.)
+
+Usually where large acreages are worked there is a tendency to
+devote a greater portion of tile land to one crop and sometimes a
+failure in this crop will mean ruin to the farmer, whereas, where
+small areas are used, there is generally a diversity of the
+higher-priced crops and a failure in one is not so likely to be
+disastrous.
+
+To get the greatest production from the soil two crops can be grown
+in the same soil at the same time--one of which will mature much
+earlier than the other, thereby giving its place up just about the
+period of growth when the second crop would need more room. This is
+known as companion cropping.
+
+"In companion cropping there is a main crop and a secondary crop.
+Ordinarily the main crop occupies the middle part and later part of
+the season. The secondary crop matures early in the season, leaving
+the ground free for the main crop. In some cases the same species is
+used for both crops, as when late celery is planted between the rows
+of early celery.
+
+Following are examples of some companion crops:
+
+Radishes with beets or carrots. The radishes can be sold before the
+beets need the room.
+
+Corn with squashes, citron, pumpkin, or beans in hills.
+Early onions and cauliflower or cabbage.
+Horseradish and early cabbage.
+Lettuce with early cabbage."
+
+("Principles of Vegetable Gardening," page 184.)
+
+If fruit trees be planted, vegetables may be grown in rows. As soon
+as the early vegetables mature they are removed, and a midsummer
+crop planted. These are followed by a fall or winter crop.
+
+Radishes, lettuce, and cabbage grow at the same time and on the area
+formerly used for one crop. Early potatoes and early cauliflower are
+followed by Brussels sprouts and celery, two crops being as easily
+grown as one by intelligent handling. The best beans are grown among
+fruit trees.
+
+The principles of "double-cropping" are summarized by Professor
+Thomas Shaw, in _The Market Garden._
+
+"Onion sets may be planted early in the season and onion seeds may
+then be sown. Between the rows cauliflower may be planted. Later
+between the cauliflower, two or three cucumber seeds may be dropped.
+The onion sets up around the cauliflower may be taken out first, and
+the cauliflowers in turn may be removed in time to let the cucumbers
+develop.
+
+"Midway between the rows of onions grown from seeds, we can plant
+radishes, lettuce, peppergrass, spinach, or some other early relish,
+which will have ample time to grow and to be consumed before harm
+can come to the onions from the shade of any one of these crops.
+When the onions are well grown, turnips can be sown midway between
+their rows."
+
+So we get two crops of onions, besides cauliflowers, cucumbers, and
+turnips off the same place. Weeds won't have much chance in soil
+treated like that.
+
+"Multum in Parvo Gardening" (Samuel Wood) claims L 620 ($3100)
+from one acre by the expenditure of considerable capital in growing
+fruit against brick walls--it cost over $3100 to prepare the land,
+of which the walls cost $2300. In this system the fruit trees are
+pruned and trained till they look like firemen's ladders.
+
+"In the suburbs of Paris, even without such costly things with only
+thirty-six yards of frames for seedlings, vegetables are grown in
+the open air to the value of L 200 per acre." ("Fields,
+Factories and Workshops," page 80.)
+
+"At the present time, for fully 100 miles along the Rhone, and in
+the lateral valleys of the Ardeche and the Drome, the country is an
+admirable orchard, from which millions worth of fruit is exported,
+and the land attains the selling price of from L 325 ($1625) to
+L 400 ($2000) the acre. Small plots of land are continually
+reclaimed for culture upon every crag." (Same, page 133.)
+
+In California we hear (from George P. Keeney) that while good truck
+and fruit lands usually sell for $25 to $350 per acre, the land with
+full-bearing fruit or nut trees often sells at $1000, and even up to
+$2000 per acre. There is no reason why any intelligent persons
+should not make their land increase in the same way.
+
+The London Daily News reports that in one year, which was not a good
+season for all crops, on a half acre of land, Mr. Henry Vincent, of
+Brighton, England, raised the following products:
+
+2660 cabbages, 70 bushels spinach, 950 cauliflowers, parsley, 1460
+lettuces, 660 broccoli, 16 bushels potatoes, 19-1/4 bushels Brussels
+sprouts, 106-1/2 gallons peas, 120 gallons artichokes, flowers, 267
+vegetable marrows, 2976 carrots, 264 bundles radishes, 14 gallons
+French beans, 12 gallons currants' 95-1/2 punnets mustard, 27 pounds
+mushrooms, rhubarb, 948 bushels sprout tops, 38 dozen leeks, 1150
+plants, 11-1/4 gallons broad beans, 97 bundles sea-kale, 978 bundles
+of asparagus-kale, 504 beet roots, 2913 gallons gooseberries, 219
+bundles mint, 20 bundles sage, 18 bundles of fennel, thyme, besides
+one cartload of stones.
+
+Mr. Vincent explains how he came to go into intensive cultivation:
+"A few years ago the doctors said if I did not go out more I could
+not live. Very well, just at that time there was an outcry about the
+land not paying for cultivation. I could not understand this, for as
+a boy at seven years of age I had to go out to farm work, therefore
+I never went to school. Anyhow I thought something was very wrong if
+the land would not pay; so, to compel myself to go out in the fresh
+air, I took an allotment on the Sussex Downs to work in the early
+morning before my daily duties began. I might say that I am a
+waiter, and have been in my present situation forty years, so you
+can understand I could not know much of land or garden work I could
+not see my way clear in the few spare hours I get to take more than
+half an acre of land to garden early, especially as I started
+knowing practically nothing about such work, but I can manage to do
+my half acre all alone.
+
+"My garden is situated on the Brighton Race Hill ridge, and twelve
+years ago it was but four inches of soil on chalk, but I now have a
+foot of soil on the whole of the half acre, and year by year my
+profits increase.
+
+"Yes, get the men to stop on the land in this country. We ought not
+to have workhouses. Every man could live, and live well, if he could
+get the land, and would work it as it should be worked.
+
+"Farmers and landowners grumble because the land does not pay. Now
+for the fault. It is quite evident it is not the land, therefore, it
+must be the fault of the man. Very well, get the land from these
+landed proprietors, by sale preferred, and let it out to men, not by
+1000 acres, as no man can farm well a thousand acres in England; let
+the farms be greatly reduced, and then the land can be treated as it
+should be. Most of us have children, and we all know how we love and
+treat them. Treat the land in the same manner, feed it, and keep it
+clean, and you will have no cause to complain. The land of old
+England is as good as it ever was.
+
+"I have serious thoughts of opening a kind of school for people who
+would like to make $500 a year on an acre. It is to be done, and
+done easily. I do know that one man alone can manage two acres, and
+at the end of this year I shall be able to tell how much more he can
+manage alone, so under my system one can gain L 4 a week off two
+acres and do all one's self.
+
+"If the land will produce over one hundred pounds per year per acre,
+is it not wrong for a man to have, say, 500 or 1000 acres which in
+no way can he properly manage; as, in the first place, he cannot
+feed such an acreage, let alone keep it clean and gather in his
+crops?"
+
+In truth, what an acre may produce depends on time, place, and
+circumstances The product of the best acre of land so situated that
+its product could be sold at retail in a near-by market, and which
+has been cultivated under the best management for a term of years,
+would provide a very comfortable living. The product of other acres,
+measured by what they produce to the cultivator in living, declines
+through various grades down to almost nothing on the acre far from
+railroads or difficult of access.
+
+While in quantity and quality the least favored acre could be made
+to produce as much as one best situated, yet, almost none of its
+production would be available to sell, while the product of the
+favorably located acre could be sold as rapidly as grown.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE KITCHEN GARDEN
+
+
+
+
+
+The aim of the kitchen garden is to provide an abundance and variety
+of food for the family. As the object of the cultivator is to get
+the largest product for his labor, he ought to produce all that he
+can consume on the least possible area. Though one may go into
+mushrooms or frog raising as a money crop, the kitchen garden is the
+first indispensable and should first be given attention.
+
+For a garden choose a piece of land with a southern exposure,
+sheltered on the north and west by woods, buildings, hedge, or any
+kind of a windbreak. This arrangement will give the earliest garden,
+for it gets all the sun there is. By running the rows north and
+south, the rays of the sun strike the eastern side of the row in the
+morning, and the western side in the afternoon.
+
+The best time to take hold of a piece of land is in the fall,
+because then it can be plowed ready for the spring planting. The
+alternate freezing and thawing during the winter breaks up the sod
+and the stiff lumps thrown up by the plow, so rendering the soil
+pliable and easily worked. This is especially true of land that has
+been reclaimed from the forest, or which has not been farmed for
+many years.
+
+Before the plowing is done, the land for the garden should be
+manured at the rate of twenty-five large wagon loads to the acre. If
+you can get a suitable plot that has been in red clover, alfalfa,
+soy beans, or cowpeas for a number of years, so much the better.
+These plants have on their roots nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which
+draw nitrogen from the air. Nitrogen is the great meat-maker and
+forces a prolonged and rapid growth of all vegetables.
+
+After manuring and plowing, harrow repeatedly with a disk or cutaway
+harrow until the soil is as fine as dust. Then you have a seed bed
+which will give the fine roots a chance to grow as soon as the seeds
+sprout. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the importance of
+thoroughly working the soil at this time. Every stone, weed, or clod
+that is left in the soil destroys to that extent the source from
+which the plants can get their food.
+
+A quarter-acre garden, which is big enough to supply the whole
+family with a succession of vegetables for summer and fall, as well
+as some potatoes and turnips for winter, will take a diligent
+workman about four days to dig over and three days to plant. The
+four days' work of digging will need to be done only once. The time
+spent upon planting succession crops will depend upon the amount of
+the garden reserved for rotation. The part kept for lettuce,
+radishes, spinach, beets, Swiss chard, peas, string and wax beans
+may be digged over in a favorable season for three successive
+plantings, while the part devoted to early potatoes would need to be
+digged only twice--once when the planting is done, and again when
+crop is gathered and the ground be prepared for a crop of late
+cabbage or turnips. A planting table for vegetables, which is
+complete and comprehensive, is distributed free by the National
+Emergency Food Garden Commission at Washington, D.C.
+
+It is far more important to plant seeds at the proper depth than
+that they should be planted thinly or thickly, for if they are
+planted too thin, it makes a sort of advantage by giving the
+individual plants ample room to develop to large size; and if
+planted too thick, the evil can easily be remedied by thinning or
+transplanting.
+
+After the seeds come up, the size of almost all the vegetables can
+be increased by transplanting, in favorable soil, which gives each
+plant room for complete development.
+
+It is too expensive to risk part of the land being unused or half
+used on account of seeds dying, or to put in so many seeds in order
+to insure growth that they will crowd one another. Where possible,
+therefore, seeds should be sprouted and planted, not "sown."
+
+Lima beans planted on edge with eye down will come up much sooner
+than if dropped in carelessly so they have to turn themselves over.
+In a small garden the time saved by such planting will repay the
+extra trouble.
+
+In some things like onions and radishes, however, it is better to
+sow them thick, and then thin them out, so as to get the effect of
+transplanting without so much labor. In others, like lettuce and all
+the salad plants, transplanting gives new life and energy and
+develops the individual plants in a way that will astonish those not
+familiar with what free development means.
+
+It is wise to plant corn after lettuce and radishes are gathered,
+and more lettuce, corn, or salad, after the beans are picked. Then
+late crops, cabbage, cauliflower or spinach, can go where early corn
+grew, so that the small patch may earn your living and pay big
+dividends.
+
+Do not let two vegetables of the same botanical family follow each
+other. For instance, lima beans should not follow green beans or
+peas, as all the family draw about the same elements from the soil,
+and are likely to have the same insects and diseases.
+
+Do not plant cucumbers, squash, or pumpkins too near each other, as
+they will often inter-impregnate and produce uneatable hybrids.
+
+Decide what you are going to do with your crop before you plant it,
+whether to sell it, at wholesale or at retail, to eat it, or to feed
+it to stock.
+
+C. E. Hunn, in the Garden Magazine, gives the following arrangement:
+"For the beginner who wants to get fresh vegetables and fruits from
+May until midwinter, a space 100 X 200 feet is enough.
+
+"1. Plant in rows, not beds, and avoid the backache.
+
+"2. Plant vegetables that mature at the same time near one another.
+
+"3. Plant vegetables of the same height near together--tall ones
+back.
+
+"4. Run the rows the short way, for convenience in cultivation and
+because one hundred feet of anything is enough.
+
+"5. Put the permanent vegetables (asparagus, rhubarb, sweet herbs)
+at one side, so that the rest will be easy to plow.
+
+"6. Practice rotation. Do not put vines where they were last. Put
+corn in a different place. The other important groups for rotation
+are root crops (including potatoes and onions); cabbage tribe, peas
+and beans, tomatoes, eggplant and pepper, salad plants.
+
+"7. Don't grow potatoes in a small garden. They aren't worth the
+bother.
+
+"By training on trellis or wire, the smaller fruit plantings can be
+made much closer.
+
+"If fruits are wanted in the garden, plant a row of apple trees
+along the northern border, plums and pears on the western sides,
+cherries and peaches on the eastern side. Next the apple trees run a
+grape trellis; and then in succession east and west, run a row of
+blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries, and currants. These rows,
+with the apple trees, form a windbreak, and besides adding to the
+income, protect the vegetables. Next to the bush fruits, between
+them and the ends of the vegetable rows, put rhubarb, asparagus, and
+strawberries."
+
+Insect pests must be watched for and their destructive work checked.
+Ashes, slaked lime, or any kind of dust or powder destroy most
+insects which prey on the leaves of plants. The reason for this is
+that the dust closes the pores through which the insects breathe. It
+should therefore be applied when the leaves are dry.
+
+Cutworms can be destroyed by winter plowing. Rotation of vegetables
+will reduce the damage from insects, because each family has its
+peculiar bugs. By constant change to new soil, the pests have no
+opportunity to get a foothold.
+
+With bugs, as with boys, only those who are interested in them and
+therefore understand them can manage them. It is fun to study the
+insects--and it pays.
+
+Here's another use of "land." Maybe a pool in your garden or a dam
+in a little brook in it may help out your home garden bank account.
+Of course a pond a few square yards in extent will give even better
+returns if you can sell its produce at retail near by.
+
+W. B. Shaw, a seventy-year-old veteran who lost his right arm during
+the Civil War, lives in Kenilworth, D. C., and clears $1500 an acre
+every year out of mud puddles--if mud puddles can be measured by the
+acre.
+
+Mr. Shaw is a pond lily farmer, and despite his lack of his good
+right arm, he poles his boat about his mud puddles and gathers in
+the pond lilies. His is not exactly a "dry farm" and neither wet nor
+cloudy weather bothers him. Furthermore, the demand for his pond
+lilies in Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, and even New York,
+and Chicago, is greater than he can supply.
+
+Mr. Shaw secured this swamp for almost nothing, as it was considered
+worthless. He divided it into fifteen pools with little dams between
+them, and rollers on the dams to enable him to drag his boat from
+one to the other. From May to late in September he is busy every
+morning gathering lilies. His average is about 500 a morning, which
+he ships in little galvanized iron tanks with wet moss.
+
+Many school children know how to get results on a little land. Mr.
+Mahoney, Superintendent of the Fairview Garden School, Yonkers, New
+York, estimates that the total value of produce grown on the 250
+gardens, composing the school plot, in all about one and one quarter
+acres of land, was $1308, or at the rate of more than a thousand
+dollars per acre. When it is taken into consideration that all the
+labor was done by boys ranging in age from eight to twelve years,
+this result is truly astonishing.
+
+What may not adult skilled labor produce when applied freely to the
+land.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT--SPECIALIZED CROPS
+
+
+
+
+
+To subdue the land with an ax, a plow and a spade is possible;
+millions of acres have been so subdued. This method, however, is the
+most expensive of all, as in our times, markets won't wait, and the
+man who wants to get on must produce as quickly as possible. To do
+so, he must have the best tools. They will pay for themselves many
+times over in a single year. For the farm, the following list, in
+addition to a well-stocked tool chest (hammer, saw, plane, ax, etc.)
+covers the indispensible:
+
+1 team horses (these may be hired) $200.00
+1 walking plow 10.00
+1 disk or cutaway harrow 25.00
+1 farm wagon 50.00
+1 cultivator (two horse) 25.00
+1 one-horse cultivator 8.00
+Shovels, pick, mattock or grubbing hoe 10.00
+Work harness for two horses 25.00
+
+TOTAL $353.00
+
+These things you must have to get the land in proper shape for seeds
+or plants; but special crops require special tools. A scythe is good
+to keep weeds away from fences. A sickle is handy to keep down
+grass. To reduce living expenses, a cow for $60, and fifty hens at
+fifty cents each, say $25, will supply a large family with milk and
+eggs. Most people make the mistake of buying too many things and
+these poorly selected. It is better to have too few tools than too
+many, for tools are often dropped where last used, and so are lost.
+Then if money is scarce, you may not be able to make a shelter for
+your machines and tools, and they will rust through the winter. Many
+farmers, through neglect, have to replace their tool equipment every
+four or five years, but with attention and care, the original
+equipment, even to the team, ought still to be in use twenty years
+after their purchase. I know many instances where this is true. The
+above equipment is the minimum for beginning work. The character of
+additions to it will depend much upon the crops which you select as
+the money getters.
+
+For general market gardening and the kitchen garden too, the
+following tool list, together with the above, will include
+everything absolutely necessary.
+
+Wheel hoe $6.00
+Spade and fork, each $1.00 2.00
+Push hoe .65
+Watering can .60
+Rake and common hoe 1.00
+Bulb sprayer .25
+Trowel .10
+
+TOTAL $10.60
+
+The wheel hoe is a great saver--of backache, especially to the
+beginner; as Warner says, "at the best you will conclude that for
+gardening purposes a cast-iron back with a hinge in it is preferable
+to the ones now in use."
+
+The dibble, an old tool handle, or a bit of broomstick sharpened,
+and garden lines to get the rows straight, labels, tomato supports,
+plant protectors and stakes earl all be homemade out of old
+material. The full outfit would include the following:
+
+Roller $8.00
+Wheel-hoe with seeder 8.50
+Sprayer 3.75
+Wheelbarrow 4.00
+Crowbar 1.50
+Weeder .35
+
+For such crops as admit of horse cultivation a horse hoe will save a
+great deal of time.
+
+The weeder is a cousin to the push hoe and has a zigzag blade for
+cutting off young weeds which are just starting above ground. It is
+pushed backward and forward and cuts both ways. It is very good for
+soft ground; on a harder patch use the push hoe.
+
+A market garden is really a big kitchen garden, from which the
+cultivator supplies not only his own family, but his neighbors, the
+public. To run a successful market garden for profit, land suitably
+situated near transportation and markets, a large supply of stable
+manure, hotbeds for raising plants, crates for shipping, wagons for
+delivering, and a complete outfit of tools are necessary. You must
+raise all sorts of vegetables and salad plants in quantities
+sufficiently large to justify you in giving your whole time to the
+work. An acre devoted to general market gardening could be attended
+to by two men with some extra help for marketing.
+
+To get a place fully established on new, rich land requires two or
+three years. On worn-out land it would take longer to build it up to
+the high fertility needed for maximum production. Crops like
+asparagus and rhubarb take two years to establish on a remunerative
+basis. If bush fruits are raised, three years are required to get
+maximum results. So in starting, land should be bought outright or
+leased for ten years.
+
+In market gardening for profit, one acre might be devoted to
+vegetables, one acre to small fruits; strawberries, raspberries,
+blackberries, currants, gooseberries, etc. and one acre kept for
+buildings, poultry, etc. An energetic man could clear one thousand
+dollars a year besides his living, after he got a start, and be
+absolutely independent; that is, unless some predatory railroad
+corporation could confiscate his profits before his product reached
+the market.
+
+Some persons are just naturally so successful with plants that if
+they stuck an umbrella in the ground we should expect to see it
+blossom out into parasols--but they don't know why it does, and they
+can't teach any one else how to do it.
+
+Any fool can sneer at "book farming" or at anything else, but you
+can hardly succeed without the best books by practical men. Do not
+let some experienced ignoramus talk you out of experimenting under
+their guidance. You will learn little without experience, and unless
+you have the grower's instinct, you will learn less without books.
+
+Don't be hypnotized by long experience or by success. Hardly anybody
+knows his own business. You must have noticed that few of the people
+you buy of or sell to, know any more of their goods than you do.
+
+It is just the same with trades. Hardly a barber knows that he
+should not shave you against the grain of the skin. Even the cat
+won't stand being rubbed up the wrong way; but the barber never
+thought of that.
+
+We lawyers and the doctors are supposed to be thorough in our own
+field--I said lately to one of the ablest men at the New York Bar,
+"About one lawyer in a hundred knows his business." He said, "That
+is a gross overestimate." Shortly after I talked with three Judges,
+one of the City Court, one of the Supreme Court, and one of the
+United States Circuit, and they each agreed that my friend's remark
+was about true, and that in most cases litigants would do as well
+without lawyers as with them.
+
+If that is true, what chance is there that an uneducated man who has
+"raised garden sass ever since he was a boy, and seen his father do
+it before him," can teach you correctly?
+
+Men learn very slowly by experience, because no two experiences are
+exactly alike, unless they perceive and apply the principles under
+the experience.
+
+An intelligent man accustomed to investigation can learn more about
+a specialty in a week's study than an untrained practitioner can
+believe in a year.
+
+What the untrained teacher can tell us is of little account; what he
+shows us is another matter.
+
+Therefore get help who know that they don't know anything about a
+garden and who consequently will do with a will exactly what you
+tell them to do; such labor is cheap--why should you pay extravagant
+prices for skill to a man who has succeeded so poorly that he can
+only earn day's wages? You can get much better knowledge at less
+cost from a book. Study and put your knowledge into practice
+yourself, where you see promise of a profit.
+
+Almost every crop can be made a specialty. In proportion as special
+crops are profitable when conditions are right, so are they sources
+of loss when things go wrong. If, after your first season in the
+country, some special crop takes your fancy, give extra space and
+time to it the second year and see if you are successful in handling
+an eighth or a quarter acre. If so, you may extend your operations
+as rapidly as purse and market permit.
+
+Before concentrating upon any crop as the chief source of income, a
+careful study must be made of all the conditions surrounding its
+production; a crop is not produced in the broad meaning of that term
+until it is actually in the hands of the consumer.
+
+Potatoes, for instance, are grown by the hundred acres in sections
+adapted to their growth, and special machinery costing hundreds of
+dollars is used in planting, cultivating, and harvesting the crop.
+The good shipping and keeping qualities of the potato enable it to
+be raised far from markets and so brings into competition cheap land
+worked in large areas, with large capital. In spite of this,
+however, the small cultivator can usually make money if he can sell
+his potatoes directly to the consumer.
+
+If your land is so situated that you can put your individuality into
+the crop and can control all the circumstances, preparation of land,
+planting, cultivation, harvesting, and marketing, your chances of
+success are immeasurably increased. As soon as any important part
+must be trusted to some one beyond your control, danger arises.
+Assiduous care in planting, cultivating, and packing will avail
+nothing if the product falls into the hands of transportation
+companies or commission merchants indifferent as to what becomes of
+it. It is therefore better to be quite independent, sell your own
+crop, and have the whole operation in your own hands from the very
+beginning.
+
+Generally speaking, seed growing for the market is a highly
+developed special business which is usually carried on by companies
+operating with large capital, able to employ the best experts, and
+to avail themselves of all the advantages of scientific methods in
+culture, regardless of expense. So uncertain is the business, that
+even with all these facilities, they rarely guarantee seeds. It is
+obvious that the amateur has little chance of succeeding in such a
+difficult business. Nevertheless, he will be able after a few
+seasons of increasing experience to gather seeds from selected
+plants and so furnish his own supply. It must be borne in mind,
+however, that plants can be improved by cross breeding and that by
+keeping a variety too long on the same ground its quality
+deteriorates, and the plant tends to revert to the type natural to
+it before domestication.
+
+When land is cropped every season, the nitrogen, potash, and
+phosphorus removed from the soil must be replaced in some form,
+otherwise you have diminishing returns, while the expense for labor
+is the same. In farming small areas for specialties you cannot
+easily invoke the principle of rotation by enriching the land with
+legumes, to be plowed under while green, the bacteria on the roots
+of which gather nitrogen from the air, but you must get stable
+manure or buy chemical fertilizers to maintain the fertility.
+
+Special crops divide themselves naturally into two classes: those
+raised for immediate shipment to market, and those to be hauled to
+canneries. The first type are generally prepared in a more expensive
+way, and need more care and attention. Each class requires its own
+special forms of packing to conform to market peculiarities fixed by
+the taste of consumers.
+
+For the cultivation of all specialties, many items of preparation
+are identical. Land must be well drained, it must contain a
+sufficient amount of humus, or decaying vegetable matter, to make it
+loose and porous; it must be free from sticks and stones or any
+foreign matter likely to impede cultivation or obstruct growth. The
+proper formation of a seed bed is a prime prerequisite to successful
+cropping. After the land is manured and plowed it should be gone
+over in all directions with a disk and smoothing harrow, until it is
+of a dustlike fineness.
+
+In thorough cultivation before the crop is planted, lies the secret
+of many a success, and in its neglect the cause of many failures.
+Intelligent handling of crops is in a large measure knowledge of the
+influence of wind and rain, sunshine and darkness, on the particular
+nature of the plant Delicate plants, for example, ought to be grown
+where buildings or forests break the force of prevailing winds.
+Sheltered valleys in irrigated sections have proved the best for
+intensive cultivation. For thousands of years in China and Japan the
+conditions of successful intensive cultivation have been well
+understood, and to-day the most efficient gardeners are the Chinese.
+In some parts of Mexico, for the same reasons, intensive cultivation
+has reached a high development. In our own West we are catching up
+on vegetables and fruits.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE ADVANTAGES FROM CAPITAL
+
+
+
+
+
+We have seen what a worker with very little money can do and how he
+can succeed. A small capital, however, can be used to increase the
+returns to as great advantage on a small farm as large capital can
+be used on a large farm and with much less risk.
+
+Stable manure is still the favorite article with the masses of
+gardeners. One ton of ordinary stable manure contains about 1275
+pounds of organic matter, carrying eight pounds of nitrogen, ten
+pounds of potash, and four pounds of phosphoric acid.
+
+When thoroughly rotted, the manure acquires a still larger
+percentage of plant food; it is more valuable, not only for that
+reason, but also on account of its immediate availability. Further,
+the mechanical effect of this manure in opening and loosening the
+soil, allowing air and warmth to enter more freely, adds greatly to
+its value.
+
+It is easily gotten and often goes wholly or in part to waste. On
+the outskirts of some towns may be seen a collection of manure piles
+that have been hauled out and dumped in waste places. The plant food
+in each ton of this manure is worth at least two dollars--that is
+the least Eastern farmers pay for similar material, and they make
+money doing it. Yet almost every liveryman has to pay some one for
+hauling the manure away. This is simply because farmers living near
+these towns are missing a chance to secure something for
+nothing--because, perhaps, the profit is not directly in sight. But
+from most soils there is a handsome profit possible from a very
+small application of stable manure.
+
+While writing this, I saw a man in New Rochelle, N. Y.; dumping a
+load of street sweepings into a hole in a vacant lot. It would have
+been less wasteful to have dumped a bushel of potatoes into the
+hole.
+
+Commercial fertilizers are coming more and more in use by market
+gardeners, and with reason. If we examine a good fertilizer,
+analyzing five per cent available nitrogen, six per cent phosphoric
+acid, and 8 per cent potash, we shall find that one ton of it
+contains, besides less valuable ingredients: 100 lb. nitrogen, 120
+lb. phosphoric acid, 160 lb. potash.
+
+Such fertilizers probably retail at forty to sixty dollars per ton,
+and are fully worth it. All this plant food, and perhaps one half
+more, can be drawn in a single load, while it will take ten such
+loads of stable manure to supply the same amount of plant food.
+
+There is no reason to be afraid of too much fertilizer, provided it
+is evenly distributed and thoroughly mixed through properly prepared
+soil. Stinginess in this item is poor economy.
+
+Nitrogen is the most essential food for plant growth. It is an
+important element of plant food in manure. In ordinary manure most
+of the value is due to the nitrogen, although phosphoric acid and
+potash are also present. It is found in the most available form in
+nitrate of soda. Nitrate of soda will benefit all crops, but it does
+not follow that it will pay to use it on all crops. Its cost makes
+it unprofitable to use on cheap crops; but on those that yield a
+large return nitrate of soda is a very profitable investment.
+
+"It is shown in the experiments conducted with nitrate of soda on
+different crops that in the case of grain and forage crops, which
+utilized the nitrate quite as completely as the market garden crops,
+the increased value of crops due to nitrate does not in any case
+exceed $14 per acre, or a money return at the rate of $8.50 per 100
+pounds of nitrate used, while in the case of the market-garden crops
+the value of the increased yield reaches, in the case of one crop,
+the high figure of over $263 per acre, or at the rate of about $66
+per 100 pounds of nitrate." (New Jersey Agricultural Experiment
+Stations, page 8, No. 172.)
+
+Professor Voorhees, of the same station, experimented with tomatoes,
+with these results:
+
+Manure and Fertilizer Used Cost Per Acre Value of Crop
+
+No manure $271.88
+30 tons barnyard manure $30.00 291.75
+8 tons manure and 400 lb. fertilizer 15.00 317.63
+160 pounds nitrate of soda alone 4.00 361.13
+
+Such common crops as tomatoes, cabbage, turnips, beets, etc., in
+order to be highly profitable, must be grown and harvested early;
+any one can grow them in their regular season; their growth must be
+promoted or forced as much as possible, at the time when the natural
+agencies are not active in the change of soil nitrogen into
+available forms, and the plants must, therefore, be supplied
+artificially with the active forms of nitrogen, if a rapid and
+continuous growth is to be maintained.
+
+It is quite possible to have a return of $50 per acre from the use
+of $5 worth of nitrate of soda on crops of high value, as, for
+example, early tomatoes, beets, cabbage, etc. This is an
+extraordinary return for the money and labor invested; still, if the
+increased value of the crop were but $10, or even $8, it would be a
+profitable investment, since no more land and but little additional
+capital was required in order to obtain the extra $5 or $8 per acre.
+
+The results of all the experiments conducted in different parts of
+the country and in different seasons, show an average gain in yield
+of early tomatoes of about fifty per cent, with an average increased
+value of crop of about $100 per acre. The rest of the report shows
+similar results with other crops. (New Jersey Agricultural
+Experiment Station, Bulletin 172.)
+
+Joseph Harris says, "Some years ego we used nitrate of soda
+cautiously as a top dressing on the celery plants. The effect was
+astonishing. The next year, having more confidence, we spread the
+nitrate at the time we sowed the seed, and again after the plant
+came up, and twice afterward during a rain.
+
+"Instead of finding it difficult to get the plants early enough for
+the celery growers who set them out, they were ready three weeks
+before tile usual time of transplanting.
+
+"At the four applications, we probably used 1600 lb. of nitrate of
+soda per acre, and this would probably furnish more nitric acid to
+the plants than they could get from five hundred tons of manure per
+acre, provided it had been possible to have worked such a quantity
+into the soil. Never were finer plants grown. As compared with the
+increased value of the plants, the cost of the nitrate is not worth
+taking into consideration."
+
+As a means of fertilization without the use of artificial
+fertilizer, soil inoculation has come. It has grown out of the
+discovery of the dependence of leguminous plants on bacteria which
+live on their roots. The discovery is one of the most important of
+those made in modern agriculture.
+
+It has received its greatest impetus in America, under the
+experiments of Professor Moore of the United States Agricultural
+Department.
+
+The Department supplied free to farmers the bacteria for
+inoculation. Now they supply it only for experimental purposes. A
+laboratory has been fitted up for the work. The method is to
+propagate bacteria for each of the various leguminous plants such as
+clover, alfalfa, soy beans, cow peas, tares, and velvet beans. All
+of these plants are of incalculable value in different sections of
+the country as forage for farm animals. In the West, alfalfa is the
+main reliance for stockraisers. The farmers of the East are trying
+to establish it, but meet with difficulty chiefly for want of the
+special bacteria which should be found on the roots.
+
+The function of these bacteria is to gather the nitrogen of the air
+and supply it as plant food. Without the bacteria the plant can get
+only the nitrogen which is supplied from the soil in fertilizers.
+With the aid of the bacteria the growing plant can derive the
+greater part of its food from the air.
+
+Here is one of the results of the use of inoculated seed as reported
+by the United States Agricultural Bulletin No. 214.
+
+G. L. Thomas, experimenting with field peas on his farm near Auburn,
+Me., made a special test with fertilized and unfertilized strips,
+and stated that "inoculated seed did as much without fertilizers of
+any kind, as uninoculated seed supplied with fertilizer (phosphate)
+at the rate of 800 pounds and a ton of barnyard manure per acre."
+
+This seems to be only in its infancy. The Department warns us that
+nitrogen inoculation is useless where the soil already has enough
+nitrogen and where other plant foods are absent.
+
+The experiments are most important, and we are probably on the eve
+of as great advances in agriculture as in electricity, but the human
+race has a great love for "inoculation," and indeed for all
+unnatural processes.
+
+You remember the story of the wonderful coon that Chandler Harris
+tells? No? They were constantly seeing this enormous coon, but
+always just as they almost got their hands on him, he disappeared.
+One night the boys came running in to say that the wonderful coon
+was up in a persimmon tree in the middle of a ten-acre lot; so they
+got the dogs and the lanterns and guns and ran out, and sure enough
+they saw the wonderful big coon up in a fork of the tree. It was a
+bright moonlight night, but to make doubly sure they cut down the
+tree and the dogs ran in--the coon wasn't there.
+
+"Well, but, Uncle Remus," said the little boy, "I thought you said
+you saw the coon there."
+
+" So we did, Honey," said the old man, "so we did; but it's very
+easy to see what ain't there when you're looking for it."
+
+Another method of increasing fertility at increased expense deserves
+notice. The vacant public lands are for the most part desert-like,
+and their utilization can come about only through irrigation.
+
+This land can be made to produce the finest crops in the world; and
+the tremendous volumes of water that flow from the mountains to the
+sea, once harnessed and piped or ditched to this land, will
+transform it into beautiful gardens and farms.
+
+With the work being done by the United States Government, and that
+of the various states, we may look forward in the not distant future
+to this land being made habitable to man.
+
+It is well known that with the dry, even climate and with an
+abundance of water applied as vegetation needs, this now arid waste
+is far more productive than the Eastern states, where the crops are
+at the mercy of the elements, sometimes having too much moisture and
+at other times not having enough.
+
+"Irrigation offers control of conditions such as is found nowhere
+except in greenhouse culture. The farmer in the humid country cannot
+control the amount of starch in potatoes, sugar in beets, protein in
+corn, gluten in wheat, except by planting varieties which are
+especially adapted to the production of the desired quality. The
+irrigation farmer, on the other hand, can produce this or that
+desirable quality by the control of the moisture supply to the
+plant. He can hasten or retard maturity of the plant, produce early
+truck or late truck on the same soil, grow wheat or grow rice as he
+deems advisable."
+
+"On the irrigated fields of the Vosges, Vaucluse, etc., in France,
+six tons of dry hay becomes the rule, even upon ungrateful soil; and
+this means considerably more than the annual food of one milch cow
+(which can be taken as a little less than five tons) grown on each
+acre."
+
+"The irrigated meadows round Milan are another well known example.
+Nearly 22,000 acres are irrigated there with water derived from the
+sewers of the city, and they yield crops of from eight to ten tons
+of hay as a rule; occasionally some separate meadows will yield the
+fabulous amount--fabulous to-day but no longer fabulous
+to-morrow--of eighteen tons of hay per acre; that is, the food of
+nearly four cows to the acre, and nine times the yield of good
+meadows in this country." ("Fields, Factories, and Workshops," pages
+116-117.)
+
+" If irrigation pays "--and no one now questions that--"the whole
+Western country of rich soil, which asks but a drink now and then,
+will be turned into a Garden of Eden." _(Maxwell's Talisman.)_
+
+Agriculture may be revolutionized with the advent of irrigation.
+
+A new method of disposing of sewage and at the same time irrigating
+the soil, has come into use recently, and will be found valuable to
+those who are situated so that they can make use of it.
+
+The sewage from buildings is drained into a large tank where the
+heavier matter can settle to the bottom. When the water rises nearly
+to the top of the tank it is siphoned into another tank, and from
+there it is piped about the field.
+
+The piping is very simple--ordinary drain tile conveys the water.
+Beginning at the highest point of the field to be irrigated, a
+six-inch (or larger) line of tile should be laid along the highest
+ground with a fall of not over one inch to each ten feet. From this
+main trunk should be branch lines of "laterals," laid from eight to
+twelve feet apart, as they would be laid for draining a field. These
+branch lines may be laid at an angle to the main trunk as may be
+most convenient; all the joints must be covered so as to keep out
+the flirt. The whole system should be laid deep enough in the ground
+to be secure from frost; but to be most effective it should not be
+over fourteen to sixteen inches below the surface, hence
+sub-irrigation cannot be used very successfully in the Northern
+states. In a sandy loam soil with a clay subsoil it works best at
+sixteen to twenty-four inches.
+
+This is substantially Colonel Waring's method of sewage disposal. To
+get the best use of it for plants, the water should be assembled and
+kept in the sun for ten to twelve days, then turned into the pipes
+until the ground is well soaked, and then shut off and not allowed
+in the pipes again for ten to fifteen days, according to the weather
+and condition of moisture in the soil. The crop should be cultivated
+between each watering.
+
+However, as Bailey says, "Evidently in all regions in which crops
+will yield abundantly without irrigation, as in the East, the main
+reliance is to be placed on good tillage."
+
+"Most vegetable gardeners in the East do not find it profitable to
+irrigate. Now and then a man who has push and the ability to handle
+a fine crop to advantage, finds it a very profitable undertaking."
+("Principles of Vegetable Gardening," page 174.) Bailey, however,
+was not thinking of "overhead irrigation."
+
+The late J. M. Smith, Green Bay, Wisconsin, was one of the expert
+market gardeners of his region. "The longer I live," wrote Mr.
+Smith, then in the midst of a serious drought, "the more firmly am I
+convinced that plenty of manure and then the most complete system of
+cultivation make an almost complete protection against ordinary
+droughts." (Same, page 330.)
+
+If the soil is cultivated carefully and intensively, it will hold
+water within itself and carry a storage reservoir underneath the
+growing crop. Finely pulverizing and packing the seed bed, makes it
+retain the greatest possible percentage of the moisture that falls,
+just as a tumbler full of fine sponge or of birdshot will retain
+many times the amount of water that a tumbler full of buckshot will.
+The atmosphere quickly drinks up the moisture from the soil unless
+we Prevent it. This we do by means of a soil "blanket," called a
+"mulch" This finely pulverized surface largely prevents the
+moisture below from evaporating, and at the same time keeps the
+surface in such condition that it readily absorbs the dew and the
+showers. Water moves in the soil as it does in a lamp wick, by
+capillary attraction; the more deeply and densely the soil is
+saturated with moisture, the more easily the water moves upward,
+just as oil "climbs up" a wet wick faster than it does a dry one.
+One can illustrate the effect of this fine soil "mulch" in
+preventing evaporation by placing some powdered sugar on a lump of
+loaf sugar and putting the lump sugar in water. The powdered sugar
+will remain dry even when the lump has become so thoroughly
+saturated that it crumbles to pieces.
+
+"We have no useless American acres," said Secretary Wilson. "We
+shall make them all productive. We have agricultural explorers in
+every far corner of the world; and they are finding crops which have
+become so acclimated to dry conditions, similar to our own West,
+that we shall in time have plants thriving upon our so-called arid
+lands. We shall cover this arid area with plants of various sorts
+which will yield hundreds of millions of tons of additional forage
+and grains for Western flocks and herds. Our farmers will grow these
+upon land now considered practically worthless."
+
+In this way it has been estimated that in the neighborhood of one
+hundred million acres of the American desert can be reclaimed to the
+most intensive agriculture. (See a study of the possible additions
+to available land in Prof. W. S. Thompson's "Population, a Study of
+Malthusianism": Col. U, 1915.) Frederick V. Coville, the chief
+botanist of the Department of Agriculture, does not hesitate to say
+that in the strictly arid regions there are many millions of acres,
+now considered worthless for agriculture, which are as certain to be
+settled in small farms as were the lands of Illinois.
+
+Land that was thought to be absolute desert has been made to yield
+heavy crops of grain and forage by this method without irrigation.
+
+Macaroni wheat will grow with ten inches of rainfall, and yield
+fifteen bushels to the acre. This however is less than the average
+wheat yield in the United States.
+
+Much can be done by dry farming; that is, by plowing the soil very
+deep and cultivating six or eight times a season, thus retaining all
+the moisture for the crops and reducing evaporation to a minimum.
+
+There are thousands of acres in different sections of Montana that
+grow good crops without irrigation. In Fergus County, for instance,
+the wonderful yield of 45 bushels of wheat per acre is grown without
+irrigation. Heavy crops of grain and vegetables are grown in the
+vicinity of Great Falls by the dry farming system.
+
+The money and time spent in spraying is also well invested. The New
+York Agricultural Experiment Station began a ten-year experiment in
+potato-spraying to determine how much the yield can be increased by
+spraying with Pyrox or with Bordeaux mixture.
+
+In 1904 the gain due to spraying was larger than ever before. Five
+sprayings with Bordeaux increased the yield 233 bushels per acre,
+while three sprayings increased it 191 bushels. The gain was due
+chiefly to the prolongation of growth through the prevention of late
+blight. The sprayed potatoes contained one ninth more starch and
+were of better quality.
+
+The average increase of profit per acre from spraying potatoes was
+figured to be about $22 on each acre. The result was arrived at from
+experiment, two thirds of which was by independent farmers.
+(Particulars will be found In Bulletin No. 264, issued by the
+Department.)
+
+In fourteen farmers' business experiments, including 18 acres of
+potatoes, the average gain due to spraying was 62-1/2 bushels per
+acre, the average total cost of spraying 93 cents per acre; and the
+average net profit, based on the market price of potatoes at digging
+time, $24.86 per acre.
+
+"One class of gardeners," Burnet Landreth explains, "may be termed
+experimental farmers, men tired of the humdrum rotation of farm
+processes and small profits, men looking for a paying
+diversification of their agricultural interests. Their expenses for
+appliances are not great, as they have already on hand the usual
+stock of farm tools, requiring only one or two seed drills, a small
+addition to their cultivating implements, and a few tons of
+fertilizers. Their laborers and teams are always on hand for the
+working of moderate areas. In addition to the usual expense 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, purchasing or renting 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 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
+information on this interesting point, the writer asked for
+estimates from market gardeners in different localities, 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, according to location, and from
+Long Island, New York, the average of estimates at the east end is
+$75, and at the west end $150."
+
+I have before me now one of the roseate advertisements, which we so
+often see in the newspapers, telling how fortunes can be made by
+investing a few dollars in a tropical plantation in Mexico.
+
+It gives what are supposed to be startling yields per acre, and yet
+the returns, which must necessarily be taken with considerable
+allowance, are only from $580 to $1087 per acre on various
+plantations.
+
+There are market gardeners and nurserymen near New York City who are
+making their acres produce better returns than this. It is not
+necessary to go off into the tropical wilderness seeking a fortune
+which is usually a gold brick that some fellow is trying to sell
+you, when as good results can be secured right at home.
+
+Market gardeners in and near Philadelphia pay $25 to $50 an acre and
+upwards rent for land, and work from five to forty acres. This is as
+much as similar land in many parts of the country could be bought
+for. But it is not a high rent when they are right at the
+market--one man makes the round trip in two and one half
+hours--manure costs them nothing--for years they have been using the
+excavations from the old style privy wells, which has been hauled to
+their farm and deposited where they wished it, free. They have
+modern facilities, such as trolley and telephone, and are as much
+city men as any clerk in an office. They clear far higher profits
+from an acre than the average farmer, raising never less than two,
+and often three crops in a season. They employ several men to the
+acre, and at certain times many more, working the men in gangs. Only
+the difficulty of getting good help at their prices prevents them
+from using twice the number.
+
+However, the possibilities of putting capital into land at a profit
+are still infinite.
+
+What chiefly attracts the gardener to the great cities is stable
+manure; this is not wanted so much for increasing the richness of
+the soil--one ninth part of the manure used by the French gardeners
+would do for that purpose--but for keeping the soil at a certain
+temperature. Early vegetables pay best, and in order to obtain early
+produce, not only the air, but the soil as well, must be warmed;
+that is done by putting great quantities of properly mixed manure
+into the soil; its fermentation heats it. But with the present
+development of industrial skill, heating the soil could be done more
+economically and more easily by hot-water pipes. Consequently, the
+French gardeners begin more and more to make use of portable pipes,
+or thermosiphons, provisionally established in the cool frames.
+
+Competition that stands in with the railroads can be met only by
+being near the market or having water transportation. Indeed, the
+erect of water transportation in getting manure, and in delivering
+the produce from the railroads, appears in the early history of
+trucking. The railroads often crush out boat competition by
+absorbing docks and standing in with the commission men. This could
+be met by such cooperative selling agencies as the flower growers
+already have.
+
+"One of the earliest centers for the development of truck farming in
+its present sense was along the shores of Chesapeake Bay, where fast
+sailing oyster boats were employed for sending the produce to the
+neighboring markets of Baltimore and Philadelphia. In a similar way
+the gardeners about New York early began pushing out along Long
+Island, using the waters of the Sound for transporting their
+produce. The trucking region on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan
+is another sample of the effect of convenient water transportation
+in causing an early development of this industry. The building of
+the Illinois Central railroad opened up a region in southern
+Illinois that was supposed to be particularly adapted to fruit
+growing." (" Development of the Trucking Interests," by F. S. Earle,
+page 439.)
+
+If one goes into the trucking business on so large a scale as to be
+able to make deals with the railroads, such as The Standard Oil
+Company has made, of course additional prices could be gotten, owing
+to the possibility of putting competitors at a disadvantage. That
+business is a large one.
+
+In doing business on this scale, much will depend on your ability as
+a merchant.
+
+"It is useless to grow good crops unless they can be sold at a
+profit; yet it is safe to say that ten men grow good truck crops for
+one who markets them to the best advantage."
+
+Three Acres and Liberty: Ch. XI-XV
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+HOTBEDS AND GREENHOUSES
+
+
+
+
+
+Whether to get an early start on the garden or for raising plants
+for field crops, a hotbed is all but indispensable. In making a
+hotbed what we seek to do is to imitate Nature at her best, so get
+the best soil and the sunniest spot you can find.
+
+In all hotbeds the underlying principle is the same: They are
+right-angled boxes covered with glass panes set in movable frames
+and placed over heated excavations. The bed may be of any size or
+shape, but the standard one is six feet wide, since the stock glass
+frames are usually six feet long by three feet wide. You can have
+any length needed to supply your requirements. "Tomato Culture," by
+A. J. Root, tells us that the cheapest plan is to get some old
+planks, broken brickbats or stone, and piece together a box-like
+affair in proper shape: to provide drainage, the front should be at
+least ten inches above the ground and the rear fourteen inches. A
+hotbed knocked together in this way is all right to start with, if
+you cannot do any better, but will last only two or three seasons.
+For a permanent bed, probably the best way is to make cement walls
+extending to the bottom of the manure. The bed ought to face south
+or southeast and be well protected on the north. It should be banked
+all around with earth or straw to keep out the cold, and mats or
+shutters should be provided for extra cold weather. The best
+material for heating the bed and the most easily obtained, is fresh
+horse manure in which there is a quantity of straw or litter. This
+will give out a slow, moist heat and will not burn out before the
+crops or the plants mature. Get all the manure you need at one time.
+Pile it in a dry place and let it ferment; every few days work the
+pile over thoroughly with a dung fork; sometimes two turnings of the
+manure are enough, but it is better to let it stand and heat three
+or four times.
+
+"You can make a hotbed also on top of the ground without any
+excavation. Spread a layer of manure evenly one foot in depth and
+large enough to extend around the frame three feet each way. Pack
+this down well, especially around the edge, put on a second and
+third layer until you have a well-trodden and compact bed of manure
+at least two and one half feet in depth. Place the frame in the
+center of this bed and press it down well." A two-inch layer of
+decayed leaves, cut straw, or corn fodder, spread over the manure in
+the frame and well packed down, will help to retain the heat.
+Ventilate the bed every day to allow steam and ammonia fumes to pass
+off.
+
+"The soil inside should be equal parts of garden loam and
+well-rotted barnyard manure. Tramp well the first layer of three
+inches. To make it entirely safe for the plant seeds in the hotbed,
+add another layer of the same depth. Use no water with garden loam
+and manure if you can possibly help it."
+
+"Before sowing any seeds put a thermometer in the bed three inches
+deep in the soil. If it runs over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, do not sow.
+If below 55 degrees it is too cold; you will have to fork it over
+and add more manure. If the bed gets too hot, you can ventilate it
+with a sharp stick by thrusting it down into the soil."
+
+Another way that the old gardeners have to make a hot bed is with
+fire. On a large scale this is cheaper, though more complicated than
+the fermentation of manure. In making this kind choose your location
+and build the frames as before. "Cut a trench with a slight taper
+from the east end of the plot to the end of the hotbed, and on under
+the ground to about four feet beyond the end of the bed. This taper
+to the outlet will create a draught and so keep a better fire. Arch
+this over with vitrified tile. The furnace end where the fire is
+should be about six feet away from the bed. When the trenches are
+completed, cover over with the dirt that was taken out of them. Two
+such trenches under the frames will make a good hotbed. Anyone can
+do this sort of work."
+
+A hotbed can also be heated by running steam pipes through the
+ground, but unless you happen to be where exhaust steam could be
+used, this method is not economical except for big houses. The care
+and expense of a separate steam plant would be too great to pay,
+unless for growing winter vegetables for market or flower culture.
+If you go into that on a scale large enough to pay, new problems at
+once demand solution.
+
+Vegetables under glass have kept pace with other crops. Within
+fifteen miles of Boston are millions of square feet of glass devoted
+to vegetables, chiefly lettuce. There are more than five million
+feet in the United States used for other crops. Ordinarily, under
+favorable conditions, glass devoted to this work will yield an
+average of fifty cents per year per square foot.
+
+About the lowest estimate of cost per sash is five dollars; this
+amount includes the cost of one fourth of the frame and covers.
+There are usually four sashes to one frame. A well-made mortised
+plank frame costs four to six dollars. A sash, unglazed, costs from
+one to two dollars. Glazing costs seventy-five cents. Mats and
+shutters cost from fifty cents to two dollars per sash, depending
+upon the material used. Double thick glass pays better in the end as
+being less liable to breakage. These prices vary greatly, however.
+
+The following sample estimate by a gardener is for a market garden
+of one acre, in which it is desired to grow a general line of
+vegetables. It supposes that half of the acre is to be set with
+plants from hotbeds.
+
+One eighth acre to early cauliflower and cabbage, about 2000 plants,
+if transplanted, would require two 6 X 12 frames, from two hundred
+to two hundred and fifty plants being grown under each sash.
+
+These frames may be used again for tomato plants for the same area,
+using about 450 plants. This will allow a sash for every 55 plants.
+
+One frame should be in use at the same time for eggplants and
+peppers, two sashes of each, growing fifty transplanted plants under
+each sash.
+
+Two frames will be required for cucumbers, melons, and early
+squashes; for extra early lettuce, an estimate of sixty to seventy
+heads should be made to a sash. It is assumed that celery and late
+cabbages are to be started in seed beds in the open.
+
+In the fashionable suburbs of Boston "one hotbed 3 X 6 feet was used
+in which to start the seeds of early vegetables. Plantings were made
+in the open ground as soon as the weather permitted, and were
+continued at intervals throughout the season whenever there was a
+vacant spot in the garden. The following varieties of vegetables,
+mostly five-and ten-cent packets, were planted: Pole and wax beans,
+beets, kale, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, corn, cucumbers,
+corn salad, endive, eggplant, kohlrabi, lettuce, muskmelon, onions,
+peppers, peas, salsify, radish, spinach, squash, tomatoes, turnips,
+rutabagas, escarole, chives, shallot, parsley, sweet and Irish
+potatoes, and nearly a dozen different kinds of sweet herbs."
+
+"In the larger garden, tomatoes followed peas, turnips the wax
+beans, early lettuce for fall use took the place of Refugee beans.
+Corn salad succeeded lettuce."
+
+"The spinach was followed by cabbage, while turnips, beets, carrots,
+celery, and spinach gave a second crop in the plot occupied by
+Gardus peas and Emperor William beans."
+
+" Winter radishes came after telephone peas, Paris Golden celery was
+planted in between the hills of Stowell's blanching. The plot of
+early corn was sown to turnips. The hotbed was used during the late
+fall and winter to store some of the hardy vegetables, and the
+latter part of October there was placed in it some endive, escarole,
+celeriac, and the remaining space was filled up by transplanting
+leeks, chives, and parsley." (Bailey, "Principles of Vegetable
+Gardening," page 38.)
+
+"If spinach is grown in frames, the sash used for one of the late
+crops above may be used through the following winter.
+
+"This, like the last case, makes a total of five frames, the cost,
+depending on make and material, from one to five dollars; twenty
+sash and covers, at, say, $2.75, $55; manure at market price,
+calculating at least three or four loads per frame. This is a
+liberal estimate of space, and should allow for all ordinary loss of
+plants, and for discarding the weak and inferior ones. It supposes
+that most or all of the plants are to be transplanted once or more
+in the frames. Many gardeners have less equipment of glass." (Same,
+pages 49-50 )
+
+Growing vegetables under glass gives smaller returns than flowers;
+as, for instance, a head of lettuce brings much less than a plant of
+carnations, and suffers more from the competition of southern crops.
+Nevertheless, the greenhouse-grown vegetables have come into
+prominence lately because they can be raised in houses that are not
+good enough for flowers. Lettuce and tomatoes are the principal
+crops; some growers raise thousands of dollars' worth each year. The
+greenhouse is also used for forcing plants which are afterwards
+transplanted to the open air. This develops them at a time when they
+could not grow outdoors and gives them such a start that they are
+very early on the market, thereby realizing the highest prices.
+
+"Nearness to market is the most important feature in a greenhouse.
+In large cities, manure, which is the chief fertilizer, can be had
+in most cases for the hauling. The short haul is an important item,
+and, most important of all, the gardener who is near the market can
+take advantage of high prices, if the grower is near enough to the
+city to make two or three trips; in such a fluctuating market as New
+York, it is to his advantage."
+
+Some kind of a greenhouse is necessary, but one large enough to
+produce a living would cost a very large sum. Vegetable raising
+under glass has been made profitable in special localities where
+nearly the whole community gives its time to building up the
+industry, but complete success can be attained only by having
+absolute control of all the conditions entering into production, and
+giving assiduous and undivided attention to detail.
+
+Leonard Barron, in the _Garden Magazine, _says: "The best type of
+greenhouse for all-round purposes is unquestionably what is known as
+the even span--that is, a house in which the roof is in the form of
+an inverted V, so as to be exposed as much as possible to sunlight,
+and having the ridge-pole in the center. All other types of houses
+are modifications from the simplest form, and are designed in some
+way or other to fit some special requirements. These requirements
+may be: the cultural necessities for some particular crop; a desire
+to have the atmospheric conditions inside more or less abnormal at
+given seasons (as in a forcing house); or an adaptation to some
+peculiarity of the situation, as when a greenhouse is built as an
+adjunct to other buildings."
+
+"It is plain common sense that the ideal greenhouse is one in which
+the light is most nearly that which exists outside, and in which the
+heat is as evenly distributed. It is practical experience that a
+structure with as few angles and turns m it as possible and with a
+minimum of woodwork in its superstructure, best answers these
+conditions.... Greenhouse building has developed into a special
+industry, and the modern American greenhouse is the highest type of
+construction. It is built with as careful calculation to its
+situation and its requirements as is the country dwellinghouse. Such
+a thing naturally is not cheap."
+
+"The low-priced 'cheap greenhouse' is a makeshift of some sort.
+Perhaps its roof is constructed of hotbed sash, a perfectly feasible
+method of construction, which for ordinary, commonplace gardening
+will answer admirably. Or, its foundation is merely the plain earth.
+Such a building does admirably in the summer time, and even in the
+late spring and early autumn; but woe betide the enthusiastic
+amateur in winter, who, being possessed of one of these light
+greenhouse structures, has indulged in a few costly, exotic plants.
+They will be frozen, to a certainty! It is economy to pay a fair
+price in the beginning to secure a properly built greenhouse that
+will withstand the trials of winter."
+
+" If iron frame is used instead of wood there is greater durability,
+and the structure being more slender, will admit more light, but the
+cost will be increased."
+
+" It makes very little difference in cost what shape of house is to
+be erected. The cost per lineal foot for an even span is practically
+the same as for a lean-to of the same length and width. In the
+lean-to, in order to get the sufficient bench and walk space inside,
+it is necessary to carry the roof to a point much higher than in the
+even span. The extra framework and material for the roof cost a good
+deal, yet add practically nothing to the efficiency of the house."
+
+"Heating of greenhouses is best done by hot water, and in a small
+house the pipes may well be connected with the heating system used
+for the dwelling, if the greenhouse and the home are within any sort
+of reasonable distance from each other. For large houses, or ranges
+of several houses together, the independent heating plant is
+necessary. Steam is used for heating by commercial florists, but it
+is economical only on a large scale."
+
+"As a uniform temperature must be maintained in the house, the
+fires, where steam is used, need watching continuously during cold
+weather, for the moment the water ceases to boil, the pipes cool off
+and a considerable time is consumed in starting the heat running
+again. With hot water there is much more latitude in attention, for
+though the fires dwindle' the water which fills the pipes will carry
+heat for a long time, and it will circulate until the last degree is
+radiated. But a hot-water system costs in the installation about one
+fourth more than steam. Very small houses may be successfully heated
+by kerosene stoves, which may be placed inside the house. A much
+better way would be to use oil heaters for an inside water
+circulation, carrying off all products of combustion by means of a
+flue. Coal stoves should never be installed inside the house. It has
+been done successfully by some amateurs, but the danger of coal gas
+being driven back into the house by a down draft in the chimney is
+too great a risk. Coal gas and illuminating gas are two virulent
+poisons to plants."
+
+It is obvious that the amateur must proceed with great caution in
+undertaking intensive cultivation under glass. Build at first the
+simplest and least expensive kind of hotbeds or greenhouses. It
+takes three to five seasons to train even an experienced farmer
+along these special lines. Separate crops require special treatment.
+Do not experiment, but follow well-tried procedure. It is
+comparatively easy to farm an acre under glass, but it should be
+worked up to, each step being taken only after a solid foundation is
+ready to build on. Learn by your mistakes. Don't get discouraged by
+failure. By not making the same mistake twice, you will soon learn
+by experience just what is essential to production. The more you
+learn about the way nature does things, the more likely you will be
+to succeed when you seek to imitate her.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+OTHER USES OF LAND
+
+
+
+
+
+We had intended to write an interesting chapter on the use of a few
+acres of land for poultry, and another on raising a vast drove of
+rabbits, both from practical men, but a good average man, just such
+as this book is written for, sent the following:
+
+"I am very sorry that I cannot comply with your request to write a
+chapter on poultry for your new book. It is true that I am
+physically and mentally capable of performing that feat, and it
+would be possible for me to prepare an essay that might entertain
+the reader, and even make him believe that there is money in
+commercial poultry. I prefer, however, to leave that sort of
+romancing to the poultry journals who, by much practice, are adepts
+in the art. The fact is, I did not make poultry raising pay, and had
+I remained on my chicken ranch, I would have gone broke. I do not
+mean to say, however, that there is no money in poultry, but merely
+that I could not get it out. Perhaps others who are better equipped
+for the work can make a success of such an undertaking, but I could
+not. The numerous poultry journals are filled with instructions how
+to do it and with letters from people who assert that they have done
+well with poultry; but, really, during the four years that I was in
+the business I cannot recall a single case of success, and, on the
+other hand, I learned of failures without end. I had the reputation
+of having the best planned and most completely equipped in this part
+of Washington, and perhaps in the entire state. My stock was
+thoroughbred and healthy, and they seemed to attend to business
+strictly. I devoted about all my waking hours to them, did
+everything that seemed necessary that was suggested by my own
+success, and yet I could not make it go, am glad I am clear of it,
+and have no desire to try it again. I am perfectly willing to admit
+my possible unfitness for the business, but I am also compelled to
+admit that I could not succeed and that no advice of mine could help
+others."
+
+Although many, either under exceptional circumstances or because of
+exceptional ability, have made a success of wholesale poultry
+raising, it seems on reflection that Mr. Wolf 's ideas are in the
+main correct.
+
+The price of chickens is fixed, like all other prices, by supply and
+demand, and toward the supply every farmer contributes his chickens
+and their eggs which cost him practically nothing; at least he
+counts that they cost him nothing.
+
+Now it is clear that if you considerably increase the supply at any
+place, the price will fall, and the farmer, whose chickens and eggs
+cost him almost nothing in money, will sell them low enough to
+command a market and will continue to raise them, however little he
+gets for them.
+
+So you are against inexhaustible competitors who can neither be
+driven out nor combined with. It is worse than competing with
+bankrupt dealers. To make much money you must have at least some
+monopoly, and even a little bit of the earth that is well suited to
+your purpose where there is no unreasonable and unreasoning
+competition, will give you a chance.
+
+But while it is true that the farmer's subsidized hens have a very
+disastrous effect at times upon the market, the fact is that,
+notwithstanding the tariff, we import millions of dozens of eggs
+laid each year by the pauper hens of Canada and often of Denmark.
+
+Another fact to be considered is, that it is when eggs are most
+plentiful that the farmers depress the market. With their ways of
+handling their poultry, their hens lay only when conditions are most
+favorable, and in the winter when eggs are as high as fifty cents a
+dozen in cities, they have no eggs to market. Like the market
+gardener, to be timely in market is to succeed. A week may mean an
+annihilation of profits.
+
+It is a different proposition to raise a few chickens as a side line
+as the farmers do.
+
+A workman at the Connecticut place of one of the experts who has
+revised this book had a bit of land not more than l00 X 200 feet,
+and for several years cleared $100 a year by raising eggs and
+broilers, doing the work together with that of a little garden of
+small fruits before and after working hours The chickens fed largely
+on green food in summer.
+
+In selling your surplus at a profit, the same principles apply as in
+raising a surplus to sell at a profit.
+
+While poultry and egg raising does not require that you must be
+first, it does require that you market your produce at a time when
+the prices are highest.
+
+You must hatch at a time which will allow the young hens to begin
+laying as winter approaches; the food must keep up animal heat and
+the house must be warm enough to make the hens comfortable, and the
+conditions must be such as to keep them laying.
+
+As an experiment, we once raised six pullets. They were hatched in
+May, and in December they began laying. All during the winter they
+laid never less than four and some times six eggs a day, and kept
+this up until spring.
+
+They were fed on wheat and corn and plenty of meat scraps and green
+food. They were kept in what was practically a glass house,
+receiving the benefit of the sun during the day, and were protected
+from the winds. The effect was to bring as near as possible the
+condition of the warm months; these paid very well.
+
+Ducks are less frequently raised than chickens and often realize
+good returns.
+
+The popular fallacy that ducks require a stream or pond is gradually
+passing away. There was a time when nearly all ducks were raised in
+this way, feeding on fish as the principal diet, but experience has
+proved that ducks raised without a stream or pond tend to put on
+flesh instead of feathers, and they have not the oily, fishy flavor
+of those raised on the water. Nearly all of the successful duck
+raisers now use this method.
+
+This is bringing the duck more into prominence as an article of
+food; as James Rankin says in "Duck Culture," "People do not care to
+eat fish and flesh combined. They would rather eat them separate."
+
+The white pekins are the popular birds, because they are larger,
+have white meat, and are splendid layers. They lay from 100 to 165
+eggs in a season and are the easiest to raise. They can do entirely
+without water; and Rankin tells of selling a flock to a wealthy man,
+who afterwards wrote asking him to take them back, because he had
+bought them for an artificial lake in front of his house, so that
+his wife and children could watch them disporting in the water. He
+complained that they would not go into the water unless he drove
+them in and would remain only so long as he stood over them.
+
+Ducks are easier to raise than any other fowl and are freer from
+disease. They are ready for market when eight weeks old.
+
+The industry is assuming large proportions, and ranches are now
+raising ducks by the tens of thousands and are finding better
+markets each year.
+
+In starting any poultry business, it is better to begin with
+twenty-five fowls and master details with those, then double the
+number as fast as they have been made to return profits.
+
+The Atlantic Squab Company, of Hammonton, N. J., says "it is a
+simple matter for the beginner to figure out on paper net profits of
+four or five dollars per year from each pair of breeders, but we
+doubt if it can be made. It is, however, 'pigeon nature' to lay ten
+or eleven times a year, but hardly natural to presume that each and
+every egg will ultimately mean a Jumbo squab in the commission man's
+hands.
+
+"A loft [that is, a pair] of high-class Homers, properly mated,
+should average six pair of squabs per year. For one year our squabs
+averaged us a fraction over 60 cent per pair; say $3.60 has been
+the returns from each pair of breeders. It has cost us 90 cent per
+pair to feed for twelve months; remember, we buy in large
+quantities; it would cost the small breeder $1 a year per pair to
+feed. It would be well to allow 60 cent a pair for labor and
+supplies, such as grit, charcoal, tobacco stems, etc., although the
+bird manure, which we find ready sale for at 55 cent. per bushel,
+has covered these incidental expenses for us. The inexperienced
+beginner, with good management and close attention to details,
+should clear $2 a year from each pair of birds, provided he starts
+with well-mated pure Homer stock." Pigeons are particular about
+their mates, and will rather go single than take a disagreeable
+partner.
+
+Raising Belgian hares at one time promised to be a most profitable
+industry. The Belgian hare is a distant relation of the ordinary
+rabbit. Its flesh is white, close-grained, and tender, resembling
+the legs of the frog, and has a very savory flavor. It is considered
+by many superior to poultry, and the rapidity with which they breed
+gave promise of fortunes. The doe brings forth a litter of about
+eleven every sixty days, and with prices ranging from $1.50 to
+$2.50, as they were about the year 1900, with the cost of raising
+from thirty to forty cents, the reason for this promise is evident.
+In Southern California thousands turned their attention to it, and
+some firms entered the business with equipment to the value of fifty
+thousand dollars.
+
+Besides the ordinary market prices realized for the hares, some went
+extensively into breeding fancy stock, and realized from $50 to $250
+apiece for them.
+
+This industry had indications of becoming extensive and enduring,
+but by 1900 so many went into the business that the markets became
+glutted and prices fell with disastrous effect.
+
+Whether it will pay you depends largely on the attitude of your
+customers toward the hare as a food product.
+
+Bee-keeping offers an interesting and remunerative field of
+employment. More than the average living awaits those only who will
+make a careful and intelligent study of bees and their habits and
+will give them the proper care and attention.
+
+One need not be a practical bee-keeper to enter this field. He can
+purchase even one hive and, while increasing from this, he can gain
+an experience that he could get in no other way.
+
+How shall one start bee-keeping?
+
+Get one hive or a few hives. If you have no room in the yard, put
+them upon the roof. One man in Cincinnati, Ohio, makes his living
+from bees kept on the roof of his house.
+
+Wm. A. Selzer, a large dealer in bee-keepers' supplies, in
+Philadelphia, established many colonies on the roof of his place
+right in the heart of the business district, where it would seem
+impossible for bees to find a living.
+
+Very little space is required for bee-keeping; hives can be set two
+feet apart in rows, and the rows six to ten feet apart. No pasture
+need be provided for them. There are always fields of flowers to
+supply the nectar.
+
+White clover produces a large yield of nectar of very fine flavor.
+The basswood or linden tree blossom produces a fine nectar which
+some consider better than white clover. Buckwheat also gives a good
+yield of nectar, but it is dark in color and brings a lower price
+for that reason. There are other plants which yield large quantities
+of nectar, and it would be necessary to know the locality to say
+what would be the best plants; but as white clover is found almost
+everywhere in the northern states, it is safe to say this will be
+the best producer in the spring, and goldenrod, where found, the
+best for the fall supply.
+
+Frank Benton, in United States Department of Agriculture Bulletin
+59, says: "It may be safely said that any place where farming,
+gardening, or fruit raising can be successfully followed is adapted
+to the profitable keeping of bees."
+
+There is always a farmer here and there who keeps a few hives of
+bees. These often can be purchased at a very reasonable price, but
+unless they are Italian bees and are in improved hives, it would be
+better to purchase from some dealer. He may sell you a very weak
+colony, but after the first year these ought to be as strong as any.
+Start in the spring; when you have your bees, read good literature
+on the subject. A. I. Root's "A B C of Bee Culture" is good for
+beginners; subscribe for the _American Bee Journal, _of Chicago, or
+_Gleanings in Bee Culture, _Medina, Ohio. They are full of the
+latest ideas on the subject.
+
+A yield of fifty pounds of honey in a season can be obtained from
+one hive of bees in almost any locality. In fact, this is often done
+where bees are kept in built up cities. One hundred pounds would be
+considered a very small yield by many apiarists, and twice this
+amount is often gathered in favored localities where up-to-date
+methods are followed.
+
+One man can take care of two hundred hives or colonies, as they are
+termed, if he is working for comb honey, and perhaps twice that
+number if for extracted honey.
+
+Comb honey is stored usually in one-pound boxes set in a super or
+small box over the main hive body, which is itself a box about
+seventeen inches long, eleven inches wide, and ten inches deep into
+which frames of comb are slid side by side. These combs are
+accessible and can be lifted out, exposing to view the inner
+workings of the hive. It is in these combs that the queen lays as
+many as three thousand eggs some days, and in which the young bees
+are hatched. They are also used for storing honey for winter use.
+
+The extractor has been invented to remove this honey without
+damaging the comb. The economy of this can readily be seen, as ten
+pounds of honey can be stored while one pound of comb is being
+built.
+
+This leaves the bees free to gather honey instead of using a portion
+of their force to build comb, as is necessary when comb honey is
+desired.
+
+The extractor is a round tin can on a central pivot with a revolving
+mechanism. Into this the full combs of honey are placed and are
+whirled around, throwing the honey out into the can by centrifugal
+force. It is then run out at the bottom into bottles or barrels, and
+the empty combs are replaced in the hive for the bees to fill again.
+
+Twice as many pounds of honey can be produced by this method; but
+the price of extracted honey is much less than that of comb honey.
+Adulteration of extracted honey with glucose is becoming so
+prevalent that it threatens to ruin this branch of the industry. But
+there will always be a good market for honey sold direct by the
+producer to residents, or even through storekeepers, in medium size
+towns, where customers can be sure that the honey is pure.
+
+The average wholesale prices of honey are about fifteen cents a
+pound for extracted and twenty cents for fancy comb, so if the
+apiarist with two hundred hives produces the small average of fifty
+pounds of comb honey and sells it at fifteen cents a pound, he will
+receive $1500 for his season's work. If he goes in for extracted
+honey and produces one hundred pounds per hive, he will receive even
+more. Of course, expenses will have to come out of this.
+
+That this has been done over and over again is proved by men who
+started in with only a few hives and have accumulated considerable
+property from the business.
+
+But no one need expect to do this unless he is willing to give the
+bees the attention which they will require. To neglect them once
+means often a total loss. Most of the work will have to be done
+during the swarming season in May, June, and July. There has been so
+much written on the subject and so many inventions and improvements
+made in the hives that bee-keeping more than any other branch of
+similar employment has been reduced to a science, and any one can
+thoroughly master it in two or three years. It is because its
+possibilities are not generally recognized that so few are now
+engaged in it.
+
+The fear of stings will always deter many from entering this
+business and so check competition from forcing prices down.
+
+The price of honey makes it a luxury, and there will be an unlimited
+opportunity in the crop as long as the price does not get near the
+cost of producing, which is far below the present prices.
+
+To use land directly is to open almost infinite opportunities.
+Department of Agriculture, Farmers' Bulletin 204, says: "In the
+United States the term 'mushroom' refers commercially to but a
+single species _(Agaricus Campestris) _of the fleshly fungi, a plant
+common throughout most of the temperate regions of the world, and
+one everywhere recognized as edible."
+
+It is unfortunate that the commercial use of the term "mushroom"
+restricts it to a single species. There are about twenty-five common
+varieties of edible fungi in the Northern states.
+
+The successful cultivation of mushrooms in America has not been so
+general as in most European countries. It is in France and in
+England that the mushroom industry has been best developed. France
+is the home of the industry. Unusual interest has been shown in the
+United States in the growth of mushrooms within the past few years,
+and it is to be hoped and expected that within the next ten years
+the industry will develop to the fullest limit of the market
+demands. The demand will, of course, be stimulated by the increasing
+popular appreciation of this product. In some cities and towns there
+is already a good market for mushrooms, while in others they may be
+sold directly to special customers. This should be borne in mind by
+prospective growers.
+
+While many American growers have been successful, a much larger
+number have failed. In most cases their failures have been due to
+one or more of the following causes:
+
+(1) Poor spawn, or spawn which has been killed by improper storage.
+
+(2) Spawning at a temperature injuriously high.
+
+(3) Too much water either at the time of spawning or later.
+
+(4) Unfavorable temperature during the growing period. It is
+therefore important to the prospective grower that careful attention
+be given to the general discussion of conditions which follow.
+
+Mushrooms may be grown in any place where the conditions of
+temperature and moisture are favorable. A shed, cellar, cave, or
+vacant space in a greenhouse may be utilized to advantage for this
+purpose. The most essential factor, perhaps, is that of temperature.
+The proper temperature ranges from 53 degree to 60 degree F., with
+the best from 55 degree to 58 degree F. It is unsafe to attempt to
+grow mushrooms on a commercial basis, according to our present
+knowledge of the subject, in a temperature much less than 50 degree
+or greater than 63 degree F.
+
+Any severe changes of temperature would entirely destroy
+the profits of the mushroom crop. From this it is evident that in
+many places mushrooms may not be grown as a summer crop. With
+artificial heat they may be grown almost anywhere throughout the
+winter. Moreover, it is very probable that in this country open-air
+culture must be limited to a few sections.
+
+A second important factor is moisture. The place should not be very
+damp, or constantly dripping with water. Under such conditions
+successful commercial work is not possible. A place where it is
+possible to maintain a fairly moist condition of the atmosphere, and
+having such capability for ventilation as will cause at least a
+gradual evaporation, is necessary. With too rapid ventilation and
+the consequent necessity of repeated applications of water to the
+mushroom bed, no mushroom crop will attain the highest perfection.
+
+Even a little iron rust in the soil is reported as fatal to the
+Campestris, the only fungus so far successfully propagated.
+
+If other fungi than the Campestris come up wild, don't throw them
+away as worthless. Many are better eating than the one you seek, and
+you can avoid the risk of poisonous ones by learning to recognize
+the dangerous family--send for the Agricultural Department's
+Bulletin No. 204. Meanwhile, (1) all mushrooms with pink gills, (2)
+all coral-like fungi, (3) all that grow on wood, and (4) all
+puffballs, are good to eat if they are young and tender--only don't
+mistake an unspread Aminita for a puffball.
+
+An ingenious person may find other sources of income in the country.
+A young hotel porter in Ulster County, New York, bought seventy
+acres of mountain woodland four miles from the railroad for two
+hundred and fifty dollars, and puts in his winters cutting barrel
+hoops, at which he makes two dollars a day. Meanwhile the land is
+maturing timber. That is hard work, but to gather wild mushrooms or
+to cut willows, or sweet pine needles to make cushions, or to catch
+young squirrels for sale, is lighter, if less steady employment.
+
+And with all our uses of land, we must not forget a little corner
+for the hammock and the croquet hoops for the wife and the children.
+In the Province of Quebec, where the land is held in great tracts
+under the Seigniors, I have seen croquet grounds no bigger than a
+bed quilt in front of the little one-room cottages.
+
+The Frenchman knows the importance of such things as that, has meals
+out of doors in fine weather, goes on little picnics, and keeps
+madame contented in the country.
+
+A swing, or a seesaw, and a tether ball (a ball swinging from the
+top of a pole eight feet high) for the children will help to keep
+the family peace.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+FRUITS
+
+
+
+
+
+Fruit raising can succeed in either of two ways. Either planting the
+orchard in some one fruit and specializing thereon, or diversifying
+the operation to cover many varieties. In the first way it is usual
+to establish orchards in favorable localities without special regard
+to nearness to market; because in these days of refrigerator car
+lines the product of an orchard in any part of the country can be
+sent to market quickly enough to avoid loss. Where many varieties
+are grown, the best site is usually near a large city where the
+grower can market his own product on wagons and get the benefit of
+retail prices.
+
+Remember that it is far more profitable to raise twenty baskets of
+fine, well-shaped, clean, handsome apples or peaches or any other
+hand-eaten fruit, than to raise a hundred barrels of stuff that is
+good only for the common drier or for the mill or hogpen.
+
+Care and common sense are the jackscrews to use in raising fine
+fruit.
+
+The apple is the great American fruit for extensive orcharding. The
+question is whether there is a profit in apple growing. The answer
+is, where the conditions are favorable and when the business is well
+conducted there is. Under average conditions, with poor business
+management, there is little or none.
+
+As Professor S. T. Maynard in _Suburban Life _tells us, "In a
+suburban garden of one of our Eastern cities are seven Astrachan
+trees, about twenty years old, from which have been sold in a single
+season over one hundred dollars' worth of fruit. A friend near
+Boston put three thousand barrels of picked Baldwins into cold
+storage. None of the fancy apples sold for less than three dollars a
+barrel, and the others netted more than two dollars. They were the
+product of less than forty acres of trees which had been planted
+about twenty-five years. Another fruit grower showed me several
+returns of commission men of five, six, and even seven dollars a
+barrel for fancy Baldwins. At such prices, and under such
+conditions, there is a large profit in apple growing."
+
+"The other side of the picture, however, is the more common one. A
+friend sent fifty barrels of fancy Baldwins to a commission house,
+to be shipped to European markets, the returns for which were just
+enough to pay for the barrels. The majority of apples grown in the
+United States are sold to buyers, one buyer in each section, for a
+dollar to two dollars for No. 1 quality, and a dollar for No. 2.
+With the cost of barrels at about forty cents, labor for picking,
+sorting, and packing, these prices leave little or nothing for the
+use of the land, cost of fertilizers, spraying, thinning, etc., all
+of which are necessary for growing fruit of the best quality."
+
+Holmes further says, in substance, that we must make the trees grow
+vigorously, whether upon poor or good soil. Growth is the first
+requirement. To do this, we need a strong, deep, moist soil,--good
+grass land well underdrained makes the best. If this is on an
+elevation with a northern or western exposure, it will be better
+than a southern or an eastern one. While apple trees will grow on a
+thin soil, so much care and fertilizing is required that the crop
+will be of little or no profit upon such land. Lastly, we must
+protect our fruit from insect and fungous pests.
+
+On land that is free from stones and not too steep, thorough and
+frequent cultivation will give the quickest and largest returns. On
+such land, hoed garden or farm crops may be profitable while the
+trees are small, but after five or six years it will generally be
+found best to cultivate it entirely for the growth of trees. Organic
+matter in the form of stable manure or cover crops will be needed,
+and must be applied in the fall or very early in the spring to keep
+up the supply of humus in the soil.
+
+Stony land that cannot be plowed or cultivated except at a great
+cost may be made to grow good crops of fruit.
+
+While the trees are young, the soil should be worked about them for
+the space of a few feet and then the moisture retained by a mulch
+system, making use of any waste organic matter like straw, leaves,
+meadow hay, brush, and weeds cut before they seed. Most of the first
+prize apples at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo were grown
+under the "turf-culture" system.
+
+Unless you have trees already on your land, it is too long to wait
+six or seven years for a crop. We can graft good fruit on almost any
+tree, though the new dwarf trees will bear much sooner, and if we
+have trees we need not even wait for the harvest of our crop, since
+the windfalls will keep us in apple sauce, jellies, and pies, for no
+apple is too green for apple sauce, not even the ones that the boys
+can't bite.
+
+The greatest difficulty in the profitable growth of the apple is the
+market. Much of the profit in apple growing, whether in the East or
+the West, will depend upon the extent of the business done,
+especially if one is a considerable distance from markets. The above
+are the essentials noted by this practical scientist. Next to the
+apple crop, perhaps the most important fruit crop for shipping is
+the peach. The locality is perhaps the most important consideration
+in a peach orchard. In the Eastern and Southern states, and in
+Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, and, of
+late years, Georgia, peaches flourish and produce enormous crops. As
+a general rule, the nearer the orchard is to large bodies of water,
+the more likely one is to get a crop, as the temperature of the
+water prevents a too early budding out in the spring and delays
+killing autumn frosts.
+
+Generally speaking, a sandy, porous soil is best for peaches, but
+they may be raised on clay lands if provided with plenty of humus.
+
+Another fruit which is profitable in districts suited to its growth
+is the grape. Bulletin No. 153, Cornell Experiment Station, says:
+"Grapes are a dessert fruit. They are not used to a large extent in
+the kitchen (though they might be), so there are few incidental or
+secondary products; that is, they are not dried, canned, made into
+jellies, and the like, to any extent, that is, in the United States.
+
+The grape is peculiarly a sectional product. Central New York has a
+large area devoted to it. In northern Ohio, a strip along Lake Erie,
+and some of its islands, are devoted almost exclusively to grape
+vineyards. In districts where grapes are intensively grown, a great
+part of the crop is used for wine, and American wine is extensively
+sold m our home markets, although it frequently has foreign labels.
+
+Any one purchasing a farm should plant some grapevines for home use.
+Grape juice is easily made and kept and is a pleasing beverage.
+Grape jelly is excellent and could be readily marketed in any nearby
+town, since there is very little, comparatively, on sale. A grape
+arbor gives shade, needs little care, and can be planted near the
+house where it will not interfere with the crops. For you cannot
+cultivate all of your land; some grassy space must be left around
+the house if only for drying clothes. But if ground is scarce, vines
+or lima beans can be trained up the back porch or up the sunny side
+of the house; or a few climbing nasturtiums will give decorations
+without care, while the young leaves make a good salad.
+
+Of home orchard fruits, the plum, pear, and quince are all
+profitable specialties, especially for intensive acre raising. In
+general, the same remark may be made of them as of the other fruits,
+that they need careful selection of land to get the best results.
+The cherry has recently come to be recognized as a good commercial
+specialty. Mr. George T. Powell, in _The American Agriculturist,
+_says: "The crop is a precarious one to market.... The risk and loss
+may be largely reduced by making a proper selection of site for the
+orchard. This should be on high ground where the air generally
+circulates freely. This is especially necessary for sweet varieties.
+The soil should be rich, with naturally good drainage."
+
+He says: "I have had Rockport trees produce four hundred pounds each
+and the fruit net ten cents a pound for the entire crop. The English
+Morello trees may be grown fifteen feet apart each way, which will
+allow two hundred trees to the acre. The larger trees ought to be
+planted somewhat thinner.... Cherries are packed largely in
+eight-pound baskets and in strawberry quarts. Each basket is filled
+with carefully assorted fruit, every imperfect specimen being taken
+out, after which they are faced by placing the stems downward so
+that the cherry shows in regular rows upon the face. Girls and women
+do this work. The Eastern fruit grower must bear in mind that he has
+to meet in his market the competition of the Pacific coast growers,
+who excel in fine packing; and although our Eastern grown cherries
+are of a finer flavor, they are sent to the market in such a crude
+manner and in such unattractive condition that they sell for much
+less than the California fruit."
+
+Regarding bush berries, he says, you will get a small crop the
+second year after planting and for the third and subsequent years a
+full crop. The important thing is to keep the dead canes well pruned
+out, as the cane borer is one of the worst insect pests. When they
+appear they can be stopped by cutting off the shoot several inches
+below the puncture as soon as it begins to droop, and burning the
+part cut off. Again, Mr. Powell says, "Currants require rich soil.
+A clay or heavy loam is better than a heavy dry soil. They should be
+planted in the fall. The average from ten thousand bushes should be
+about four quarts each. The cherry currant is perhaps the largest in
+size, but not so prolific as some others. Currants are shipped and
+sold in thirty-two quart crates and have to be carefully packed to
+get to market in good condition."
+
+Gooseberries are raised by the acre. Mr. A. M. Brown, Kent County,
+Delaware, in _The American Agriculturist, _tells of a plantation in
+Central Delaware where over twenty four thousand pounds were
+gathered from a scant four acres. The product was sold to the
+Baltimore canners for six cents a pound, making $1440 in all. In
+addition to the gooseberries grown on six acres, a large crop each
+of apples and pears were grown on the same ground. Like currants,
+the gooseberry must be sprayed to destroy the worms, and cut back
+and burnt to destroy the cane borer.
+
+There is little special knowledge required, however, in raising this
+fruit, and it is well adapted for growers with small acreage and
+little money.
+
+In going into the cultivation of bush fruits, it is usually best to
+grow them in great variety near the market where they are to be
+sold. The bush fruits are then uniformly profitable. In _Suburban
+Life _Mr. E. C. Powell tells us that the spring is the best time for
+planting raspberries and blackberries, just as soon as the ground is
+dry enough to work. The first season the plots should be well
+tilled. It is possible to grow vegetables between the rows the first
+year before the berries begin to bear, but unless pressed for space,
+it probably doesn't pay.
+
+Perhaps the best of small fruits, however, and most largely used is
+the strawberry. The strawberry can be planted by the acre. The
+ground must be rich loam and plenty of humus, well drained, with a
+southern exposure. Well-grown plants set out in the open will bear a
+small crop the first season, but will not become of maximum bearing
+till the second year. After the crop is taken off in the fall a
+mulch of straw or leaves should be placed over the plants to protect
+them during the winter. The strawberries are picked by boys and
+girls.
+
+The strawberry is an exceedingly profitable crop if properly
+handled, and is one of the best small fruits for people with little
+capital. While the price in the general market varies from fifteen
+to thirty cents per quart, they sometimes run as high as fifty in
+the early spring; yet it is possible to grow strawberries worth six
+dollars a quart by intensive culture in greenhouses. Mr. S. W.
+Fletcher, in _Country Life in America, _says: "The forcing of
+strawberries is a specialized industry of the highest type.
+Everybody cannot make it pay everywhere.... Strawberries are forced
+in pots or in benches. The pot method is preferred by those who find
+a demand for the highest quality of fruit regardless of expense....
+If fruit is desired for Christmas, the plants are not checked to any
+extent, but are kept in continuous growth. The conditions of
+springtime are simulated as far as possible. At Christmas time a
+quart box of forced Marshall strawberries sells at from one-fifty to
+eight dollars per quart, averaging about four dollars."
+
+Our most valuable allies against the insect armies are toads, bats,
+wasps, dragon flies, and birds; they enjoy the battle.
+
+There cannot be too many toads or bats. Toads will eat all sorts of
+flies, potato bugs, squash bugs, rose bugs, caterpillars, and almost
+anything that crawls.
+
+If the wasps become a nuisance, it is easy to poison them; but the
+birds are often a nuisance--the robins eat the strawberries and
+cherries the instant they are ripe. They soon get used to
+scarecrows; and to cover the fruit with nets gives the insects a
+free hand. Some growers raise sweet cherries or other fruits
+specially to feed up the birds so that they will let the rest alone.
+Early rising and a plenty of cats is about the best remedy. A man,
+or even a woman, working on the land is the best scarecrow.
+
+There are a few other fruits that grow wild in certain sections and
+are gathered and sent to market. Among these the cranberry is the
+most important. It grows in nearly inaccessible bogs, principally in
+New Jersey, and the usual custom is for owners of land on which
+there are cranberry bogs to let out the bog to pickers on a
+percentage basis. Cranberries can be cultivated, and there is a
+considerable profit in the business. The swampy nature of the ground
+needed, however, will deter all except the most persistent from this
+industry. Some cranberry bogs bring as high as a thousand dollars an
+acre.
+
+The blueberry or huckleberry, or, as we call it in Ireland, the
+bilberry, or frohen, grows wild in the northerly states, and is much
+sought after in the market. Many efforts have been made to grow the
+blueberry commercially; but, as is well said by Mr. J. H. Hale in
+the _Rural New Yorker,_ "The blueberry proved to be a good deal like
+Indians--it would not stand civilization, and was never
+satisfactory, although I monkeyed with it for a period of about ten
+years." Mr. Fred W. Card, of Rhode Island, in the same issue reports
+a similar experience. With our present knowledge of the blueberry,
+it is doubtful if it can be made a commercially cultivated crop.
+Lately, however, it is claimed that it can be grown in very poor,
+non-nitrogenous soil.
+
+A variety, however, called the Garden Blueberry, gives almost
+incredible yields, five bushels being reported from sixty plants. It
+keeps all winter _on the branches, _if stored in a cellar, and is of
+fine flavor and especially good for preserves. A little frost
+improves it.
+
+But wild berries, crab apples, and elderberries and others, are good
+to preserve and find a ready sale if attractively put up; they also
+help out tile table greatly. Then think of the fun!
+
+In recent years, certain varieties of nuts, like the English walnut,
+the pecan, and the hickory nuts have been grown commercially. In the
+South particularly, the pecan has been found a good crop to plant on
+cotton plantations which have been overworked. In the _Rural New
+Yorker, _Mr. H. E. Vandevan gives an account of an old cotton
+plantation of 2250 acres Iying on the west bank of the Mississippi
+River in Louisiana. The pecan tree was indigenous to the land, and
+the wooded portion of the plantation has thousands of giant pecan
+trees growing on it. The previous owners of this plantation had done
+all in their power to destroy these trees, but they flourished in
+spite of that. Mr. Vandevan, however, saw in the pecan a large
+profit, and he has planted ten thousand trees on six hundred acres,
+all in a solid block. The trees are set fifty feet apart both ways,
+except where a roadway is left. Between the pecan trees Mr. Vandevan
+has planted fig trees for early returns, with the intention of
+canning the fruit.
+
+The English walnut is grown principally in California. Its value has
+been recognized only recently, as all of the nut crops take a good
+many years before the trees begin to bear. Nut growing on a small
+scale is not of much value to a man with a little bit of land,
+except as an additional source of income.
+
+If you find a sweet chestnut tree or a shell-bark hickory or two in
+your wood lot, they will well repay protection and careful
+cultivation.
+
+If you don't, why--there are great promises in quick maturing nut
+trees. There is now an English walnut which is claimed to bear the
+third or even the second year after setting out. My own small
+experience with these in New Jersey, however, has not been a
+success.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+FLOWERS
+
+
+
+
+
+Every city in the United States affords an opportunity for flower
+gardening and nurseries, but a study must be made of the market in
+order to know what is best to raise and where to raise it.
+
+The choice of crops depends on the popular taste. The flowers which
+are now in greatest demand are the rose, carnation, violet, and
+chrysanthemum.
+
+Near every large city there are hundreds of florists with glass
+houses, some covering twenty acres or more. There were over 2000
+acres of flower land under glass reported at the last census. As
+almost all industries to-day are specialized, so is floriculture; in
+one place we see ten acres of glass given over to the rose, in
+another thousands of dollars devoted to the carnation or the violet,
+while one grower in Queens, Long Island, has 75,000 square feet of
+glass for carnations.
+
+The specialist who devotes his thoughts and energies to raising one
+flower can produce better results than if he raised a variety. He
+has only one crop to market, and can do it more successfully than
+with a number of crops. If he raises enough to make himself a factor
+in the market, he can sell direct instead of sending his product to
+a commission man, thereby receiving better prices.
+
+Little capital is required to start; intelligent effort is the road
+to success. Very few, indeed, who are now leaders in floriculture,
+started with more than $500 capital, and many with much less. One of
+the largest growers of roses in the United States, whose plant
+covers more than ten acres, did not have $500 when he started, and
+many others not so well known are making handsome livings and have
+accumulated thousands of dollars of property from a start of less
+than $500.
+
+But practical knowledge is much more necessary than in raising
+vegetables, as small mistakes will have more serious results.
+Therefore, if you have some capital and wish to go into flower
+raising, it will pay you, if circumstances permit, to hire out to a
+florist, even at small wages, till you have learned the
+business--even though you have raised flowers successfully in a home
+garden.
+
+Mr. Frank Hamilton, manager of C. W. Ward's of Queens, tells of at
+least a dozen men, who have been in their employ during his
+twenty-five years' experience, some of whom got only twenty dollars
+a month at first, and afterwards started in a small way for
+themselves, who are now making a substantial living.
+
+Although the market depends largely on the wealthy class in the
+large cities, many florists devote considerable time and space to
+flowers which are bought by the poorer class of city dwellers who
+have no space or time to raise their own.
+
+There are always good markets somewhere for the crop, and it is not
+an uncommon thing to ship flowers from New York to Chicago, Buffalo,
+Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, or vice versa. The
+chances of success for a lover of flowers are better in this
+business than in any in which one with a like amount of capital can
+engage. If the business at first is not large enough to use all his
+time he will find no trouble in securing employment in his immediate
+vicinity. There are always some who want such a person to care for
+their lawns or to give some time to their conservatories.
+
+In the last ten years the business has doubled, and while many have
+gone into it, the profit they are making indicates that supply has
+not kept pace with demand, and that it is not likely to be overdone
+the near future.
+
+Professor B. T. Galloway, in an article in _The World's Work, _says,
+"An acre of soil under glass pays fifty times as much as an acre
+outdoors. There are annually sold in this country six to seven
+million dollars' worth of carnation flowers There are no less than
+eight to ten million square feet of glass in the United States
+devoted to this flower alone."
+
+Although Mr. Rockefeller's place at Tarrytown is the largest
+competitor in the New York market for violets, there is no local
+monopoly in that, and the local producer with personal attention can
+do well.
+
+In the _Country Gentleman _an account is given of a violet farm on
+the north shore of Illinois, where two women are supplying local
+florists.. One of them says: "We started our farm last spring in the
+face of most discouraging prophecies from our friends and the
+keenest competition of violet growers of New York. But we believed
+we could be successful. We had studied the best scientific methods
+of growing the plants, had imported the best soil obtainable, and
+built a greenhouse fully adapted to our needs, so we just went ahead
+and we found it to be a paying proposition.
+
+"Our first experiment was in using cuttings from the violet farm of
+a lady at Lansing, Michigan, who has been a most successful grower.
+These did not thrive, and we next imported 3000 cuttings from the
+Tarrytown neighborhood, where violet culture has been most
+successful.
+
+"The first rule is to keep the temperature of the greenhouse between
+forty-five and fifty degrees. Violets are spring flowers, and wither
+and droop if the temperature is not at the right degree. Most people
+think the double violets have no fragrance because most of those
+that we get lose their fragrance in transit.
+
+"We supply 2000 flowers a week, and as they reach our patrons within
+two or three hours at the most from the time of cutting, they retain
+their fragrance. They are also larger and of a deeper color than the
+New York flowers. Next year we hope to go in on a much larger scale.
+
+"While the work is not hard, it requires infinite care and vigilance
+when the little plants are growing. As a career for a woman, violet
+growing offers greater inducements than anything I can think of."
+
+Then, surely, others can succeed in other flowers at other places.
+While there is little choice between the standard styles of
+greenhouses for violets, there should be abundant provision for
+supplying fresh air, either from the sides or top, whichever is
+chosen. The system of ventilation should admit of operation either
+from the inside or the outside of the house, as fumigation with
+hydrocyanic acid gas is sometimes necessary, in the fumes of which
+it is impossible to enter, unless with a gas mask.
+
+The arrangement of the house should secure the greatest possible
+supply of sunshine in December and January, and the least possible
+during the growing season, when, as Miss Howard points out, it is
+necessary to secure as low a temperature as possible, so as to
+obtain good, vigorous, healthy-growing plants. The best site is a
+level piece of ground, or one sloping gently to the south.
+
+Of the diseases to which cultivated violets are subject Mr. P. H.
+Dorsett, of the Department of Agriculture, names four as especially
+dangerous: Spot disease, producing whitish spots on the foliage;
+root rot, apt to attack young plants transplanted in hot, dry
+weather; wet rot, a fungus apt to appear in too moist air or where
+ventilation is insufficient; and yellowing, of the cause of which
+little is known. Any of these diseases is difficult to exterminate
+when it once gains a foothold. The best thing to do is to get
+strong, vigorous cuttings, and then to give careful attention to
+watering, cultivation, and ventilation, and the destruction of dead
+and dying leaves and all runners as fast as they appear.
+
+Among insect enemies, the aphids, red spiders, eel worms, gall
+flies, and slugs may be mentioned. Most of these can be easiest
+controlled by hydrocyanic acid gas treatment.
+
+Chrysanthemums, especially of preternatural size and bizarre
+colors--the college colors at football games, for instance--are in
+great demand. They are extremely decorative, and their remarkable
+lasting quality insures their permanent popularity. I have heard
+that the unexpanded bud can be cooked like cauliflower for the
+table; but we have not learned to use them in that way. In Japan and
+China the leaves of the chrysanthemum are esteemed as a salad. One
+attempt has been made by English gardeners to introduce this use of
+them into England, but it was unsuccessful.
+
+The annual shows of chrysanthemums and of roses indicate the
+importance of the business.
+
+It is not generally known, but the poppies are coming into favor for
+cut flowers in spite of the fact that they do not keep very well.
+Miss Edith Granger avoids this difficulty, as she explains in the
+_Garden Magazine,_ "by picking off all blooms that have not already
+lost their petals in the evening, so that in the morning all the
+open flowers will be new ones. These are cut as early as possible,
+even while the dew is still upon them, and plunged immediately into
+deep water."
+
+You need not be discouraged by the low prices at which flowers,
+especially violets and roses, are often offered in the streets.
+Those flowers are the discarded stock or delayed shipments of the
+swell florists. You will find that those flowers are fading, or
+revived with salt, and will not keep.
+
+That they are so peddled, shows that everybody, at hotels, dinners,
+funerals, weddings, in the home, and the young men for the young
+women, want flowers, the loveliest things ever made without souls.
+We have only to supply such a want to find our place in life.
+
+As a side line the common flowers will bring good prices;
+mignonette, bachelor buttons, cosmos, and even nasturtiums, which
+you can't keep from growing if you just stick the seed in the
+ground, or lilies of the valley, which you can hardly get rid of
+once they start, never go begging, if they are fresh.
+
+A favorite flower with many is the sweet pea, which can be grown out
+of doors in the summer time where you have a good depth and quality
+of soil.
+
+I have seen May blossoms and autumn leaves on the branch and even
+goldenrod brought into town and sold at good prices.
+
+Enterprises often look attractive at a distance; for instance,
+raising orchids, especially as some of the flowers remain on the
+plants ready for market for weeks and bring high prices. But to ship
+flowers at a profit they must be in quantities, else the expenses
+eat up the returns, and they must be shipped with considerable
+regularity, else you lose your customers. To get such a supply of
+orchids would take a very large capital and involve so much labor
+that it is doubtful if more than good interest could be realized on
+it.
+
+Many florists make money by keeping constantly on hand ferns, palms,
+and other plants like rubber trees, which they rent out for social
+functions, weddings, and other occasions. Most florists in the
+larger cities have also quite a thriving business in tree planting,
+which is everywhere on the increase. A highly specialized department
+of horticulture is that of raising young trees and plants to sell
+for improving grounds, planting orchards, or similar uses. The
+nursery business bears much the same relation to the commercial
+florist or orchardist as seed growing does to the market gardener.
+
+Certain communities, through favorable soil or climate, are best
+adapted to the production of nursery stock. Consequently, one finds
+this industry most highly developed in scattered localities. It is
+true that people with small capital should not tackle a business so
+technical as this.
+
+The business of bulb production is another highly specialized
+department. In certain sections of Holland large areas of the rich
+lowlands are given over to bulbs of various kinds of lilies, nearly
+all of which are propagated in that manner. To attain perfection, at
+least in the North, most bulbs require deep, rich, warm, and highly
+manured soils; and assiduous attention at every stage. In many plant
+specialties, the gardeners of Europe still far surpass our own,
+because conditions there have forced them to make use of every
+available means to increase production. The immense price that
+European gardeners have to pay for land has been a most potent
+factor in forcing them to seek out and apply the most ingenious
+forcing methods. The time is upon us here in America also when we
+must find out the highest use of land and apply it to that use.
+
+As the aesthetic qualities of our people become more highly
+developed, the business of raising flowers must become of increasing
+importance, and will readily reward any one who goes into it
+conscientiously. Flower growing is peculiarly adapted to women,
+since the work is light There are few disagreeable features, unless
+it be the handling of the manure incidental to the best results.
+
+Still, the enjoyments of agriculture depend upon individual tastes.
+I have seen "lady gardeners" picking strawberries with the footman
+holding up an umbrella to screen them from the sun.
+
+Some women would like that, some not.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+DRUG PLANTS
+
+
+
+
+
+A source of profit from land to which little attention has been
+given in the United States is collecting or raising plants, some
+part of which may be used for medicinal purposes. We condense from
+Farmers' Bulletin No. 188, United States Department of Agriculture:
+
+Certain well-known weeds are sources of crude drugs at present
+obtained wholly or in part from abroad. Roots, leaves, and flowers
+of several of the species most detrimental in the United States are
+gathered, cured, and used in Europe, and supply much of the demands
+of foreign lands. Some of these plants are in many states subject to
+anti-weed laws, and farmers are required to take measures toward
+their extermination.
+
+The prices paid for crude drugs from these sources save in war time
+are not great and would rarely tempt any one to this work as a
+business. Yet if in ridding the farm of weeds and thus raising the
+value of the land the farmer can at the same time make these pests
+the source of a small income instead of a dead loss, something is
+gained.
+
+One rather alluring fact contained in an article by Dr. True, is
+that a shortage has become keenly felt in "Golden Seal," which the
+early American settlers learned from the Indians to use as a
+curative for sore and inflamed eyes, as well as for sore mouth. The
+plant grows in patches in high open woods, and was formerly found in
+great abundance in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia, but
+is now so rare that its price has risen from thirty-five cents
+wholesale in 1898 to over seventy-five cents a pound. Persons in
+different parts of the country have undertaken the production of
+Golden Seal on a commercial scale. More than six hundred dollars'
+worth can be grown on an acre: so a crop this year would be a
+fortune. The methods of raising it can be ascertained upon
+application to the Department of Agriculture.
+
+Ginseng is one of the drug crops which paid handsome returns a few
+years ago, perhaps because it takes from five to seven years to grow
+from seeds; but so many went into that line that few men to-day make
+anything at it. Furthermore, the Chinese, who use a large part of
+it, will buy only the wild roots--and they know the difference.
+Those who control the trade have burned quantities in the effort to
+keep up the price.
+
+There are some drug plants which might be raised with success by
+those who would specialize in one plant, but the lesson we learn
+from ginseng should act as a warning.
+
+Raising drugs is one of those things that seems to be more
+profitable to teach others to do than to do yourself. A well known
+Professor said to me: "If I were twenty-five and knew what I know
+about drugs and the market for them, I should go into the
+drug-raising business. But I should expect to lose money for some
+years. If I were a small clerk, say, or an old man who wanted to get
+out of city life, and I had $500 I really wanted to venture in drug
+raising, I should divide it in half--half I should put in the bank
+and the other half I should throw into the Hudson River. Then I
+should be sure of $250 instead of being drawn on to spend it all."
+
+"Most of the people who have been in the business, notably the
+Shakers, who used to do the most of it, are gradually getting out of
+it. The few men who make money raising drugs keep it to themselves."
+
+In many cases when weeds have been dug the work of handling and
+curing them is not excessive and can readily be done by women and
+children.
+
+Too much emphasis cannot be placed upon the importance of carefully
+and thoroughly drying all crude drugs, whether roots, herbs, leaves,
+barks, flowers, or seeds, and putting them under cover at nightfall.
+If poorly dried, they will heat and become moldy in shipping, and
+the collector will find his goods rejected by the dealer and have
+all his trouble for nothing. Leaves, herbs, and flowers should never
+be washed.
+
+It is important also to collect in proper season only, as drugs
+collected out of season are unmarketable on account of inferior
+medicinal qualities, and there will also be a greater shrinkage in a
+root dug during the growing season than when it is collected after
+growth has ceased.
+
+The roots of annual plants should be dug in the autumn of the first
+year just before the flowering period, and those of biennial and
+perennial plants in the fall of the second or third year, after the
+tops have dried.
+
+After the roots have been dug the soil should be well shaken from
+them, and all foreign particles, such as dirt, roots, and parts of
+other plants, should be removed. If the roots cannot be sufficiently
+cleared of soil by shaking, they should be thoroughly washed in
+clean water. Drugs must look wholesome at least. It does not pay to
+be careless in this matter. The soil increases the weight of the
+roots, but the purchaser is not willing to pay by weight for dirt,
+and grades the uncleaned or mixed drugs accordingly. It is the
+bright, natural looking root, leaf, or plant that will bring a good
+price.
+
+After washing, the roots should be carefully dried by exposing them
+to light and air, on racks or shelves, or on clean well-ventilated
+barn floors, or lofts. They should be spread out thinly and turned
+occasionally from day to day until completely cured. When this point
+is reached, in perhaps three to six weeks, the roots will snap
+readily when bent. If dried out of doors they should be placed under
+shelter at night and upon the approach of rain.
+
+Some roots require slicing and removing fibrous rootless. In
+general, large roots should be split or sliced when green in order
+to facilitate drying.
+
+Barks of trees should be gathered in spring, when the sap begins to
+flow, but may also be peeled in winter. In the case of the coarser
+barks (as elm, hemlock, poplar, oak, pine, and wild cherry) the
+outer layer is shaved off before the bark is removed from the tree,
+which process is known as "rossing." Only the inner bark of these
+trees is used medicinally. Barks may also be cured by exposure to
+sunlight, but moisture must be avoided.
+
+Leaves and herbs should be collected when the plants are in full
+flower. The whole plant may be cut and the leaves may be stripped
+from it, rejecting the coarse and large stems as much as possible,
+and keeping only the flowering tops and more tender stems and
+leaves.
+
+Both leaves and herbs should be spread out in thin layers on clean
+floors, racks, or shelves, in the shade, but where there is free
+circulation of air, and turned frequently until thoroughly dry.
+Moisture will darken them.
+
+Flowers are collected when they first open or immediately after, not
+when they are beginning to fade. Seeds should be gathered just as
+they are ripening, before the seed pods open, and should be winnowed
+in order to remove fragments of stems, leaves, and shriveled
+specimens.
+
+The collector should be sure that the plant is the right one. Many
+plants closely resemble one another, and some "yarbs," contrary to
+the popular impression, are deadly poison--nightshade (belladonna)
+and the wild variety of parsnips, for instance. Therefore, where any
+doubt exists, send a specimen of the entire plant, including leaves,
+flowers, and fruits, to a drug dealer or to the nearest state
+experiment station for identification.
+
+Samples representative of the lot of drugs to be sold should be sent
+to the nearest commission merchant, or drug store, for inspection
+and for quotation on the amount of drug that can be furnished, or
+for information as to where to send the article.
+
+In writing to the different dealers for information and for prices,
+which vary greatly, it should be stated how much of a particular
+drug can be furnished and how soon this can be supplied, and postage
+should always be inclosed for reply. The collector should bear in
+mind that freight is an important item, and it is best, therefore,
+to address the dealers accessible to the place of production. The
+package containing the sample should be plainly marked with contents
+and the name and address of the sender. When ready for shipment
+crude drugs may be tightly packed in burlap or gunny sacks, or in
+dry, clean barrels.
+
+Burdock root brings from three to eight cents per pound, and seed
+five to ten cents. About fifty thousand pounds of the root is
+imported annually, and the best has come from Belgium. Of dock
+roots, about 125,000 pounds are imported annually, at from two to
+eight cents.
+
+The field for the sale of dandelion root is large.
+
+Of couch grass, the roots of which cause much profanity in this
+country, there are some 250,000 pounds annually imported at from
+three to seven cents per pound.
+
+A common weed with which there is a considerable trouble is the
+pokeweed, the root of which brings from two to five cents per pound
+and the dried berries five cents per pound.
+
+Forty to sixty thousand pounds of foxglove are imported from Europe.
+Analysis has shown that the leaves of the wild American foxglove are
+as good as the European article, the price of which per pound ranges
+from six to eight cents.
+
+Of mullein flowers about five thousand pounds used to be imported,
+chiefly from Germany. The leaves are also imported.
+
+Dried leaves and tops of lobelia bring from three to eight cents per
+pound, while the seed commands fifteen to twenty cents per pound.
+
+Of tansy about thirty-five thousand pounds have been imported
+annually at a price rallying from three to six cents.
+
+The flowering tops and leaves of the gum plant are used as drug.
+They bring from five to twelve cents per pound.
+
+Boneset leaves and tops bring from two to eight cents per pound.
+Catnip tops and leaves two to eight cents per pound.
+
+Of horehound about 125,000 pounds are imported annually, prices
+being three to eight cents per pound.
+
+Blessed thistle is cultivated in Germany, and it is imported to a
+limited extent.
+
+Yarrow is a weed common from the New England states to Missouri. It
+is imported in small quantities, and brings from two to five cents
+per pound.
+
+Canada fleabane brings from six to eight cents per pound. Of
+jimsonweed, leaves are imported, from 100,000 to 150,000 pounds
+annually, and 10,000 pounds of seed. Leaves bring two and one half
+to eight cents per pound, and seeds from three to seven cents per
+pound.
+
+Of poison hemlock, seeds are imported from ten to twenty thousand
+pounds annually. Price for the seed is three cents per pound, for
+the leaves about four cents. The flowers are also used.
+
+The American wormseed has been naturalized from tropical America to
+New England; the seed commands from six to eight cents per pound;
+the oil distilled from this seed brings one dollar and a half per
+pound.
+
+Black mustard, which is a troublesome weed in almost every state in
+the Union, is nevertheless imported in enormous quantities, the
+total imports of the seeds of the black and white mustard amounting
+annually to over five million pounds, the prices being from three to
+six cents per pound. All these prices and quantities were before the
+war and may greatly change after it.
+
+In studying the wild drug plants, one may learn the immense variety
+of field salads and greens. On a visit to the Spirit Fruit Society
+at Ingleside, Illinois, one of the girls took me out to gather wild
+vegetables for dinner. We pulled up about a dozen varieties out of
+the corners of a field; two or three of the nice looking ones that I
+gathered the young lady threw out, saying she did not know them; but
+it seemed to me that she took almost anything that was not too
+tough. The following are commonly used as salads: Dandelion, yellow
+racket, purslane (pusley), watercress, nasturtium; and the following
+as greens for cooking: narrow or sour dock, stinging nettle,
+pokeweed, pigweed or lamb's quarters, black mustard. Young milkweed
+is better than spinach, and also makes an excellent salad. Probably
+all the salad leaves could be cooked to advantage. Rhubarb leaves
+and horseradish tops are garden greens usually neglected most
+unfairly
+
+Osage Orange _(maclura aurantiaca) _s generally supposed to be
+poison, and is described in Webster's dictionary as "a hard and
+inedible fruit," but I have found one kind, at least, superior to
+quinces.
+
+Capsicum or red pepper, licorice (the imports of which have all been
+in the hands of one person), camphor, belladonna, henbane, and
+stramonium are possible fields for culture; but they are all
+experiments.
+
+If you are growing poppies for the flowers it might be worth while
+to gather some opium, especially if the new process succeeds in
+separating morphine directly from the plant.
+
+Caraway seeds, anise, coreander, and sage are common garden plants
+that may be sold as drugs.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+NOVEL LIVE STOCK
+
+
+
+
+
+Occasionally we hear stories of the wealth which is being made on a
+frog farm here or there. But as a rule little commercial success has
+attended attempts in this direction.
+
+The difficulty lies in feeding them. A single frog can be fed by
+dangling a piece of meat before it, but it would be impossible to
+feed thousands this way. There are so many enemies that few tadpoles
+become adult frogs; besides, the frog is a cannibal and will eat not
+only the larvae or eggs, but the tadpoles and young frogs as well.
+
+Frog culture is successful in some places where ponds are large
+enough to be partitioned, separating the tadpoles and young frogs
+from the old ones, and where insects are abundant enough to supply
+food naturally for them. Near San Francisco there are a number of
+frog ranches. Even in 1903, according to Mary Heard in _Out West,
+_one ranch sold to San Francisco markets 2600 dozen frogs' legs,
+netting $1800. This was considered poor. Frogs' legs are sold to
+hotels and restaurants, and bring in New York, according to size and
+season, from fifty cents to a dollar a pound.
+
+Tons of frogs come to New York markets each year from Canada,
+Michigan, and from the South and West. Few people outside of the
+cities eat them. The United States Fish Commissioners reported the
+product in one year: Arkansas, 58,800 lb., valued at $4162; Indiana,
+24,000 lb., valued at $5026; Ohio, 14,000 lb., valued at $2340;
+Vermont, 5500 lb., valued at $825, etc.--a total of $22,953.
+
+The enormous and increasing prices of large diamond backed turtles,
+and the cheapness of little ones shows that maturing, at least, if
+not actually breeding them, would be well worth investigation. Many
+wealthy New Yorkers send direct to Maryland for their supplies.
+Where turtle meat is bottled or canned, the snapping turtle and the
+common box tortoise are sometimes used as "substitutes." Both are
+capital eating.
+
+The carp is one of the most excellent fresh water fish, and is of
+great value on account of the facility of culture and the enormous
+extent to which this is carried on. "In Europe some artificial ponds
+comprise an area of no less than 20,000 acres, and the proceeds
+amount to about 500,000 pounds of carp per annum." (Hessel, in "Carp
+and Its Culture.")
+
+It attains the weight of three to four pounds in three years without
+artificial feeding, and much more under more favorable conditions.
+It lives to a great age and continues to grow all the while.
+
+"In Europe it is common to see carp weighing from thirty to forty
+pounds and more, measuring nearly three and one half feet in length
+and two and three quarters feet in circumference."
+
+It lives on vegetable food, insects, larvae, and worms, and will not
+attack other fishes or their spawn. It is easy to raise, and,
+provided certain general rules are followed, success will attend its
+culture.
+
+The localities best adapted to a carp pond are those in which there
+is sufficient water at hand for the summer as well as the winter. A
+mud or loam soil is best adapted for such a pond. A rocky, gravelly
+ground is not suited for carp; the water should be the same depth
+all the year, as variation has an injurious effect on the fish.
+
+Carp spawn in the spring. In stocking a pond three females are
+calculated to two males. The females lay a great number of eggs, but
+only a small number are impregnated. The most liberal estimate will
+not exceed from 800 to 1000 to one spawner, the aggregate per acre
+amounting to from 4000 to 5000.
+
+The large cities containing large numbers of Europeans furnish the
+principal markets for carp. The Jewish people will not, as a rule,
+buy carp unless they are alive, so it is not an uncommon thing to
+see fish dealers in the Hebrew quarters pushing through the streets
+carts constructed as tanks and peddling the carp alive.
+
+Some years ago carp ponds were quite a fad among farmers of the
+Central West. Americans have been slow to adopt the German carp as a
+food fish.
+
+Trout, of course, can be raised, and the high prices which they
+bring, both in market and for fishing privileges, make them very
+attractive; but the cold running water needed makes opportunity for
+breeding them with access to a good market generally unavailable to
+owners of five acres.
+
+There is another fish, famous for its eating qualities, which well
+repays effort put upon its production. I refer to the black bass. It
+is indigenous to the waters of the Eastern states, where it is
+usually found in creeks or rivers. It can be successfully bred in
+properly constructed ponds.
+
+Mr. Dwight Lyell, in Forest and Stream, has this to say about a
+breeding place for the small-mouthed black bass. "The pond should be
+six feet deep in the center and two feet around the edge; the bottom
+should be of natural sand; water plants should be growing in
+profusion, particularly such aquatic plants as the Daphnia, Bosmina,
+and the Corix, to furnish food for the young bass. A good size for a
+breeding pond is 100 X 100 feet." For spawning, artificial nest
+frames are built in rectangular form. They are made two feet square
+without bottoms. On two adjoining sides these frames are four inches
+high and on the other two adjoining sides sixteen inches high. These
+frames are made because the bass needs a barrier behind which the
+spawning may be done and which will protect the nest when made. For
+raising the fish to a size large enough for food, ponds can be of
+any convenient size. In order to keep the water in healthful
+condition the pond must be fed by a flowing brook with some
+provision to prevent the water being disturbed by freshets. This can
+usually be arranged by a sluice to carry off the surplus water
+during heavy rains. Black bass raised in shallow ponds will take the
+fly all summer, so that considerable may be made from fishing
+privileges.
+
+In the absence of minnows, which are the food of the bass, they must
+be fed on fresh liver cut in threads like an angle worm to tempt the
+fish. Even then the liver diet must be varied by feeding minnows
+from September until the bass goes into winter quarters. In no other
+way can fertile eggs be assured for the spring hatching. Minnows
+left in the pond all winter will breed and so furnish fry on which
+the young bass can feed tile next summer."
+
+What has been said refers particularly to the small-mouthed black
+bass. The conditions are substantially the same for the
+large-mouthed bass (which grows to a much larger size), except that
+the bottom may be made of Spanish moss imbedded in cement.
+
+There is a growing market for the young bass or fingerlings to stock
+streams and ponds. The relation between the producer of stock fish
+and those who expect to raise bass of a marketable size is about the
+same as exists between the professional seed grower and the market
+gardener. It is much better for the small farmer who has or can make
+an artificial pond to buy his fingerlings from the professional
+breeder, who has facilities which are too elaborate to be duplicated
+on a small scale.
+
+Fish culture, except under government auspices, is little known in
+the United States.
+
+_American Homes and Gardens _has an account of the breeding of
+pheasants, which is of interest. That it is possible to breed
+pheasants, even around an ordinary suburban home, is shown by Mr.
+Homer Davenport, the famous cartoonist, who succeeded in breeding
+and raising some of the choicest pheasants on his place at Morris
+Plains, New Jersey.
+
+A great variety of species are commonly bred, but all of them came
+from China or India. The pheasant can be tamed by careful handling,
+but cats and dogs and other small animals must be kept away. The
+pheasantry should be placed on high, well-drained ground with a
+southern exposure, where the soil is good enough to raise clover,
+oats, and barley. The quarters for pheasants and the management are
+very much like those for fancy chickens. The yard should be inclosed
+by wire netting both on sides and top to keep the birds from
+wandering away; and there should be houses for roosting and breeding
+with nesting quarters attached.
+
+In Central Park, New York, the running space allotted to three or
+four birds is not more than ten by twenty feet, and Mr. George
+Ethelbert Walsh tells of a case where sixty pheasants were kept in
+excellent condition in a house ten by fifty feet, with five yards
+attached, averaging 10 X 25 feet. However, with pheasants, as with
+all the bird family, especially turkeys, the more ground they have
+for ranging the less liable they will be to disease. The chief
+difficulty in breeding game birds like the pheasant is to secure the
+insects, such as flies, maggots, and ant eggs, which are the natural
+food of the young. Sufficient green food like lettuce, turnip tops,
+cabbage, etc., must also be provided. There is always a market at
+fancy prices for more of the matured birds than can possibly be
+supplied.
+
+Some people make money in breeding or training fancy birds like
+canaries, mocking birds, finches, parrots, and so on; but this
+industry can be carried on almost as well in rooms in the city as in
+the country. Specializing on any kind of animal rearing must be gone
+into with extreme caution, because in the breeding of animals there
+are many factors to be dealt with which do not confront the breeder
+of plants. Make haste slowly, and before branching out be sure that
+you master each step in its turn.
+
+An industry which is practically unknown in this country, but which
+flourishes in Burgundy, France, is the raising of snails for food.
+Those who are shocked by this will he surprised to learn that snail
+culture was practiced by the Romans at the time of the Civil War
+between Caesar and Pompey, as Jacques Boyer says in_ American Homes
+and Gardens. _The snail lays from fifty to sixty eggs annually. They
+are deposited in a smooth hole prepared for them in the ground and
+hatched within twenty days. So rapidly do they grow that they are
+ready for market six or eight weeks after hatching. The snail park
+is made by inclosing a plot of damp, limy soil with smooth boards
+coated with tar to prevent the snails climbing out, and held in
+place by outside stakes strong enough to withstand the wind. The
+boards must penetrate the soil to the depth of eight inches at
+least, and at a level with the ground they must have a sort of shelf
+to prevent the snails from burrowing under them. When the snail
+encounters an obstacle in its path, it lays its eggs, sensible
+beast. Ten thousand snails can be raised on a plot of land one
+hundred by two hundred feet. The ground is plowed deeply in the
+spring, the snails are placed on it and covered with from two to
+four inches of moss or straw which is kept damp. They must be fed
+daily with lettuce, cabbage, vine leaves, or grass; as they eat at
+night, they are fed shortly before sunset. Aromatic herbs, like
+mint, parsley, etc., are planted in the inclosure to improve the
+flavor of the snails.
+
+In October, the snails having become fat through the summer, retire
+into their shells, the mouths of which they close with a thin
+gelatinous covering. They are now ready for picking, and are put on
+screens or trays which are piled together in storehouses, where they
+remain several months without food. When the fast has been
+sufficiently prolonged, the shells are brushed up and the snails
+cooked in salt water in a great pot holding about ten thousand. When
+cooked, they are immediately sent to the consumer in wooden boxes
+holding from fifty to two hundred. The business is a very profitable
+one, as the snail is considered a great delicacy by epicures.
+
+Perhaps the silkworm is not exactly in place in a chapter on Novel
+Live Stock. It is at present not much more than an interesting
+experiment, but there will be money in silkworm culture as soon as a
+market for the product is developed. The main difficulty is lack of
+food, as the worm thrives best on the leaf of the white mulberry
+tree. Until a substitute is found, it will be necessary therefore to
+set out young trees, which in two years will bear enough leaves to
+supply food. The labor of silkworm rearing all comes in one month.
+It can be carried on in any large, airy room The eggs are hatched by
+the summer heat, and the worm does not become a heavy eater until
+the last two weeks. It sheds its skin four times, and after the
+final moult it climbs into loose brush prepared for it and spins the
+cocoon. These are then dried and shipped.
+
+At the South, where the climate is well suited for silk culture, an
+obstacle has been found in the unadaptability of the cheap labor,
+particularly colored labor, to the delicate handling, and especially
+winding of the silk from the cocoons.
+
+Many people make money by breeding dogs. Not much land is required
+and very little capital, as kennels can be multiplied as demand
+increases. There is always a profitable market for dogs, and some of
+the lap species, like the King Charles spaniel, bring fabulous
+prices. Hunting dogs, such as setters, pointers, retrievers, really
+require a game country and a practical hunter who can train the
+puppies, to make much of a success of it; with these, if properly
+handled, the business is a safe one, as there is little other
+technical skill required beyond ordinary care, such as is given to
+domestic animals.
+
+Cats are a better venture than dogs because they are sold to women
+who will pay any price for what strikes their fancy. Fashions in
+cats change about as fast as fashions in coats, but cats breed
+faster than coats wear out, so it is quick business.
+
+Just now, coon cats, tortoise-shell cats, and bizarre colors of
+Persian cats are mostly in vogue, but the tailless Manx cat, and
+even freaks like the six-toed cat and Iynx cats always find a ready
+market.
+
+Of course, these can be raised in the city, but if it is done in a
+large enough way to make a living out of it, the Board of Health and
+the neighbors will raise--something else.
+
+Fishing and hunting are primitive industries of which we think only
+in connection with wild land. But every bay and pond and wood will
+supply at least some subsistence or profit to the intelligent
+seeker.
+
+Oysters, clams, crabs, mussels, frogs, and common fish are found in
+abundance in many places, and help out with table expenses. Even
+English sparrows are delicious.
+
+Almost any wild animal is much more wholesome to eat than pork.
+Squirrels and even weasels are cleaner feeders than pigs, and the
+Indians eat them with great relish, while everybody knows the
+keenness of the darkies for "coon." Most snakes are better eating
+than eels and not near so repulsive--when you get used to them.
+
+The woodchuck is a nuisance to the farmer, covering his field with
+loads of subsoil from the burrow and then eating the tender sprouts;
+and the farmer does not know enough to eat his tender corpse, but he
+is good to eat. If a rabbit and a chicken could have young, it would
+taste like a woodchuck
+
+Muskrats, mink, raccoons, and gray and fox squirrels are easily
+trapped; and the skins of those killed in that way find a steady
+market. Skins of poisoned animals do not sell so well, as they are
+rough and dry.
+
+In order to be profitable, these do not need to pay very well in
+proportion to the time they take, since they are hunted as
+recreation and at odd times.
+
+But there is a larger field in raising wild animals, which our
+Western people have not been slow to avail themselves of, and we
+hear of men being prosecuted for breeding wolves, coyotes, and
+bobcats, a kind of lynx, to get the government bounty for the snouts
+or scalps.
+
+In a legitimate way profit may be had from such animals.
+
+Ernest Thompson Seton has an article in _Country Life in America,
+_on raising fur-bearing animals for profit; this offers a good
+chance for small capital and large intelligence. He suggests the
+beaver, mink, otter, skunk, and marten, and says that whoever would
+begin fur farming is better off with five acres than with five
+hundred. He describes two fox ranches at Dover, Maine. They raise
+twenty to forty silver foxes a year, on a little more than half an
+acre of land. The silver fox's fur is one of the most valuable on
+the market and sells at an average of $150 a pelt, that is, $3000 to
+$6000 gross for the year's work. Foxes are not expensive to breed,
+their food consisting chiefly of sour milk and cornmeal or flour
+made into a cake, and a little meat about once a week.
+
+The capital required is small. A fence for the inclosure should be
+of one and a half inch mesh No. 16 galvanized wire, ten feet high,
+with an overhang of eighteen inches to keep the foxes from escaping,
+and is about the only outlay except for purchase of stock.
+
+Stakes should be driven close to the fence to keep them from
+burrowing out.
+
+They are naturally clean animals, and with careful attention are
+free from disease. Mr. Stevens reports that in his two years'
+experience he has had twenty to thirty foxes and lost none by
+disease, while Mr. Norton, with five years' experience, carrying
+thirty to forty, reports that one to two die each year.
+
+They breed as well in captivity as in their wild state, usually
+bringing forth a litter of six or seven in the spring. These breed
+the following spring and their fur is ready for market the following
+December. And now breeders sell fine stock to other breeders who are
+entering the industry, sometimes getting three to four hundred
+dollars per pair. Mr. Seton remarks, "I am satisfied that any man
+who has made a success of hens can make a success of foxes, with
+this advantage for the latter a fox requires no more space or care
+than a hen, but is worth twenty times as much, and so gives a chance
+for returns twenty times as large."
+
+This is an infant industry, but if others can get the same results,
+it will pay handsomely. To get the best furs, however, requires a
+district where the winters are cold and long.
+
+There are a few skunk farms in the West. It is said that the scent
+gland can be taken out, though that is not necessary, and that the
+farms do well. Their oil is also said to be valuable. But while
+skunks are so common there cannot be much in breeding them.
+
+If your fancy goes to "critters" rather than crops it is much better
+to raise game birds. Wild turkeys raised under a hen or in an
+incubator and made pretty tame (if too tame they do not thrive so
+well in a small area), "wild" ducks, grouse, partridges, quails,
+even wood ducks which build their nests in trees are no longer
+experiments.
+
+All the common enemies you have to contend against are foxes, dogs,
+cats, rats, mink, skunks, hawks, owls, crows, frogs, turtles,
+snakes, poachers, game legislators, and disease.
+
+It has been calculated that one pair of quails and its
+progeny would produce five or six million birds in eight years if
+there were no losses. But so would chickens; and probably you will
+not get that many.
+
+All about these game birds is set forth in an advertising booklet
+called, "Game Farming" of the Hercules Powder Co., which has offices
+in a dozen cities, so we need not enlarge.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WHERE TO GO
+
+
+
+
+
+Intensive cultivation, raising a big crop on little land, can be
+carried on most profitably near areas of dense population; for
+perishable products, like fruits and vegetables, can be best
+marketed near the consumer. The limit for delivery by auto is about
+fifteen to twenty miles, and then only if roads are good; if the
+land selected lies on the line of a railroad which gives equal terms
+to way freight and to through freight, you will fare nearly as well.
+Railroads control agricultural development. Sparsely settled regions
+always practice extensive cultivation, raising light crops on big
+farms, because only such crops can be grown as can be raised on
+large areas by machinery, and are not perishable. Staples like corn,
+wheat, pork, and beef are transported at low prices for long
+distances by the railroads. This forces the settlers in newly opened
+portions of the country to sell in a market created by the
+railroads, in competition with what is produced within the areas of
+intensive cultivation, that is, with access to adjacent markets.
+
+So we find the bonanza wheat farms of California, the Dakotas, and
+the Canadian Northwest, the pampas of the Argentine, the Steppes of
+Russia, and the Indian uplands devoted to wheat raising; in the
+United States corn belt, fields of from five to twenty thousand
+acres are still not uncommon. Conversely, intensive cultivation is
+most advanced in China, where a dense population forced the people
+long ago to bring into use every foot of tillable soil that is left
+open to them.
+
+Near the towns of the United States a few market gardeners supply
+such vegetables as the people do not raise for themselves. The
+states along the Atlantic seaboard have all the facilities for
+successful intensive cultivation--a dense population and idle,
+cultivable land. In choosing a location, the home crofter should
+well consider his experience, and try to enter a community where he
+can engage in analogous pursuits. Dairy regions never have enough
+men who understand cattle and horses; fruit-growing districts always
+need experienced pickers; market garden regions need men who
+understand rotating crops and making hotbeds, transplanting, etc.
+
+If you have a little money, you can probably do best by buying and
+draining some swamp land, which is the most productive of all, as it
+contains the washings of the upland for centuries. Swamp land can
+usually be cleared and drained for from thirty to forty dollars per
+acre. It can be bought very cheap and when ready to cultivate will
+have increased many times in value.
+
+The next best is the "abandoned" or worn-out farm. Proper methods of
+cultivation will bring it back to more than its original fertility.
+The Eastern states from Maine to Virginia abound with them at from
+five to twenty-five dollars per acre. In many cases the buildings
+are worth more than the whole price asked.
+
+The nearest land easily available in the East is in the state of New
+York. The writer believes it is true that "there are twenty thousand
+farms for sale in this state, and nearly, all at such low prices and
+upon such favorable terms as to make them available for any one
+desiring to engage in agriculture or have a farm home. The soil of
+these farms is not exhausted, but on the contrary is, with proper
+cultivation, very productive. Nearly all have good buildings and
+fences, are supplied with good water and plenty of wood for farm
+purposes, and in nearly all cases have apple and other fruit trees
+upon them." (List of Farms, occupied and unoccupied, for sale in New
+York State. Bureau of Information and Statistics, Bulletin, State of
+New York, Department of Agriculture.)
+
+These farms are distributed all over the state, some in nearly every
+county. In Sullivan County, for example, there are farms for sale
+ranging in price from ten to one hundred dollars per acre. These
+can, almost without exception, be bought by small payments, balance
+on long mortgages, and it is wonderful how cheap they are. In Ulster
+County thirty farms, some of which I have seen, are offered for sale
+at trifling prices.
+
+Of course, many of these farms have been sold since the first
+editions of this book, and the prices have advanced, perhaps on the
+average doubled; but cheap automobiles have improved roads and have
+made others available that were useless ten years ago. The
+development of the Southern states, with eradication of the cattle
+tick (the cause of "Texas Fever") and irrigation and rotation of
+crops, has opened up new countries. N. O. Nelson writes he has
+bought many Louisiana farms for his cooperative enterprise for about
+what the improvements are worth.
+
+Cut over woodlands which we have learned to make produce incomes of
+about five dollars each year per acre by intelligent forestry, as
+well as swamp lands which we now know how to make healthful by
+drainage and by the extinction of mosquitoes, can still be had at
+low prices in New York and other states. Numerous others are in the
+market from five dollars per acre up, and so it goes through the
+state, from Wyoming County in the extreme western end, where farms
+ranging from thirty to three hundred acres are in the market at from
+thirty to forty dollars per acre, to St. Lawrence County in the
+north, where land can be bought as low as fifteen dollars per acre.
+
+When it is considered that these lands are within easy access to
+established markets with transportation and mail facilities, rural
+delivery, and telephone a proper idea may be formed of their value
+in opportunity. The authority quoted further states that "probably
+fifty thousand agricultural laborers can find employment on the
+farms of New York at good wages. Families particularly are wanted to
+rent houses and work farms on shares." Wages for new hands run from
+twenty to thirty dollars and upwards per month with board. Men who
+know how to milk are especially in demand throughout the dairy
+regions. These conditions make it possible for experienced farmers,
+although entirely without money, to get to the soil.
+
+Over three hundred thousand aliens annually settled in the cities of
+New York State during some years in the last decade. These people
+could be got out of the cities, where in normal times they are
+little needed, into adjacent country districts where they are much
+needed.
+
+In the _Real Estate Record and Guide, _Mr. A. L. Langdon says: "It
+is most remarkable that there are on Long Island, within from
+thirty-five to seventy miles of New York, thousands of acres of land
+which have never been cultivated, which have for years produced
+nothing but cordwood, and which the owners allow to be overrun with
+fire almost every year. A large part of this land has soil two or
+three feet deep underlaid with gravel. The best water in the world
+is abundant and the climate is more equable than on the mainland,
+and in each locality where any reasonable effort has been made to
+cultivate the soil, it has produced plentifully of all fruits and
+vegetables which can be grown in this latitude."
+
+Long Island should produce all the fruit, vegetables, poultry, eggs,
+and milk needed by its own residents, with a large surplus for the
+city markets, instead of getting, as it does, a large part of its
+supply of these things from the city.
+
+When it is considered that about a quarter of a million acres of
+this land so close to the city is now scrub oak and uncultivated
+waste, and that there are about a million adult workers in the city,
+the importance of the experiment is obvious; especially as we learn
+from the United States census that over ten thousand of these
+workers are already in agricultural pursuits within the city limits.
+
+"Here midway on Long Island, and just beyond the limits for a man to
+locate who expects to earn his living by daily work in the city, is
+a territory about forty miles long and ten miles wide which by
+intensive farming would yield a good living for more than two
+hundred thousand inhabitants. In this agricultural section, a man of
+small means who expects to live on the land the year round, should
+purchase a plot not too small to produce enough to support himself
+and family and a surplus to sell, not less than six acres. Probably
+all men have more or less land hunger a desire to own land and it is
+a worthy object to encourage to the extent of inducing a man to
+purchase what he can pay for and be satisfied with, but it is a
+shameful thing to induce a poor man, who has to earn his living in
+New York, to buy on the installment plan a small lot so far from his
+place of employment that he cannot live on it and travel to and from
+his work every day, and where there is the strongest probability
+that he will never make more than two or three payments, and will
+consequently lose what he does pay." The writer hears of one plot
+which was sold nineteen times and the contracts defaulted on after
+payments, before any one took title.
+
+If the seeker is not satisfied with the opportunities which the
+state of New York offers, he may turn to New Jersey, equally
+accessible and equally rich in chances.
+
+New Jersey Year-Book: "There are in the southern part of the State
+large tracts of land which are still uncleared, or covered with
+brushwood, and which are adapted to tillage and capable of producing
+large crops of small fruits and market garden vegetables. The wood
+on them is mainly scrub oak, with some dwarfed pitch pine and yellow
+pine, and hence they are called oak lands to distinguish them from
+the more sandy lands and tracts on which the pitch pine grows almost
+exclusively. The latter are known as pine lands. The total area of
+cleared (farm) lands in the southern division of the State,
+southeast of the marl belt, is about 450,000 acres. The pineland
+belts have an aggregate area of 486,000 acres, making at least
+800,000 acres accessible by railways from the large cities and also
+near to tidewater navigation. The maps of the Geological Survey show
+the location and the extent of these lands, their railway lines, and
+their relation to the settlements already made and to the cities.
+
+"The soils of these tracts are sandy and not naturally so rich and
+fertile as the more heavy clay soils of the limestone, the red
+shale, and the marl districts of the State, but they are not so
+sandy and so coarse-grained as to be non-productive, like some of
+the pineland areas. The latter are often deficient in plant food and
+are deservedly characterized as pine barrens, being too poor for
+farm purposes. The growth of oak and pine, as well as chemical
+analyses, shows that the oak-land soils contain the elements of
+plant production. They are not so well suited to pasturage or to
+continuous cropping as naturally rich virgin soils; they are better
+fitted for raising vegetables, melons, sweet potatoes, small fruits,
+peaches, and pears than wheat, Indian corn, hay, and other staples.
+The eminent superiority of this kind of farming in New Jersey over
+the old routine of wheat, corn, hay, and potatoes is well known.
+These South Jersey soils are easily cleared of brushwood or standing
+timber, and of stumps, with a hand or horse-power puller which is a
+cheap affair, and the wood is salable in all this part of the State
+at remunerative prices, often bringing more than the original cost
+of the land. The long working season and the short and mild winter
+favor the arrangement of work, so that all is done with the least
+outlay for help. They also favor the mosquitoes.
+
+"The success of Hammonton, Egg Harbor City, Vineland, and other
+places is notable, and equally good results are to be had at a
+hundred or more places as well situated as they are. These lands are
+sold at low figures, and the settler saves in capital and interest
+account. Only the difficulty of getting money to help in building
+interferes with rapid settlement.
+
+"The West Jersey Railway, the Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia and
+Reading's Atlantic City Railroad, the Philadelphia and Seashore
+Railway, the New Jersey Southern Railroad, and other branch roads
+afford excellent facilities for access to New York, Philadelphia,
+and the cities of the State. The Cohansey, Maurice, and Mullica
+rivers head well up near the northwest limits of these lands, and
+their navigable reaches run for miles across them. The waters of the
+Delaware Bay and the ocean are within a few miles of a large part of
+this oak-land domain.
+
+"The advantages of an old settled and Eastern State, within easy
+reach of these large markets, of land which is easily tilled and
+generous and quick in its response to feeding, and at low prices,
+make them equal to, if not better than, the rich prairie soils of a
+new West, or the low prices and cheap lands of the abandoned
+hillsides of New England."
+
+Wages for unskilled farm labor are about the same as for New
+York--twenty to twenty-five dollars per month. The canning and fruit
+industries make room for a large number of people in the late summer
+and fall, who may thus, by taking a temporary place, kind some
+permanent location where they may improve their health and fortunes.
+
+"Delaware also offers unequalled opportunities to immigrants. It is
+ideally situated on the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Bay, and is
+penetrated by numerous creeks and rivers.
+
+"The railroad, steam, and electric facilities of the State are
+developing steadily year by year, while every section of the State
+possesses easily navigable streams, with vessels for carrying
+freight and passengers.
+
+"Over fifteen millions of people live within a radius of three
+hundred miles; the large majority reside in cities and towns and
+furnish the finest markets in the world. Within five hundred miles
+are more than one third of the people of all North America.
+
+"Wilmington is a city of seventy-five thousand people, is growing
+rapidly, and is becoming a great manufacturing place.
+
+"These people may be reached in one day by the luscious fruits that
+grow in Delaware, and every one of them is perfectly happy when he
+gets a Delaware peach. Many other Delaware products are as good as
+the peaches.
+
+"As cattle and wheat raising developed in the great West, Delaware
+people thought that they were ruined. They did not change at once,
+but slowly discovered that the light lands are wonderfully
+productive of fruits and vegetables, and that they pay much better
+than cattle and grain ever could. But these new methods have not
+been adopted in all parts of the State, so that land neglected and
+unprofitable is for sale. The tides of immigration have swept
+westward and left Delaware untouched. Men, money, and enterprise are
+needed.
+
+" There are few unoccupied or 'abandoned' farms in Delaware." The
+land is mostly held by descendants of the early settlers, who form a
+species of landed aristocracy. Lately, owing to the younger members
+of these families having become established in the newer states and
+on account of the death or incapacity of the older members left in
+possession, there has been a marked tendency to sell off these
+farms. However, "a large proportion of the farms in Delaware are not
+for sale at any price. Some of them have been in the same family for
+generations, and if put on the market would sell for from one to two
+hundred dollars per acre."
+
+The soil is all the way from a heavy white oak clay, which is too
+stiff and too sticky for most crops, to very light sand.
+
+The heaviest clay is made lighter and more porous, and the lightest
+sand is readily made retentive of moisture and extremely productive,
+by plowing in different kinds of crops as green manure, such as cow
+peas, soy beans, the vetches, etc.; crimson clover, winter oats,
+rye, turnips, and numerous other crops may be sown in August or
+later, and produce a fine crop for turning under early in the
+spring. Crimson clover grows nearly all winter. Pure cold water is
+reached at from twenty to fifty feet by dug or driven wells.
+
+The climate is good; there are no cyclones. There is some damp
+weather in winter, but there are no malignant fevers, and there is
+little or no malaria, except in a few marshy places. There are some
+mosquitoes and flies, but they are not especially troublesome, and
+there are no poisonous reptiles.
+
+The population is mostly native, five sixths white, one sixth
+colored. The white population is almost entirely of Anglo Saxon
+descent.
+
+"Perfect titles may be secured, but all titles everywhere should
+always be searched by a competent lawyer, the usual fee for which is
+ten to twenty dollars.
+
+"Farm hands receive from twenty to twenty-five dollars per month and
+board, for a season of nine or ten months, sometimes for the whole
+year. Day hands receive from seventy-five cents to two dollars per
+day and board themselves."
+
+Those who are tempted by the advertisements for fruitpickers should
+beware. Delaware, like some other states, allows fees to constables
+and to the "squires"--Justices of the Peace they would be
+elsewhere--for arrests, and it is a common practice to advertise for
+fruit pickers, then arrest them as tramps when they come, and the
+next day release them on condition that they will leave the county
+at once--and leave the trap open for the next comer.
+
+Delaware peaches have made fortunes for many, but will make still
+greater fortunes in the future for the owners of the land.
+
+Pears, plums, grapes, watermelons, and cantaloupes thrive, and find
+an ideal home, and small fruits all flourish. Sweet potatoes yield
+bountifully and are of the finest quality. Asparagus and early white
+potatoes pay handsome profits. Tomatoes, the great canning crop, are
+grown by the thousands of acres.
+
+"The grasses and clovers grow in luxuriance, and hence dairying and
+beef production are profitable. Poultry pays as well as anywhere
+else; chickens often run on green clover all through the open
+winter.
+
+"The game consists of various species of ducks, quails, reed birds,
+hares, marsh rabbits, and other small creatures. Shad, trout,
+herring, crocus, black bass, pike, white fish, rock fish, oysters,
+clams, crabs, and terrapin are abundant in Delaware waters."
+
+The tax in the rural counties is generally sixty cents on the
+hundred dollars. Besides this there are taxes on business and a very
+light school tax. There is no state tax, yet the state makes large
+appropriations for the support of the public schools, which are free
+to everybody.
+
+Maryland has established a State Bureau of Immigration in Baltimore
+to give information to home seekers, and advise them as to choice of
+location, opportunities for getting started in agricultural
+production, and aid them in any way consistent with a State Bureau.
+Most of these facts are taken from such reports.
+
+Southern Maryland and the eastern shore are especially adapted to
+gardening and trucking, as well as fruit growing. Land is cheap and
+can be purchased in tracts of any size from an acre upwards, at from
+ten to fifty dollars per acre. Farms from twenty acres to seven
+hundred acres and up are for sale in nearly every county in the
+state. The removal of a large part of the negro population from the
+country to the cities has resulted in the partition of the large
+estates into smaller farms, thus affording an opportunity for home
+seekers who are seeking cheap land amid congenial surroundings.
+Nearly all of these farms have buildings, some in need of repair,
+others in very good condition.
+
+For those who wish to avoid the hard work of breaking woodlands, the
+eastern and western shores offer abundant well-cultivated lands with
+buildings, orchards, and woods, in the immediate vicinity of
+navigable rivers and railways, on good roads at from twenty dollars
+per acre upwards. That seems cheap.
+
+For settlers who are accustomed to mountainous regions, western
+Maryland has land for sale at even cheaper rates.
+
+"There are many large tidal marshes in Maryland, as might be
+expected in a territory watered like this state. They are of the
+richest soil to be found, because the Chesapeake Bay is a great
+river valley, receiving the drainage of a vast area of fertile land,
+comprising nearly one third of New York and nearly all of the great
+agricultural states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Every
+year this drainage brings down a black sediment, called oyster mud,
+which is deposited on the marshlands and enriches the soil, making
+it, with proper cultivation, of productivity like that of the rice
+and wheat fields of Egypt. These unreclaimed lands are used chiefly
+for grain."
+
+Proper drainage of small tracts of this land would bring unsurpassed
+and absolutely untouched fertility.
+
+The Chesapeake River valley is not so large as that of the Nile or
+Ganges, but is of enough consequence to play an important part in
+human affairs and to support in comfort and prosperity a population
+as large as that of many famous states.
+
+"The eastern shore is uniformly level, with good roads. The
+proximity of the ocean and the bay greatly modifies the temperature.
+It has a great trunk railway, with connections along its entire
+length, called the Delaware Division of the Pennsylvania railroad,
+which furnishes direct transportation to Philadelphia, New York, and
+other northern cities."
+
+"On the eastern shore there are many thousand acres of land devoted
+to garden truck, and the strawberry crop has of late years become of
+importance. Over one hundred carloads of strawberries are shipped
+daily during the season to the Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York,
+and Boston markets."
+
+Land properly cultivated will yield four thousand quarts of
+strawberries to an acre.
+
+The canning of various fruits and vegetables has grown to be larger
+than that of any other state and is one of the most profitable of
+the industries of Maryland. The principal articles canned are
+peaches, peas, and tomatoes.
+
+The tomato crop is also profitable to the grower. The young plants
+are set out in the spring; many do this with a machine, but two
+persons can easily plant seven acres in a day by hand.
+
+An acre will produce from six to eighteen tons of tomatoes,
+according to the quality of the soil. All such products bring better
+prices now in Maryland markets than they did before canning was
+resorted to. The Maryland tin can is known wherever civilization
+reaches.
+
+Tobacco is extensively produced only in southern Maryland, although
+it can be raised in any section of the state.
+
+In the neighborhood of the larger cities trucking and fruit growing
+are profitable, combined with poultry raising, often on farms of not
+more than five or ten acres.
+
+Many farmers devote part of their time successfully to bees, and
+there is nowhere a better climate for flowrs than that of Maryland.
+Two English florists who have settled in Baltimore County, ten and
+thirteen miles northeast of the city, daily send to all parts of the
+United States and even to Canada many large boxes of beautiful
+roses, carnations, violets, and other choice flowers. Both of these
+men began on a small scale and have prospered.
+
+The farmer who has a couple of thousand dollars to pay cash for a
+small farm in Maryland is assured of a good living. But also a less
+favored settler, if he has only from four to eight hundred dollars,
+can have a good start in Maryland, and probably as good a chance for
+independence and prosperity as anywhere.
+
+Families of immigrants when traveling to the Western, Northwestern,
+and Southern states of America have to spend from one hundred and
+fifty to two hundred dollars for railroad tickets from New York to
+their destination; by going to these adjoining states they can save
+all that money, and invest it in land.
+
+The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Immigration also
+publishes information for the home seeker.
+
+To most people the name Virginia carries with it limitless vistas of
+tobacco fields covered with darkies plying the hoe, or picking off
+the ubiquitous worm. Before the War this picture would have been a
+true one; but since the awakening of the younger generation to a
+better understanding of her resources, together with the withdrawal
+of large numbers of the colored people into industrial occupations,
+no state offers more attractive inducements to the homecrofter than
+Virginia. In climate, diversity of soils, fruits, forests, water
+supply, mineral deposits, including mountain and valley, she offers
+unsurpassed advantages. Truly did Captain John Smith, the
+adventurous father of Virginia, suggest that "Heaven and earth never
+agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation."
+
+Virginia lies between the extremes of heat and cold, removed alike
+from the sultry, protracted summers of the more southern states, and
+the longer winters and devastating storm and cyclones of the North
+and Northwest. Its limits north and south correspond to California
+and southern Europe.
+
+The climate is mild and healthful. The winters are less severe than
+in the Northern and Northwestern states, or even the western
+localities of the same latitude, while the occasional periods of
+extreme heat in the summer are not more oppressive than in many
+portions of the North.
+
+Tidewater Virginia, or the Coastal Plain, as it is sometimes called,
+receives the name from the fact that the streams that penetrate it
+feel the ebb and flow of the tides from the ocean up to the head of
+navigation. It consists chiefly of broad and level plains, while a
+considerable portion, nearest to the bay, has shallow bays and
+estuaries, and marshes that are in most instances reached only by
+the ocean tides. These marshes abound with wild duck and sora.
+Tidewater is mainly an alluvial country. The soil is chiefly light,
+sandy loam, underlaid with clay. Its principal productions are
+fruits and early vegetables, which are raised in extensive "market
+gardens," and shipped in large quantities to Northern cities. The
+fertilizing minerals--gypsum, marl, and greensand--abound, and their
+judicious use readily restores the lands when exhausted by
+improvident cultivation.
+
+Middle Virginia is a wide, undulating plain, crossed by many rivers
+that have cut their channels to a considerable depth and are
+bordered by alluvial bottom lands that are very productive. The soil
+consists of clays with a subsoil of disintegrated sandstone rocks,
+and varies according to the nature of the rock from which it is
+formed.
+
+The principal productions of middle Virginia are corn, wheat, oats,
+and tobacco. The tobacco raised in this section and in Piedmont,
+known as the "Virginia Leaf," is the best grown and the best known
+in the United States. In this section, as in Tidewater, the low
+bottom lands formed by the sediment of the waters are exceptionally
+productive.
+
+The Piedmont section is diversified and surpassingly picturesque.
+The soil is heavier than that of middle Virginia, the subsoil being
+of stiff and dark red clay. On the slopes of the Blue Ridge grapes
+of delicious flavor grow luxuriantly. These produce excellent wines,
+and the clarets have a wide fame. The pippin apples of this section
+are of unrivaled excellence.
+
+The "Great Valley," as it is descriptively called, is in the general
+configuration one continuous valley, included between the two
+mountain chains that extend throughout the state; it is one of the
+most abundantly watered regions on the face of the globe. Deep
+limestone beds form the floor of the Great Valley, and from these
+beds the soil derives an exceeding fertility, peculiarly adapted to
+the growth of grasses and grain, and it bears the name of the
+"garden spot" of the state.
+
+Five trunk lines of railroads penetrate and intersect the state. The
+lines of steamboats that ply the navigable streams of eastern
+Virginia afford commercial communication for large sections of the
+state with the markets of this country and of Europe. Norfolk and
+Newport News maintain communication with the European markets by
+steamers and vessels, while from these ports is also kept up an
+extensive commerce along the Atlantic seaboard. The seaports are
+nearer than is New York to the great centers of population, and
+areas of production, of the West and Northwest.
+
+Market garden crops of every description can be grown. The following
+result was obtained on a four-acre patch near Norfolk:
+
+"The owner stated that in September he sowed spinach on four acres.
+Between Christmas and the first of March following he cut and sold
+the spinach at the rate of one hundred barrels to the acre, at a
+price ranging from two to seven dollars per barrel--an average of
+$4.50 per barrel. Early in March the four acres were set out to
+lettuce, setting the plants in the open air with no protection
+whatever, 175,000 plants on the four acres. He shipped 450
+half-barrel baskets of lettuce to the acre, at a price ranging from
+$2 to $2.75 per basket.
+
+"Early in April, just before the lettuce was ready to ship, he
+planted snap beans between the lettuce rows; and today, June 2d,
+these are the finest beans we have seen this season.
+
+"The last week in May he planted cantaloupes between the bean rows,
+which, when marketed in July, will make four crops from the same
+land in one year's time. The cantaloupes will be good for 250 crates
+to the acre, and the price will run from $1 to $1.50 per crate. A
+careful investigation of these 'facts, figures, and features' will
+show that his gross sales will easily reach $2000 per acre; his net
+profits depend largely upon the man and the management; but they
+surely should not be less than $1000 clear, clean profit to the
+acre."
+
+"This is for farming done all out of doors. No hothouse or hotbed
+work--not a bit of it, with no extra expense for hotbeds, cold
+frames, or hothouses."
+
+"Intensive," thorough tillage and care of the soil will probably pay
+as well here as at any point in the United States.
+
+Apples are the principal fruit crop of the state. There is a yearly
+increasing number of trees. In one of the valley counties a
+seventeen-year-old orchard of 1150 trees produced an apple crop as
+far back as 1905 which brought the owner $10,000, another of fifty
+twenty-year-old trees brought $700. Mr. H. E. Vandeman, one of the
+best-known horticulturists in the country, says that there is not in
+all North America a better place to plant orchards than in Virginia;
+on account of its "rich apple soil, good flavor and keeping
+qualities of the fruit, and nearness to the great markets of the
+East and Europe."
+
+The trees attain a fine size and live to a good old age, and produce
+abundantly. In Patrick County there is a tree nine feet five inches
+around which has borne 110 bushels of apples at a single crop; other
+trees have borne even more. One farmer in Albemarle County has
+received more than $15,000 for a single crop of Albemarle Pippins
+grown on twenty acres of land. This pippin is considered the most
+delicious apple in the world.
+
+The fig, pomegranate, and other delicate fruits flourish in the
+Tidewater region.
+
+New England, from Maine to Rhode Island, is suffering from one
+disease--lack of intelligent labor. Thirty years ago the sons and
+daughters who, in the natural course of events, would have stayed to
+cultivate the home acres, left to form a part of the westward throng
+making for the level, untouched prairies of Illinois and Iowa.
+
+The old folks have died or become incapacitated. New interests chain
+their children to adopted homes. Result,--unoccupied lands by the
+hundred thousand acres, awaiting energy, skill, and faith.
+
+Ten dollars an acre is a common price for the rocky hills of New
+England. The choice river bottoms, and land near the larger cities
+is as high priced as similar land anywhere else. Intending settlers
+can buy small areas for little money; usually the smallest farms
+have good buildings worth in many cases more than the price asked
+for the whole farm. Climatic conditions are not favorable to single
+cropping. In the old days general farming, grain, beef, sheep, and
+hogs were the rule; nowadays, special crops, dairying, fruit
+growing, etc.
+
+Tobacco is the great staple in the rich Connecticut River bottoms,
+and even on the uplands, if properly manured, it pays from one to
+three hundred dollars per acre. Tobacco can be raised on small areas
+far from the railroad, as, when properly cured and packed for
+shipment, it is not perishable. To many the worst feature of New
+England is the climate--long, cold winters and short summers. Maine
+being farthest north suffers most in this respect, but that does not
+prevent her producing hundreds of thousands of tons of sweet corn
+for canning and vast quantities of eggs and butter. Fruit does well
+on the lower coast; a small orchard of peaches or plums will in
+three or four years from planting make a comfortable living. Bush
+fruits grow in abundance and give never-failing crops.
+
+Poultry is peculiarly successful on the rocky hills, because they
+are nearly always dry or well drained. Dairying can be made to pay
+if near a creamery, or where milk can be sold at retail. The
+prospective settler here should bear in mind that wherever he goes,
+the first year will produce little more than a kitchen garden; the
+second enable him barely to pull through, and the third give him a
+start at a permanent income. In farming, as in all other businesses,
+only those will succeed who know what they want and how to get it;
+who have selected with care the locality best suited to the special
+crops they intend to raise; and after having once made a selection,
+stick until they have compelled success.
+
+The lure of the vast West and of the new South is not forgotten; but
+the time has passed when the young man could go West to take a farm
+of Uncle Sam's. Desirable land is too expensive for the pioneer, and
+the constant toil and comparative isolation of the prairie farm
+offers but a poor sort of liberty, though it still affords a living.
+
+But close to the growing towns in those states small plots of land
+can still be had to work with the same bright prospects that are
+offered near the great metropolis.
+
+In nearly all the sections within the area of intensive cultivation,
+timber is still plentiful enough to make it the cheapest building
+material; and persons who really want to get to the land can
+contrive a sufficient shelter, like a pioneer's, for from two to
+five hundred dollars.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CLEARING THE LAND
+
+
+
+
+
+It is pretty good fun to hack at bushes and to chop trees down and
+then to chop them up. If there is only a small part of the land to
+be cleared, a man can easily learn skill with the ax and do it at
+odd times, but he was a wise old man of whom his little girl said,
+"When grandpa wants anything, that moment he wants it." It is now
+that we need the land; but even if it is covered with trees, there
+is no cause for discouragement. Lumber is so high that the local or
+portable sawmill men will buy the timber by the acre. They will cut
+the trees and haul the logs.
+
+If you decide to cut a tree yourself, a little inquiry will show for
+what purpose it will bring the highest price. Locust sticks, for
+example, four to six inches thick, will bring in New York ten or
+fifteen cents a running foot for insulator pinions. If a maple
+proves to be either "curly" or "bird'seye" (this depending not on
+the variety, but on the accidental undulations of the fiber), it
+will be in demand for the manufacture of furniture.
+
+Sugar maples ten or fifteen feet high can be transplanted or sold.
+Nut and fruit trees will nearly always be worth keeping.
+
+Cedar sticks fourteen feet long will bring twenty cents in most
+places for hop and bean poles. See what can be sold instead of
+burned, and don't cut down recklessly; an unsalable tree may be
+valuable as a windbreak or as shade for your house. The wrong tree
+for shade is the dense foliaged, low-branched tree which forms a
+solid dome from the ground up. The right tree, in the opinion of
+Henry Hicks (in _Country Life in America), _is the American elm,
+which ought to be called the umbrella tree. Pliny speaks of the
+plane tree, our sycamore or buttonwood, as excellent, because of the
+horizontal branches which, like window blinds, allow free passage of
+the breezes while intercepting the heat of the sun.
+
+The ideal shade tree is a canopy like a parasol over the house, with
+high, leafy branches that do not shut off light and air from the
+windows. This cools a house by keeping the sun off and cools the air
+by the rapid evaporation from its leaves, and will make it ten to
+fifteen degrees cooler in summer. It will be cheaper and more
+effective than a combination of awnings, piazza, and eaves. Woodman,
+spare that tree.
+
+Stumps may be burned out To get a good draught, bore a hole in a
+slanting direction far down among the roots. The smoke goes through
+the hole first and then the flame, boring the body to the roots deep
+enough to plow. Land can also be cleared by dynamite. We condense
+from Edith Loring Fullerton in _Farming, _on what has been done.
+
+To go into the desolate, uncultivated, burned over "waste lands"
+near a great city and put ten acres under cultivation in the
+shortest possible space of time was our problem. We undertook it at
+short notice in an uncertain season--the autumn--with the
+determination to get at least a portion of the land seeded down to
+winter rye before cold weather prohibited further work.
+
+United to this problem was that of working a small farm to its
+utmost capacity rather than half cultivation of a large one, which
+is difficult to handle from lack of time and labor and an unwise
+proposition for the East under the most favorable circumstances.
+
+Ten acres of scraggy-looking woodland was purchased, sixty-eight
+miles from New York City on the north shore of Long Island. The plot
+had a few second and third growth oak and chestnut trees and
+"sprouts" along the borders. All else had been burned, and the
+center of the acreage exhibited the mangled and blackened remains of
+a once thrifty woodland.
+
+We proceeded to choose as our helpers native Long Islanders whom we
+were desirous of allowing to work. We succeeded by strenuous efforts
+in getting together a "gang" of both colored and white men to the
+stupendous number of eight. They fell to work with a right good
+will, at first cutting down here and trimming up there as directed.
+However, after giving them a fair trial, we decided that they must
+be replaced by Italians. The question of housing the eighteen
+Italians soon came up. Tents might be adopted or even the unsanitary
+"dugout" be allowed to mar the landscape. A shanty was entirely too
+ugly to suit our tastes, and also expensive, and useless when the
+men were through with it. Tents were too airy, as we knew the work
+would continue until freezing weather, and perhaps well into the
+winter. We "passed" on the "dugout." The ideal was something that
+would be of use after the work of clearing was completed, and for
+that purpose we decided upon "condemned freight cars." They cost but
+ten dollars each, the railroad being glad to get rid of them. We
+bought two, ultimately using one for a chicken house and the other
+as a barn. In the meantime it was decided to remove the stumps by
+dynamite, as trying to yank them out by stump pullers or by mattock
+and plow was both slow and brutal. The ordinary custom of allowing
+nature to work six years at the stumps and gradually eliminate them
+by decay was not to be thought of.
+
+Dynamiter Kissam, a Long Island expert, arrived and set to work,
+using fuses for small stumps up to two feet in diameter.
+
+With the advent of the Italians work began in earnest; they cleared
+out every useless tree, cutting cord wood where any could be
+obtained and burning the branches and charred trees as they went.
+They also cleared out all underbrush thoroughly.
+
+The dynamiter with his helper followed them up. This is the most
+exciting and interesting part of clearing land by modern methods.
+
+The dynamite is put up in half-pound sticks. They are a little
+larger than an ordinary candle and are wrapped in heavy yellow
+paraffined paper. One folded end of this paper is opened up and a
+hole made by a wooden skewer into the dynamite stick, which is
+plastic and resembles graham bread in color and consistency.
+
+For magneto-battery work where several charges are required, a
+copper cap in which is a minute quantity of fulminate of mercury,
+and which is exploded by a spark, is attached to fine electric wires
+and sealed by sulphur. This cap is placed in holes in the sticks of
+dynamite, and then securely tied by drawing string tightly around
+the paper which is raised to admit the cap.
+
+In preparing a charge for fuse ignition, the cap is crimped to the
+end of a piece of mining fuse and this is inserted in the dynamite
+stick and securely fastened as previously described.
+
+These prepared charges are placed in a basket and carried very
+tenderly to the stumps which have been prepared by the dynamiter's
+assistant. All the work is handled very carefully, for while there
+is not much danger of an accident unless fire is placed near the
+explosive, nevertheless extreme caution is used at all times. It
+requires a nature serene, calm, and deliberate.
+
+Deep oblique holes were then made with a round crowbar under the
+stump singled out for execution. This hole should be as nearly
+horizontal as possible and directly under the stump so that all the
+explosive force may be expended on the wood and not on the earth
+between the dynamite and the stump. The earth acts as a cushion and
+the natural tendency of dynamite to exert force downward is
+counteracted.
+
+As soon as a small strip was blown, the Italians, gathering up all
+the stumps, roots, and fragments, removing any pieces that were
+loosened but not completely torn out, and piling them at intervals,
+immediately burned them. This cannot be done when stumps are removed
+by any other method, for by the digging process the earth must be
+picked and scraped from them and ultimately the stump hacked in
+pieces before it will burn.
+
+By our method the stump is burned and the finest kind of unleached
+wood ashes--containing lime to "sweeten" and potash and phosphoric
+acid to furnish plant food--are spread upon the ground a few hours
+after the stumps are blown out. These ashes would under other
+circumstances have to be purchased at a cost of perhaps two dollars
+a barrel, and as five barrels at least to the acre are required for
+good fertilization, these ashes gave us the first credit upon the
+books.
+
+Following the burners came the manure spreaders; five carloads of
+manure had been purchased and was delivered before it was needed.
+When the manure was spread upon the land (one half carload to the
+acre), the plow started its work smoothly and with none of the
+strain and jerk on man and beast usual in new land. The soil was
+turned over with the greatest ease, for the explosions had shivered
+and torn out even the smallest roots, so the plow ran through the
+ground much more easily than in sod land.
+
+Our friable, sandy loam, with a light admixture of clay, pulverized
+and aerated by the explosions, was in market garden condition at
+once and without the year's loss of crops assured by old methods.
+
+A tooth harrow was next run over the plowed section, and gleaners
+followed the harrow, picking up the fine roots as they were brought
+to the surface. As piles of these fine roots grew, they were burned
+and the ashes immediately spread upon the land. The tooth harrow was
+run again across the rows, the disk harrow following chopped and
+pulverized the earth into the finest possible condition. Thirty five
+and one half working days after Larry and his gang arrived, rye was
+drilled into three and one half acres.
+
+The condemned freight cars were placed upon skids and drawn to the
+desired position over soaped planks. They were raised from the
+ground to give good under ventilation. The north and east sides are
+filled or banked up with sand which came out of the well. This keeps
+out the cold winds, and, in the case of the chicken-house car,
+allows the fowls a shaded shelter on hot summer days.
+
+The chicken-house car was placed facing the southeast. The western
+end has a large glazed sash placed on it, and two in the southern
+side. One half the car was partitioned off for roosting quarters,
+while the other half serves as a laying and scratching house. This
+farm keeps only a few chickens for family use.
+
+The artesian well was started in October. The well was, naturally, a
+necessity, but there was much to be considered in regard to the
+method of pumping. Under ordinary circumstances a windmill would do,
+and is generally a good auxiliary; a ten-foot iron tower and a
+ten-foot fan wheel cost about fifty dollars, but our farm is not to
+be allowed to be a failure for lack of water in a dry season. In
+case of drought (and every summer brings one of greater or less
+duration) water must be on hand, and as a drought usually is
+accompanied by windless weather, the windmill could not be depended
+upon. An engine was obviously necessary. Both gasoline and kerosene
+engines were closely investigated, with the result that a kerosene
+oil engine was decided upon. (The new style of heavy oil engine is
+better and cheaper to run. Ed.) An advantage of the engine over a
+windmill is that it will furnish power for cutting wood, grinding
+grain, or lighting the buildings, a two and one half horsepower
+engine running twenty-five 16 c.p. lights easily.
+
+The rye was turned under green in the spring to furnish humus, the
+greatest and only vital need of this particular spot of virgin soil.
+
+Since that was written an excellent and cheap stump puller has been
+introduced, but the account of work is still typical. Dynamiting is
+still the modern way to clear land as well as to break up a stiff
+subsoil or hardpan, so as to loosen the earth to let deep roots like
+trees or alfalfa go down and to secure drainage.
+
+Primitive American man regarded trees as "lumber" instead of as
+timber and still destroys countless millions in valuable wood as he
+"clears the ground."
+
+After it is cleared, it is vital to keep it cleared of weeds, which
+worse garroters of crops than trees. To do that we don't need to bow
+to the Earth, nor to hammer her with a hand hoe.
+
+"The Man with the Hoe" began to be a back number when Arkwright
+invented the ark or the mule or whatever he did invent. The man with
+the wheel hoe is the man that is "It." A wheel hoe costs from $6 to
+$12, and will do the work of several men without breaking the heart
+or even the back of one of them. It has as many attachments as a
+summer girl and is equally versatile. It must be run between the
+rows as soon as the ground is dry after every rain, so as to slay
+the weeds before they are born. If you don't they will slay your
+profits, if not yourself.
+
+Crops grown on that experimental farm are: Asparagus, berries,
+beans, beets, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, carrots, cucumbers,
+corn, eggplant, endive, fruit trees, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, limes,
+melons, martynias, onions, okra, parsley, parsnips, peas, potatoes
+(sweet and white), pumpkins, radishes, rhubarb, salsify, squash,
+tomatoes, etc. Marketed strictly choice radishes May 18, peas June
+10, lettuce June 21, beans June 29, beets July 8, carrots July 10,
+cabbage July 11. Surely a rapid result.
+
+Hemp is hardly worth your growing for itself under ordinary
+circumstances; the returns per acre are not sufficient. But Charles
+Richard Dodge, in one of the United States Yearbooks of the
+Department of Agriculture, says that as a weed killer it has
+practically no equal.
+
+In proof of this, a North River farmer stated that thistles
+heretofore had mastered him in a certain field, but after sowing it
+with hemp not a thistle survived; and while ridding the land of this
+pest, the hemp yielded him nearly sixty dollars an acre, where
+previously nothing valuable could be produced.
+
+As it grows from Minnesota to the Mississippi Delta, its value for
+this purpose is considerable.
+
+But there is a way easier and cheaper of clearing land than by
+blasting, if we can afford to wait a little; and Mr. George Fayette
+Thompson, in Bulletin No. 27, Bureau of Animal Industry, tells us
+how, giving some interesting facts about Angora goats, of which the
+following is a condensation:
+
+To people taking up raw land, particularly where there is a heavy
+undergrowth to be cleared away, goats of some kind are an invaluable
+aid. In its browsing qualities the common goat is as good as any,
+but, aside from the clearing of the land, the profit in his keep is
+very little, though some demand is growing up for goat's milk for
+infants and for some fancy cheeses. A much better animal from the
+standpoint of profit, while in use as a scavenger, is the Angora
+goat. Their long, silky hair has been used for centuries in making
+blankets, lap robes, rugs, carpets, and particularly the "cashmere"
+shawls, formerly a great luxury in this country. Much of the camel's
+hair dress goods is in reality made from the hair of the Angora
+goat, or mohair, as it is called. Angora goats thrive best in high
+altitudes with dry climates. They exist in greatest number in the
+United States in California, New Mexico, and Texas. They have been
+used successfully in the Willamette Valley of Oregon to eat the
+underbrush off the land, doing for nothing that for which the
+farmers pay Chinese laborers twenty-five to forty dollars per acre.
+The cost of Angora goats is about ten to thirty dollars each for
+does, with bucks at fifty to two hundred dollars, so that even with
+a small area of land to clear it would pay to buy a little flock for
+that purpose. Dr. Shandley, of Iowa, says that two to three goats to
+the acre is sufficient for cleaning up land, and that in two years
+the goats will eat all of the underbrush from woodland, such as
+briers, thistles, scrub oak, sumac, and, in fact, any shrub
+undergrowth. They need no other food than what they can secure from
+the woods themselves. Consequently, the income from the sale of
+mohair is nearly net.
+
+The more nearly thoroughbred the goats are, the better the mohair
+and the higher the price. The meat of the Angora goat is superior to
+mutton, although if sold in the market under the name of goat meat,
+it commands only half the price of mutton.
+
+As an example of the Angora's utility in cleaning up land, the
+Country Gentleman says: "Mr. Landrum exhibited ten head at the
+Oregon State Fair. In order to demonstrate their effectiveness as
+substitutes for grubbing, he left them on three acres of brush. At
+the end of the second year the land was mellow and ready for the
+plow."
+
+It might be possible to build up a business in clearing lands for
+others by means of a herd of Angoras.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HOW TO BUILD
+
+
+
+
+
+If you find an "abandoned farm" on which the buildings are worth
+more than the whole price asked, as frequently happens, you are all
+right. Even if the buildings are somewhat dilapidated, you can fix
+them up for a few dollars. But in buying small plots of ground,
+larger farms have to be broken up. If you buy from the resident
+owner, he may sell you five acres off his larger tract, and keep his
+house to live in. Certain it is that if a farm of 100 acres is
+subdivided into twenty five-acre farms, at least nineteen new houses
+must be built, although sometimes an old barn can be made into a
+fair residence.
+
+If you can do no better, it is possible to start by tenting. An
+outfit large enough for a family of six would be about as follows:
+
+1 wall tent with fly, 10 X 14, for sleeping 1 wall tent with fly, 10
+X 14, for dining
+
+1 old cook stove (to be erected outdoors), 2 floors, 10 X 14, at $5
+each
+
+Brown tents, at least for the sleeping rooms, are best; they last
+longer, are cooler, and do not attract the flies; though indeed we
+need not have house flies if we keep the horse manure covered
+up--they are all bred in that. If the tents are in the shade, the
+cost of the cover or fly can be saved in the dining tent; but it is
+necessary in the living tent, because wet canvas will leak when
+touched on the inside. To make the tent warm for the winter, we must
+bank up to the edges of the platform with earth and cover the whole
+with another tent of the same shape, but a foot larger in every
+dimension. These are commonly used in Montana.
+
+It is to be presumed that no one would attempt moving in without
+household utensils, which may be as simple or elaborate as you
+please. If there is a sawmill in the vicinity, a temporary shack for
+winter, say 22 X 30 feet, could be built for from $400 to $600,
+depending on the interior finish. Partitions can be made very cheap
+by erecting panels covered with canvas, burlap, old carpet, etc.
+Such a building does not need to be plastered, but can be made warm
+enough by an inside covering of burlap, heavy builders' paper, or
+composition board. Tar paper laid over solid sheeting makes a roof
+that will last for two or three years. For such a shack draw the
+plans yourself. All you really need is a living room, bedroom, and
+kitchen.
+
+A cheap and effective water supply can be gotten from a driven well,
+which in most places costs about one dollar per foot. Have it where
+the kitchen is to be, so that the water can be pumped into a barrel
+or other tank over the stove. With a good range you can have as good
+a supply of hot and cold water as you had in the city.
+
+If so fortunate as to find a piece of land with a good spring on it,
+you can lay pipes and draw the water from that. If you can get
+twelve or fifteen feet fall from the spring to the kitchen, you
+don't need a pump at all.
+
+For a toilet closet, build a shed four feet wide, six feet long, and
+eight feet high. Use a movable pail or box. Lime slaked or unslaked
+or dry dust or ashes must be scattered every time the closet is
+used. Always clean before it shows signs of becoming offensive: keep
+it covered fly tight and mix the contents with earth or litter, and
+scatter on the garden.
+
+A shack can be built of logs which will do for comfort and will look
+dignified.
+
+Horace L. Pike, in_ Country Life in America, _says: "The lot on
+which we meant to build our log house stood thirty-five feet above
+the lake. The problem was how to build a cabin roomy, picturesque,
+inexpensive, and all on the ground.
+
+"The ground dimensions are thirty-two by thirty feet outside. This
+gives a living room sixteen by fourteen; bedrooms twelve by twelve,
+twelve by ten, and nine by seven; kitchen eleven by nine; a five-by
+four-foot corner for a pantry and refrigerator; closet four by six,
+front porch sixteen by six feet six inches, and rear porch five by
+five--705 square feet of inside floor space and 130 square feet of
+porch.
+
+"A dozen pine trees stand on the lot, and maneuvering was required
+to set a cottage among them without the crime of cutting one. The
+front received the salutes of a leaning oak, the life of which was
+saved by the sacrifice of six inches from the porch eaves, the trunk
+forming a newel post for the step railing.
+
+"We closed the contract immediately for 120 Norway or red pine logs,
+thirty feet long and eight by ten inches diameter at butts. The
+price was low--one or two dollars their like should have brought. We
+used, however, only eighty-one logs; forty thirty-foot, fourteen
+eighteen-foot, thirteen sixteen-foot, and fourteen fourteen-foot.
+
+"Work was begun on April 22. Two days sufficed for the owner and one
+man to clear and level the ground, dig post holes, set posts, and
+square the foundation. The soil was light sand with a clay hardpan
+three feet down.
+
+"Twenty-seven days each were put in by two men from start to finish,
+with assistance rendered by the owner. There were seven days by the
+mason, eight by carpenters, and four teen and one half by other
+labor. On June 4 the cabin was ready for occupancy, and the family
+moved in. The prices, as in most cases cited, are higher to-day.
+Cheaper transportation or lower tariff may reduce them again.
+
+"Making allowances for increased cost of logs and differences in any
+of the material cost, this cabin can be duplicated for less than
+$700 by any one who has the ground, a few tools, and some building
+ability. It is compact, convenient, and more roomy than a
+superficial glance reveals, and it can be occupied (slight care is
+required) from April to November with only the kitchen stove and the
+fireplace supplying the heat. The same plan can be used for an
+all-frame structure, perhaps at less cost. It could be sheathed and
+slab covered in a locality where slabs, edged to six or eight inches
+wide, could be had; or slabs could be used perpendicularly in the
+gable ends and on the outside of the rear extension."
+
+We must not overlook the differences in cost of lumber and labor in
+different places, sometimes more than doubling nor the fact that
+different contractors will vary often twenty-five per cent in their
+bids.
+
+A mere cabin, like a wooden tent, 12 X 10 with a platform adjoining,
+will accommodate one or even two persons and can be built by a
+contractor even at war prices for about fifty to one hundred
+dollars. This will serve for tool house or storeroom when a more
+convenient residence can be afforded. A number of such can be seen
+at "Free Acres," New Jersey, an hour from New York City on the D. L.
+& W. Railroad.
+
+Thoughtful provision and planning will go far to reduce costs. A
+stove pipe which should run up inside the house, not outside, so as
+to conserve heat and fuel, serves as chimney and fireplace. A
+Franklin stove, practically an open fireplace set out entirely
+inside the house, is a practical device, though it costs from $18 to
+$30. It gives a cheerful open fire to burn wood or coal and has a
+flat top to keep things hot, a clutch oven of sheet iron, and a bob
+can be attached to the front of the grate.
+
+But remember that though you may have trees or fallen wood for the
+cutting it takes a lot of time to cut it. A cylindrical self-feeding
+coal burner is most economical for heating and a lined sheet iron
+cooking stove for the kitchen.
+
+A fireless cooker, which retains the heat all day by means of
+soapstone or insulation and slowly cooks the food without losing the
+juices, is an economical device. It can be made at home by copying
+what you see in the stores or by getting directions from the U. S.
+Department of Agriculture.
+
+Don't forget double windows at least toward the north; and on all
+windows have heavy holland shades which make an air space between
+the cold windowpanes and the atmosphere of the room.
+
+Portable houses sound attractive, but they do not pay unless you
+will need to move them. Manifestly it costs more to make a house
+like a trunk than like a shed. The houses shipped ready made of the
+"Aladdin" type, with all the parts ready marked to be nailed
+together by unskilled labor are a much better investment and are not
+shaky.
+
+It is true that living is expensive in the train suburbs, when
+almost all that is eaten comes from the city, with freight and
+monopoly rates added. But one can raise most of what the family
+eats, and save besides in car fares and doctor's bills.
+
+The rent, perhaps a quarter of the income, that was paid for a place
+so small that the cat had to jump on a chair when the baby sat down,
+will be a clear gain.
+
+Mrs. Warrington's cottage at Rose Valley, Pennsylvania, forms a very
+interesting subject, and is built from designs of well-known
+architects of Philadelphia, who have taken up building small,
+inexpensive modern houses in a practical manner. The house is built
+with a stone foundation and a wooden superstructure with exterior
+walls covered with metal lath and cement stucco which is stained a
+cream color. The trimmings are stained a soft brown and the sashes
+are painted white. The roof is covered with shingles, and is left to
+weather finish. The front porch, from which a vestibule leads into
+the house, has a hooded cover formed by the main roof sweeping down
+sufficiently to form a protect tion. The vestibule forms an entrance
+to both the living room and the kitchen; the kitchen is at the front
+of the house, allowing the main rooms and a private porch to be at
+the south side. The interior throughout is trimmed with cypress and
+stained a soft brown. The second floor joists are exposed to view
+and are stained in a similar manner, while the ceiling space between
+the joists is plastered. A broad archway separates the living and
+the dining rooms, and while it forms a separation, it does not
+preclude the possibility, when desired, of throwing the two rooms
+into one large apartment. The large, open fireplace is built of
+clinker brick, and its facings extend from the floor to the ceiling;
+it has a wooden shelf supported on corbeled brackets. A semi-boxed
+stairway rises out of the living room to the second floor. There are
+three bedrooms with good-sized closets, and a bathroom on the second
+floor. A cellar, under the entire house, has a cemented bottom, and
+contains a laun dry. This house costs about $2000 complete.
+
+Houses built of cement blocks are growing in favor. Cement blocks
+can be made anywhere by unskilled labor. All that is needed is a
+competent foreman to direct the making and seasoning of the blocks
+and laying them in the walls.
+
+The cost of concrete compared to frame or brick structures is, if
+anything, all things considered, in favor of concrete. Houses built
+of wood are likely to become increasingly expensive because of the
+deforesting which is going on in all parts of the United States.
+
+There are abundant books of plans and costs published, showing what
+may be built, and several responsible publishers recklessly offer to
+refund the cost of the plans if the expense of building the house
+exceeds their estimates.
+
+There are also a number of manufacturers of ready-made portable
+houses, running in cost from about three hundred dollars for four
+rooms, upward. Some of these are adapted to all-the-year-round use
+and may be used where land is taken experimentally.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+BACK TO THE LAND
+
+
+
+
+
+"Life, to the average man, means hard, anxious work, with
+disappointment at the end, whereas it ought to mean plenty of time
+for books and talk. There is something wrong about a system which
+condemns ninety-nine hundredths of the race to an existence as bare
+of intellectual activity and enjoyment as that of a horse, and with
+the added anxiety concerning the next month's rent. Is there no
+escape? Through years of hard toil I suspected that there might be
+such an escape. Now, having escaped, I am sure of it, so long as
+oatmeal is less expensive than Hour, so long as the fish and the
+cabbage grows, I shall keep out of the slavery of modern city
+existence, and live in God's sunshine." (Hubert, "Liberty and a
+Living.")
+
+The wealthy class are taking up farming as a healthy and beautifying
+diversion, and we may expect others to follow, as it certainly
+promotes happiness and adds to the attractions of those who adopt
+it. With the aids which science has given, a farmer can now make
+good profits with less labor than was formerly necessary to get a
+bare living. The amount that a single well-managed, well-tilled acre
+will produce in a season is simply incredible. This accounts for the
+increased demand for farming lands wherever they are to be had on
+reasonable terms. The wage earners are learning this, and it is only
+a question of a little time when manufacturing plants will have to
+be convenient to lands where the families of the hands can have a
+small tract of land to cultivate. This requires good transportation
+facilities from the homes to the factories.
+
+Corporate operation has been a great aid to human progress.
+Organization is man's orderly way of following the Divine Plan for
+his economic salvation vet the far mer has profited less by
+organization than trades unions. Where farmers have organized to aid
+each other to buy and sell, they have gained wonderfully, but a
+beginning in this direction has but served to show how much more is
+needed.
+
+To the individual farmer with large area and small means, the
+improvements in machinery that cheapen his production are not at
+present available. The discoveries in methods of fertilization of
+the soil only make it more difficult for him to earn a living in
+competition with those whose ample capital increases production by
+its use. Improvements in fruits and vegetation, by hybridization and
+various methods that add wealth to those of means, only add to the
+troubles of our present small farmers.
+
+Hitherto corporate operation has been mainly for the benefit of
+stockholders. The cases where those whose labor creates dividends
+get more than wages have been rare. "A living wage" has been the
+ambition of labor itself: all profit beyond this is supposed to be
+the right of capital. There is with some persons an unconscious
+reluctance to share profits with labor lest the laborers become
+independent, and thus reduce their number to an extent to raise the
+labor market, so that it is difficult to get fair consideration of
+any business proposition that promises better conditions for the
+producer or independence for the laborer. This is undoubtedly short
+sighted, as the higher intelligence of the people who have land
+increases production and gives enlarged opportunities for the
+profitable employment of money. However, if capitalists persist in
+this narrow view, the money of the people when they learn and think,
+can be applied to this purpose instead of being deposited in savings
+banks, where much of it is used in increasing the wealth of those
+who already have abundance.
+
+The idea of "helping others to help themselves" finds a responsive
+chord in the hearts of many wealthy people. But the question is, how
+can all be helped? No business method by which this can be
+accomplished has, as yet, been practically demonstrated.
+
+In no field does corporate operation promise more for the betterment
+of human conditions, for a higher standard of morals and of
+education, or great certainty of profit for capital, than by
+systematically aiding men to obtain farms.
+
+Progress proceeds on the line of returns for expenditure. When a
+man's economic condition permits, his first thought is to give his
+children an education and a better chance in life than he had. Those
+who extol the simple life as the ideal condition of happiness do not
+mean that want and deprivation of necessities is the ideal
+condition. If they did, they would put their children in that
+condition to make them happy. Both extremes of wealth and of poverty
+are burdens and retard mental and moral progress. The ideal
+condition is to be found on a farm where the land is paid for and
+ample means are at hand to supply the necessities for physical
+demands, with leisure to learn and enjoy those pleasures of the mind
+which come with knowledge of Nature's laws, and wisdom to live in
+harmony with them, and in a measure comprehend the purposes of
+creation.
+
+Mr. G. W. Smith, founder of the Hundred Year Club, suggests that
+there is an opening in intensive farming for the benevolent but
+canny wealthy who are interested in the soil and want to combine
+philanthropy and percentage.
+
+His plan is to get capital to secure land and all the necessary
+means, give to each approved applicant perpetual leases of land for
+a small farm and a lot in a village site convenient thereto, with a
+house merely sufficient for shelter, requiring as a first payment
+sufficient to secure capital against loss in case the farmer
+forfeits his contract, say $100. Let the company provide scientific
+supervision and conduct the operation mainly as though the farmers
+were employees, all the necessaries to be charged to each with only
+sufficient profit to pay the expense and a fair interest on the
+capital employed. Through a purchasing and sales department all
+products should be sold in the best market and each farmer credited
+with the net result of his productions until the agreed sale price
+is received, when title should pass in fee to the farmer, who,
+during the time, has become scientific so far as that piece of land
+is concerned, and in future can operate it with the advantages which
+progress has made. A public building would be necessary for a
+storehouse, in which rooms for meetings of various kinds should be
+provided, also such shelter as might be necessary for assembling and
+storage of products for shipment.
+
+The expense of public buildings and other utilities could be paid
+for out of the increased value that they bring to the land. The
+company should have a nursery to provide fruit tree, etc., the
+growth of which, with the increase of population would make the
+farms, when paid for, worth far more than their cost. Such
+opportunities as this, opened to all, would do away with the tramps
+who are now able to live on the charitable, only because of the
+known difficulties of finding work.
+
+The farmers should be utilized as far as possible in the purchasing
+and sales department, and should divide into committees to try
+various experiments connected with their business, that through
+their reports all may be benefited by the knowledge gained. Dairying
+and large orchards on land suitable and not of use in the general
+farming plan could be conducted by the community, each farmer being
+a stockholder. The labor performed on these cooperative undertakings
+should be paid for and charged to cost of production, each one who
+performs a share of the labor participating in the profits as near
+as may be. As money is received by the company from products, it can
+be used in similar operations. When the farms are paid for, the
+farmers can continue the cooperative features that experience has
+proved useful and extend the business principle to other fields,
+such as heating, light, and power by electricity, machinery for
+preparing products for market, drying, canning, etc., as well as for
+the cultivation of the soil.
+
+Where the land is level the farms can be laid out on a general plan
+that will admit of the use of steam plows to reduce the cost of
+plowing, save hard labor, and reduce the number of work animals.
+
+Among the multitude of advantages the individual would have in these
+communities, social, educational, and economic, health and physical
+development appear as not the least.
+
+The farm, as it is, still furnishes a horde of recruits for insane
+asylums; its isolation and monotony of everyday life, with its lack
+of social intercourse and educational advantages, nearly
+counterbalance the strain and poverty of the cities.
+
+But the greatest difficulty is the growing inability of the farmers'
+sons to secure land and the means to cultivate it when they arrive
+at a marriageable age. Those who have seen for threescore years the
+ever-increasing flow of boys and girls from the farms to the cities,
+greater in proportion to the rural population than in any other age,
+realize the necessity for aid in this direction. While it is true
+that the farm has contributed largely to the numbers of our
+successful city men, the fact remains that the mass of boys who come
+to the cities as well as the city born, lack the faculty to grab or
+save, and fail, while the healthy girls swell the ranks of
+prostitution, where an average of eight years lands them in a
+pauper's grave.
+
+Our soldiers, as well as those of other countries, are not up to
+former physical standards. Degeneracy, disintegration is apparent in
+every direction.
+
+The power of a nation depends on the physical and mental condition
+of the great mass of people, and to leave the people in ignorance
+that they may be controlled by the intelligent few who understand
+their needs and may have their welfare at heart, is a mistake that
+other nations than Russia have made. The law of the survival of the
+fittest has wiped out races and nations who have ignored this
+fundamental law, that all men must progress together.
+
+A race or civilization with such a basis of farmers as this plan
+would create would be enduring.
+
+The nation or race, like the individual, must have intelligent
+organization and live in harmony with the laws of nature in order to
+survive. Opposition to them means destruction Cooperation is
+constructive.
+
+If we are to profit by this lesson, it is necessary that we improve
+the conditions surrounding our lower classes. That this is
+recognized by a large number of leading minds is proved by the
+efforts of the many who are engaged in educational and other social
+movements, most of which result in little net good to the
+wage-earners.
+
+Obstacles to small farming near large cities are that farms of three
+to ten acres with buildings are not plentiful, and that mortgage
+loans are hard to get in the East and loans to help in building are
+hardly to be had at all.
+
+Land is either held intact as large farms or is sold entire to
+speculators who hold it until it can be divided into city lots.
+Here, it would seem, is an opportunity for those who are interested
+in bettering the condition of their fellow men by wholesale, and can
+invest large capital, but little time, in the work.
+
+Let them buy up land in large acreages and cut it up into small
+plots of from one to ten acres, charging enough advance to return
+interest on the money invested and to meet the necessary expenses in
+such operation. Then make liberal building loans to buyers.
+Inquiries among real estate men show that they always have a larger
+demand for small acreage than they can meet, so an immediate market
+with large profits would await those who are first in this field.
+
+There is no use in blaming people for not leaving the cities to go
+to the farms; they don't know enough to go, they don't know enough
+to make a living if they do go, and they don't know enough to enjoy
+it. Besides this, they have not the capital. We must teach them and
+help them.
+
+George H. Maxwell's Homecrofters' Guild at Watertown, Mass., where
+boys are taught what to do with the earth and how to do it, is worth
+whole shelves of books on "The Exodus to the Cities" or the
+"Prosperity of the Settler."
+
+It is reported that the state of Texas offered six million acres of
+land for sale to settlers, at one dollar per acre. It has been
+suggested that it would be better that the states should rent out
+the land at four per cent of the sale price. This would leave more
+money in the hands of settlers and enable many to get farms who
+cannot pay the price and have enough left to raise a crop. In
+reality it would be better for the state to help farmers get a start
+rather than to tax them one dollar per acre to begin with. However,
+under our system of government, we permit only those who have money
+to have land.
+
+There can be no doubt that the state of Texas and her people would
+be better off if the land were leased than to have it sold. Probably
+a tax on the value of the land instead of a rent would be the best
+for all the people, especially as it would check speculation.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE COMING PROFESSION FOR BOYS
+
+
+
+
+
+In order that as little as possible may seem to be taken for granted
+or as mere expressions of the opinions of the author, we cite the
+views of specialists as to the possibilities of this field, so new
+in this country, of intensive agriculture.
+
+These will show that the conviction has become general that, as
+workers, as teachers, and as discoverers, there is no career more
+inviting or more lucrative or more dignified than that of the
+skillful foster-father of plants.
+
+"Children brought up in city tenements tend to become vicious and
+sickly, but if transported to country homes they may grow up strong
+and self-respecting men and women.
+
+"There are hundreds of applicants for every position in the cities,
+and competition forces the pay down to the lowest level. Living
+expenses are heavier. The risk to health from sedentary occupations,
+long hours in ill-ventilated offices, stores, and workshops is
+serious.
+
+"There are few inducements to out-door exercise. Even if he lives at
+home, the boy who is forced to the street or into the factory before
+he has the strength or education to do good work remains an
+unskilled worker all his life.
+
+"Manufacturing is upon a larger and larger scale. The division of
+labor is greater and greater. Not only does the gulf between
+capitalist and laborer widen, but with it the gulf between skilled
+and unskilled labor." ("What Shall Our Boys Do for a Living?"
+Charles F. Wingate.)
+
+It is the city that breeds or attracts most of the pauperism and
+crime. The country has its own healthy life.
+
+Every one is born with some natural gift, and it is a good thing to
+discover early in life what one's natural gifts are so that each may
+be educated in the direction suited to natural capacity.
+
+How are you to treat a lad who has naturally an inclination for the
+work on the farm? In the first place do not provide him with any
+spending money unless he earns it. The prime thing necessary is to
+give the boy a personal interest in what is going on upon the farm.
+Give him a plot of land as his own, let him understand that anything
+he may grow upon this land shall belong to him, but do not give him
+this plot and say, "There, take that; do as you like with it," he
+will wonder what to do with it. He will need somebody to help him by
+teaching him what he is to do. Enter into a partnership with him at
+the start, give him some instruction as to what it is best for him
+to do with his plot. Find out his inclinations; give him sympathy
+and help. Bring out his natural aptitude for farming life, teach him
+method in his work; teach him to think his way out; and, best of
+all, teach him to work for definite results; that is what is wanted
+in any line of life, especially in farm life.
+
+Let the work of the boy have a meaning and a purpose. Let him
+understand that certain results cannot be accomplished in any other
+way, and give him chances to go outside and see what other people
+are doing. Let him see good scientific agriculture and be encouraged
+to pursue such methods.
+
+Provide for him the very best reading that can be found in
+agricultural journals and books. Let him have three or four years at
+an agricultural college. All the influences there point to
+agriculture as the best calling for a young man who is fit for it,
+whereas in other colleges the influences are all in the opposite
+direction. At our agricultural colleges a youth has all the
+necessary advantages of general education, and also an education in
+the lines fitting him especially for the calling he has selected.
+(United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 138, condensed.)
+
+"Among farmers and gardeners not enough thought is given to the whys
+and wherefores, or cause and effect; as a rule, they go on year
+after year without profiting by the personal opportunity afforded
+them of observation, or by the results of experiments at scientific
+stations.
+
+"With rare exceptions the young farmer and gardener takes up his
+work, not from the scientific side, but strictly from the labor
+side; and he begins at the bottom, meeting the same difficulties as
+did his father and too often not acquiring information beyond what
+his father possessed.
+
+"This should not be; agriculture should be taught in all our public
+schools in country districts, as it has been taught for years in
+Germany and Austria. It should be elevated as an art; in its higher
+estate it is already an art. No pursuit possesses a greater scope
+for development; the field is almost unoccupied by leaders,
+scientific and practical." (Burnett Landreth, in _999 Queries and
+Answers._)
+
+In accordance with these ideas, the Baron de Hirsch Agricultural
+School at Woodbine, New Jersey, is giving practical courses in
+agriculture to Jewish boys, on the principle of individual
+plots--all free where necessary.
+
+The trustees of the State Agricultural College of New Jersey, at New
+Brunswick, have established winter courses in agriculture, open to
+all residents of New Jersey over sixteen years of age. Courses will
+be for twelve weeks, and only a small entrance fee is required; few
+books will be needed.
+
+Other states are doing likewise; all will need many teachers and
+experimenters. At present all who know anything about intensive
+agriculture are snapped up by the numerous government experiment
+stations at good salaries. The land like that of the Rockefellers,
+the Paynes, the Cuttings, on which farming is carried on by
+unnecessarily expensive methods, needs the services of trained
+agriculturists and professional foresters. The Division of Forestry
+at the start employed eleven persons, but now it has in the field as
+many hundreds of employees, including a lot of trained foresters.
+
+The railroads also see the profit in teaching farming, and are
+devoting more and more money to experiments and lectures to show the
+farmers that they can get more and better crops with the same effort
+by intelligent selection of seeds.
+
+The Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railway Company ran its first
+Seed and Soil Special over the entire system in the winter of
+1904-1905, and has lectured to hundreds of thousands of farmers
+since.
+
+They report to us that "there is no doubt that the lectures did a
+great deal of good, and necessarily the larger increase of crops
+which followed is due to the scientific methods of farming expounded
+by the various professors." The late President James J. Hill wrote
+much about the small farms' large yields.
+
+The hundreds of thousands of "war gardens" unskillfully conducted
+and glutting the local markets with crops all matured at about the
+same local time will unreasonably disgust many with intensive
+cultivation, especially those who work but do not think. The remedy
+is more instruction. The effect the agricultural colleges and
+experiment stations is plain to the eye in the better appearance of
+farms as we near the centers of instruction.
+
+Some years ago a clergyman published a book upon the Adirondacks; it
+was full of poetry, and he sent men up there who afterwards became
+known as "Murray's Fools." They knew nothing about the life and had
+no suitability and little preparation for it. We do not wish to
+bring out a crop of "Three Acres and Liberty Fools." We are telling
+what has been done and what can be done again. It does not follow
+that every man can or will do it, much less teach it or advance the
+art, but the field is a large one and holds out great promise to
+those who persevere and excel in it.
+
+If any one thinks that the profit of the earth will come to the
+cultivator without very intelligent and steady work, he is mistaken.
+No owner of land, unless others require it to live upon, can make
+money by neglecting it.
+
+Says _Maxwell's Talisman:_ "The greatest good that can be done to
+the American farmer to-day is to teach him to make the greatest
+possible profit from the smallest tract of land from which a family
+can be supported in comfort. A great influence operating to-day
+against keeping the boys in the country is that the boy does not
+have money enough to buy a farm. It is unfortunately true that in
+some places there is a trend in the direction of absorbing farms
+into still larger farms with a consequent diminution of population,
+as in Iowa and other sections. The remedy for this is to demonstrate
+that if the value is in the boy rather than in the farm, and the boy
+is taught intensive, diversified, scientific farming, a good living
+with a surplus profit that will provide amply for old age, may be
+made from a comparatively small tract of land. The tract may be,
+say, ten acres, with ample cultivation, irrigation, and
+fertilization, or even without irrigation because a hoe and a
+cultivator in the hands of a scientific farmer may bring as good and
+better results in providing moisture for growing plants as can be
+had from a ditch and unlimited water in the hands of an ignorant
+farmer."
+
+The field of discovery is always limitless, and it is to those boys
+or girls who devote their attention to this that the greatest return
+will come. "What a fine thing it would be to find even one plant
+free from rust in the midst of a rusted field. It would mean a
+rust-resistant plant. Its off-spring would probably be also rust
+resistant. If you should ever find such a plant, be sure to save its
+seed and plant in a plot by itself. The next year again save seed
+from those plants least rusted. Possibly you can develop a rust
+proof race of wheat! Keep your eyes open." ("Agriculture for
+Beginners," by Burkett, Stevens, and Hill, pages 76-78.) So you may
+pluck gain out of loss.
+
+If you want to do experiments, the influence of ether on plants is
+one new and wonderful field. It seems to induce artificial rest, so
+that lilacs, for instance, can be made to bloom twice by a
+treatment, the last time near Christmas.
+
+E. V. Wilcox says in _Farming _that in 1899 a small quantity of
+durum or macaroni wheat was introduced into this country for trial.
+It was found profitable in localities where there was too little
+rain for ordinary wheat. Six years later, 20,000,000 bushels per
+year of the wheat was grown in the United States. Its production has
+increased greatly every season and has added materially to the total
+of the wheat crop.. Thorough fall cultivation has been found to
+increase the yield, and in some parts of the wheat belt one in five
+of tile farmers has already adopted the practice. In certain states
+where manuring has been thought unnecessary, experiments have
+demonstrated that the yield may be be increased 60 per cent by this
+simple practice. The wheat production of Nebraska was increased more
+than 10,000,000 bushels by the introduction of a hardy strain of
+Turkey red wheat. Swedish select oats in Wisconsin have greatly
+augmented the oat yield of the state. In 1899 six pounds of the seed
+was brought to the state and from this small beginning a crop of
+9,000,000 bushels was harvested five years later.
+
+"Mr. Gideon, of Minnesota, planted many apple seeds, and from them
+all raised one tree that was very fruitful, finely flavored, and
+able to withstand the cold Minnesota winter. This tree he multiplied
+by grafts and named it the Wealthy apple. It is said that in this
+one apple he benefited the world to the value of more than one
+million dollars. You must not let any valuable bud or seed variant
+be lost." ("Agriculture for Beginners," page 61.)
+
+"This fact ought to be very helpful to us next year when planting
+corn. We should plant seed secured only from stalks that produced
+the most corn. If we follow this plan year by year, each acre of
+land will be made to produce more kernels and hence a larger crop of
+corn, and yet no more expense will be required to raise the crop."
+(Same, page 71.)
+
+_The World's Work _tells how the country got a new industry.
+
+Mr. George Gibbs, of Clearbrook, Wash., has made his "stake" by
+growing tulip and hyacinth bulbs. He had a little place on Orcas
+Island, in Puget Sound. He did not know anything about growing
+flowers, but he did know that certain varieties of bulbs brought
+good prices in the East. He was observant enough to see that the
+moist, warm, climate and rich soil of the Puget Sound country were
+peculiarly favorable to flowers.
+
+He had bad luck with his bulbs; that only meant that he still had
+something to learn. He kept his nerve even when he went bankrupt.
+His friends told him he was wasting time, but they could not shake
+his faith.
+
+In twelve years he found that he was right. His wonderful gardens
+were making him rich. Other men have gone into the business, but he
+was first and has kept his lead. He has made the Puget Sound country
+the greatest rival of Holland in the sale of flowering bulbs.
+
+Quantities of wild herbs, fruits, and roots that no one eats are
+good; the Jesuits had a list of over two hundred kinds that the
+Indians ate, but it was lost. Some one can do a great service by
+making it up again by research and experiment. Thousands more of the
+wild things must be good for dyes, fabrics, and fodder.
+
+Fame like Burbank's and fortune awaits the one who is a good
+self-advertiser and can find the use of the poetic daisies,
+goldenrod, and thistle, the all-pervading "pusley," and such other
+vegetable vermin.
+
+An interesting experiment is conducted in growing tea with colored
+child labor, at Tea, South Carolina, by the aid of education and
+machinery and the cooperation of the Agricultural Department at
+Washington, who will furnish particulars. Whatever may be its
+outcome, this will give an opening to some intelligent cultivators,
+and it points the way to other fields.
+
+Those who are first in raising new or improved plants find a waiting
+market for them.
+
+_The Market Growers Gazette, _of London, England, reports that Mr.
+A. Findlay, Mairsland, Auchtermuchty, Scotland, sold one season to
+five leading growers whose names are given five seed potatoes at
+L 20 each (which would be, perhaps, $500 a peck). He says
+enthusiastically: "It is as perfectly round-shaped a potato as can
+be imagined. There is a slight dash of pink on the outer rim of the
+eye. My stock of it is very small, only 126 lb. and I do not care to
+sell any. If next year's crop yields as well as this year's, we
+shall have twenty times that quantity." Mr. Findlay has other seed
+potatoes, just as high priced, for which he wants $125 per lb.,
+which, he says, "means that I do not want to sell any."
+
+This shows what progressive people think of the real value of good
+seed.
+
+It is worth mentioning that "The land on which these are grown is
+not highly manured; the only artificial manure that it has received
+is about 200 lb. of potash per acre. It has the drawback of being
+rather stony."
+
+Of course this is "a fad"; it is doubtful if it will pay any one to
+give such prices for seed except to sell to some bigger fool than
+himself. Of course, also, the market for a particular fancy thing
+may soon be overstocked, but it seems to be a nice thing for the
+Findlays meanwhile, and it does good in teaching people to
+appreciate good things.
+
+Yet the average potato patcher prudently saves his small potatoes
+for next year's seed, which is just as if a breeder were to keep the
+colts that were too poor to sell, to be the parents of his herd.
+
+In the dark ages of farming--to wit, in 1881, for this is a true
+story--a minister of the Gospel came into possession, by
+inheritance, of a fifteen-acre farm a short way from Philadelphia.
+He found the soil a reddish, somewhat gravelly clay, and so worn out
+from years of cropping that it did not support two cows and a horse.
+City born and bred, he was encumbered with no knowledge of
+agriculture which had to be unlearned. He began a careful and
+systematic study of the agricultural literature, and ultimately
+developed a novel system of dairy farming to which he adhered
+religiously.
+
+The farm Iying near the city is high-priced land; for this reason,
+and because of the limited acreage, the cows were kept in the barn
+the year round. For six years his bill for veterinary services was
+$1.50, while the income from the milk of his seventeen cows was
+about $2400 a year. In addition, from four to six head of young
+cattle were sold annually, netting about $500 a year. As the stock
+on the farm was stall fed every particle of plant food contained in
+the stable manure, liquid as well as solid, was utilized. No
+fertilizer was ever purchased. Yet all of the "roughage" for thirty
+head of stock was raised on the thirteen acres of available soil.
+Only $625 a year was expended for concentrated feeding stuffs. The
+net earnings of the farm for the period averaged more than $1000 a
+year. And this was during the early days of his experience; later he
+made more.
+
+Professor W. J. Spillman, of the Agricultural Department, visited
+him in 1903, and studied the methods employed. Then, he says, the
+rush to see the farm became so great that the owner had to give it
+up.
+
+Few people who know nothing about it, and won't learn, can take even
+three acres and make anything off it. To get the phenomenal yields
+takes capital--sometimes large capital, wisely spent. Sometimes we
+read of immense products "per acre"; this often means the product of
+a single rod of ground, this gives at the rate of so much "per
+acre," or might, if extended.
+
+But any one can take a little bit of ground and use it thoroughly
+and increase his borders and his knowledge as he goes on. He will
+find plenty to pay him for doing or teaching whatever he has learned
+to do that no one else has done "If a man make but a mousetrap
+better than his fellows, though he makes his tent in the wilderness,
+the world will beat a path to his door."
+
+The mission of this book is accomplished if it interests you to
+consider the possibilities of making a living on a few acres and
+leads you to investigate. It is not written as a textbook, for, as
+has been shown, there are authorities enough cited to supply all the
+technical information needed
+
+Its sole object is to show what has been done and what can be done
+on small areas and to show that life in the country need not be so
+laborious if the same methods are used which make successes of
+business in other lines.
+
+If it does this and is the means of checking in any degree the
+reckless trend of people from the country to the cities, the author
+will feel that his efforts have been well repaid.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE WOOD LOT
+
+
+
+
+
+If you have a bit of woods on your little farm, take care of it. By
+intelligent thinning you can make an average income of five dollars
+per acre from ordinary second growth wild woods. The cord wood,
+barrel hoops, fence posts, and so on will decrease your expenses,
+while the timber will increase in value. That lot is the place to
+start your boy as a forester.
+
+Instructions how to treat the trees can be obtained from your State
+Forestry Department or from the National Forest Service at
+Washington: the care of growing timber is a big subject and requires
+study, but don't sell your standing timber without their advice.
+Forestry can hardly be made to pay on a small lot with hired labor
+or hired teams, and you must not pay much for your wood lot, else
+interest and taxes will eat up the returns.
+
+To be of high quality, timber must be, to a considerable proportion
+of its height, free of limbs, which are the cause of knots; it must
+be tall; and it must not decrease rapidly in diameter from the butt
+to the top of the last log. In a dense stand of timber there is very
+great competition for sunlight among the individual trees, with the
+result that height growth is increased. Trees in crowded stands are
+taller than those in uncrowded stands of the same age. When the
+trees are crowded so that sunlight does not reach the lower
+branches, these soon die and become brittle they then fall off or
+are broken off by the wind, snow, or other agencies. By this process
+trunks are formed which are free from limbs, and hence of high
+quality.
+
+It is evident, therefore, that trees in the wood lot should be so
+crowded that the crown or top of each individual tree may be in
+contact with those of its nearest neighbors. A crowded stand of
+trees produces not only a larger number but also a greater
+proportion of high quality sawlogs than an uncrowded stand. So vital
+a matter is their forest shade that it does not do to set out young
+trees which have grown in the forest. Ordinarily, the exposure to
+the sunlight stunts them and often kills them. Nursery trees are
+best; the next best are trees that have grown at the edge of the
+woods.
+
+The actual value of woodland as pasture is small. One dollar per
+acre per year is probably a liberal estimate of the value of its
+forage. Thrifty fully stocked stands of timber will grow at the rate
+of 250 or more board feet of lumber per year. Adopting only 250
+board feet as the growth and assuming the value of the standing
+timber to be from $5 to $8 per 1000 feet board measure, the value of
+the timber growth is from $1.25 to $2 per acre per year.
+
+If the timber is given good care, moreover, the growth should be as
+much as 500 board feet per acre per year. The larger value of the
+wood lot for growing timber, as compared to the value of its forage
+only, is therefore apparent.
+
+It must not be thought possible to secure this growth of timber and
+utilize the wood lot for pasture at the same time, because the stock
+eat the seedlings and damage the trees.
+
+If shade, however, rather than forage is the wood lot's chief value
+to stock, it can doubtless be provided by allowing the stock to
+range in only a portion of the lot. The remainder can more
+profitably be devoted to the production of wood
+
+Owners are doubtless in some instances indifferent about fires in
+their wood lots, because they do not realize that these may do great
+harm without giving striking evidence of the fact. They burn the
+fallen leaves and accumulated litter of several years, thus
+destroying the material with which trees enrich their own soil. The
+soil becomes exposed, evaporation is greater, and more of the rain
+and melted snow runs off the surface. The roots may also be exposed
+and burned. The vitality of the trees is weakened and their rate of
+growth decreased. Don't burn leaves or waste growth: it is dangerous
+and they are valuable for mulch and for manure.
+
+It has been found in the prairie region that through the protection
+afforded by the most efficient grove windbreaks, the yield in farm
+crops is increased to the extent of a crop as large as could be
+grown on a strip three times as wide as the height of the trees.
+
+At present the following states maintain nurseries and distribute
+young trees either free or practically at cost to planters within
+the state: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Maryland,
+Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, North Dakota, and Kansas.
+
+The names of nurseries which handle stock of certain trees and their
+quoted prices for all the more important species can be secured from
+the Forest Service, Washington, D. C.
+
+Whether your wood lot pays a profit or not, like the profit from the
+rest of your land, depends largely on how it is taxed. The higher it
+is taxed the harder it is to make it pay. In most states timberland
+is assessed on the basis of its value, timber and land together.
+Woodland assessed on this basis is overtaxed as compared with land
+assessed on the basis of what it produces each year. The value of
+plowland for farm purposes is established by what it will earn. If
+the owner can make $10 an acre a year over all expenses by growing
+say wheat, corn, cotton or alfalfa on it, his land will have a value
+of perhaps $150 an acre. If it took two years to grow a crop, the
+land would be worth only half as much. Its owner in that case would
+kick vigorously if he could not get his assessment lowered. He would
+kick still more vigorously if he had to pay a tax also on the value
+of the standing crop, after having to pay too much on the land. "The
+Lord loveth a cheerful kicker."
+
+With woodland the case is still worse. Each year the owner may have
+to pay a tax on the merchantable crops of many past years. It is as
+though the owner of plowland had to pay a tax on the value of his
+field crops twice a week throughout the growing season. When a
+full-grown tree is cut down or burned up in a forest fire, it may
+have been taxed 40 or 50 times over. Each year the land on which it
+grew has been valued not on the basis of its earning power, but on
+the basis of what it would bring if sold, timber and all. A tax
+levied on the income-earning value of the land would be much more
+equitable.
+
+Certain states have applied this principle by legislation under
+which land to be used for growing timber can be classified so that
+the timber can be taxed separately from the land. The land there is
+taxed annually on its value, without timber. The tax on the timber
+is not paid until the crop is harvested. It is therefore a tax on
+the yield. In New York this yield tax is 5 per cent of the value of
+the crop harvested; Michigan 5 per cent of it; Massachusetts 6 per
+cent; and Vermont, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania 10 per cent, with
+different provisions for forests already established.
+
+Such a method is much better than that adopted by a number of states
+which exempt, under certain conditions, reforested or reforesting
+lands for a term of years, or allow rebates or bounties on such
+lands.
+
+The profit of a growing forest crop will depend largely on relief
+from excessive taxation. It is unthrifty public policy to discourage
+putting waste land to work. ("The Farm Woodlot Problem," by Herbert
+A. Smith, Editor Forest Service--from Yearbook of Department of
+Agriculture for 1914.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+SOME PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS
+
+
+
+
+
+The Department of Agriculture at Washington, also Cornell University
+and various other schools publish special studies and monographs of
+different branches. For some a small charge is made, but they are
+mostly distributed free. Many of them are very valuable. The United
+States Department's pamphlet on the Diseases of the Violet is a
+notable example. The average person does not know how these can be
+obtained or even that they exist.
+
+The Department's Year Books are most interesting reading, and both
+its Professors and the state colleges will answer particular
+questions of citizens.
+
+These and the various United States and State Experiment Station
+publications will serve instead of most books (except this one), if
+properly filed, indexed, and crossindexed so that you can readily
+turn to all the information on a given subject--on bugs, for
+instance, before the insects have harvested your crop.
+
+I am trying only to suggest things, not to advise, nor to induce my
+readers to try to do anything that they don't like or have no
+capacity for. It is difficult to make people understand that.
+
+One reader of this book, a dear creature, wrote her experience for a
+Crafts magazine. She got the acres, built her house, and raised one
+fine crop of--swans? nuts grafted on wild trees? partridge berries?
+No--three tons of hay!
+
+She called it " Three Acres and Starving"; I called it "Three
+Acres and Stupidity." She didn't eat the hay, and the Editor
+wouldn't publish my reply.
+
+Everybody raises hay and potatoes; so don't you raise any unless for
+your own use.
+
+Potatoes are a laborious crop, requiring constant care, manuring,
+cutting the seed eyes (on which there is much uncertain lore),
+hilling up or down according to drainage and rainfall, spraying with
+Pyrox or dusting with Paris green, and, neither least nor last, bug
+hunting.
+
+The seed is expensive, but for your own use you may plant from
+whatever seed, otherwise wasted, may grow on the potato vine, on the
+tops of the plants. The crop will be small potatoes and all kinds of
+varieties, which won't sell in the market but which make each dinner
+a surprise party. You may strike a new and improved strain, though
+there are over a thousand varieties of potato listed already. New
+creations of merit bring good returns, and 'tis the enterprising
+experimenter that reaps the honor and the harvest, and he is worthy
+of his reward.
+
+To select the most productive plants and breed again from these is,
+however, a more promising profit plan. Even then don't plant the
+tubers unless you will take the pains to soak the seed potatoes in
+scab preventer. If you won't, likely you will raise mostly scab, and
+the spores thereof will spoil your ground for potatoes for years.
+
+It costs little in money to make it--half a pint of formalin to
+fifteen gallons of water. Not guessed but measured gallons. Then
+soak for an hour and a half by the Ingersoll. Don't reckon that one
+little hour or a few will do just as well. With one hour they will
+be under-done and spotty, with three over-done and weakly.
+
+There is lots to be discovered yet about "the spuds." Sawdust is an
+excellent mulch for them, as for small fruits. When you store any
+seeds to plant, put carbolic moth balls with them. it checks insects
+and mice and helps to protect the planted seeds from birds.
+
+In a general way, with potatoes and with other things that you want
+good and plenty, get specific directions and follow them. Most
+people won't read directions; more can't follow them. Those people
+have their knives out for "book farmers and professors," but you
+can't improve on experience and experiment by the light of laziness
+or of nature.
+
+A delicate jelly is made out of the red outer pulp of rose berries.
+It would be romantic to develop a Rose fruit from those seed pods,
+as the peach was developed from the almond. We have invented
+stranger fruits than that, such as the Logan-berry and the pomato.
+
+But there is better chance for profit in doing the old things
+better, especially when the experiment costs little or nothing
+
+You can have a strawberry garden on your roof or even on a balcony.
+This need not be costly. Clinch all the nails on the inside of a
+stout barrel. Bore half a dozen two-inch holes in the bottom, or put
+in a layer of stones, for drainage. Bore a row of eight holes about
+eight inches from the bottom of the barrel and about eight inches
+apart. Eight inches above this bore a second row of holes
+"staggered," and a third eight inches above those. Pile several old
+tomato cans with perforated bottoms one on the other in the center
+of the barrel: these should be the height of the barrel and placed
+upright in its middle. This is the conductor down which water should
+be poured at intervals before the soil gets quite dry. Fill the
+barrel with soil made of one half loam and one half well-rotted
+manure. Be sure the manure is not fresh. A little bone meal is a
+good addition.
+
+Now plant the first row of strawberry plants ("ever-bearing" are
+best, though they don't ever-bear). Put each plant inside, spread
+the roots, and pull the leaves of each out through one of the holes.
+Press the soil down firmly around each root. Repeat the process for
+the other two rows; fill the barrel and set say six plants on the
+top. That will give you thirty plants, which should grow ten to
+twentyfive quarts of fine berries, or more. The illustration makes
+the holes twelve inches apart--for big leafy plants.
+
+If there are any more, those will be you. Anyhow, you will know a
+lot about strawberries at the end of the season. Other things can be
+grown in the same way.
+
+Better than growing vegetables, or where dry land can't be obtained,
+is to raise some crop like water cress that usually comes from a
+distance.
+
+Often an otherwise poor season will help a specialty. One year wet
+weather jumped the price of mint and it sold at double prices. Hot,
+dry weather is required to make it produce its best.
+
+Most of the mint produced in this country for peppermint oil is
+grown in Michigan. More than 4000 acres are reported from a single
+county. Mint oil is worth about $3.50 a pound and costs about a
+dollar to produce. Nice bright dried leaves sell for about 15 cent
+a pound.
+
+The production of mint is sometimes as high as fifty pounds of oil
+to the acre. The bulk of it is grown on marshlands, which a few
+years ago were nowhere worth more than a few dollars an acre. The
+mint is sent to the manufacturers, where it is purified and made
+into flavoring extract or used in chewing gum, etc.
+
+Why should we, with our infinite variety of climates, soils, and
+labor, import from England the coarser varieties of seeds of the
+cabbage family, savoy, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, or kale? We owe
+England enough already for the seed of Liberty we got from her.
+California now supplies some seed for onions, carrots, parsnips, and
+a few others. The finest cauliflower comes mostly from Denmark now.
+
+Turnip seed, too, mangel-wurzel and swedes, onion, pea, bean,
+carrot, parsnip, radish, and beet seeds could be grown here by the
+same skill, care, and training as they are grown abroad.
+
+An interesting method of forcing plants by the use of hot water
+baths is described in _La Nature _(Paris), by Henri Coupin. The
+process is much simpler than others now in use and may be employed
+by any one who has a small greenhouse, no expert treatment being
+necessary. Says Mr. Coupin:
+
+"Most trees in our countries undergo a period of rest, during which
+all growth appears to be suspended. Branches do not enlarge and the
+buds on them remain as they are. They do not arouse from their
+torpor until spring, first, because they then find the conditions
+necessary for their development, and again, because, during the
+period of rest, chemical changes have taken place in them. These are
+indispensable, because if they did not occur, the trees, even in the
+most favorable conditions, would not open their buds. For example,
+plant branches that have quite recently dropped their leaves, in a
+warm greenhouse. They will not bud; but make the same experiment at
+the end of several months and the buds will appear.
+
+"There are several ways of shortening this period of rest, some of
+which are rather odd. The best known is the process of
+etherification, which has been so much discussed recently, and which
+consists in placing the plants to be forced in the vapor of ether or
+chloroform for twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Afterwards when
+placed in a hothouse, the branches begin to develop almost
+immediately.
+
+"A very ingenious botanist, Hans Molisch, professor in the
+University of Prague, has devised a method of forcing, simpler still
+and quite as effective. It consists in plunging the branches into
+warm water during a time that varies with the species. The best
+method is to plunge the plants in a reservoir of warm water, head
+downward, without moistening the roots, which would injure them.
+After a certain time, the plants are withdrawn, turned right side up
+with care, and placed in a greenhouse, where they develop at once.
+
+"The duration of the warm bath should be nine to twelve hours at
+most. The best temperature is 30 degree to 35 degree [86 degree to
+95 degree F] . . . That is to say, in the majority of cases, one may
+simply employ the water available in hothouses, which is just at the
+proper temperature. The process is thus at the disposal of all
+gardeners.
+
+"It should be said that the good effects of the hot baths are
+confined to the parts actually immersed and do not extend to the
+whole plant. Thus, on the same stem we may see developing only the
+branches that have been treated with the bath, while the others
+remain torpid. This is easy to verify with the lilac or the willow.
+
+"If Lobner is to be believed, we may substitute for the water bath
+one of steam. He has obtained good results with the lily of the
+valley. The thing is possible, but the method used by Molisch is
+more practical.
+
+"How shall we explain the good effect of warm water on branches in a
+resting state? We are absolutely ignorant of its mechanism, as we
+are also in the case of etherification. But if we knew everything,
+science would be no longer amusing!"--Condensed, from _THE LITERARY
+DIGEST._
+
+There are many new uses for water: It will not be long before every
+truck and every commercial flower garden will have overhead
+irrigation. This is merely gas pipes ("seconds" rejected for blow
+holes or porosity are usually used) supported on posts say six feet
+above the ground. They are usually placed parallel about fifty feet
+apart, which will make four to the acre square, and have a single
+row of holes and a handle on each pipe, so that the spray can be
+turned in either direction; with a high-water pressure, often
+supplied by gravity, they may be farther apart with larger holes.
+
+These not only have saved us from fear of drought, but they supply
+the moisture in the natural manner and at the right time and
+increase fertility to an astonishing degree.
+
+When you take a shower bath yourself, that is overhead irrigation.
+
+The gasoline, kerosene, or heavy oil one man farm tractor, so made
+that it can be used to plow, to climb a side hill, to run a saw or a
+pump, is the coming factor in garden and farm advance. Huge fortune
+awaits the first manufacturer who will standardize it, cheapen it,
+and specialize on it. The horse is the greatest care and the
+greatest risk on the little farm. He costs more than a tractor
+would, he is eating his head off half the time, he can't he worked
+overtime without injury, not even as much as a man can be; all too
+soon he dies, more missed than any member of the family.
+
+When this is popularized the "Three Acres" can well be extended to
+five.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+SOME EXPERIMENTAL FOODS
+
+
+
+
+
+FIFTY-EIGHT years ago Abraham Lincoln said "Population must increase
+rapidly, more rapidly than in former times, and ere long the most
+valuable of all arts will be the art of deriving subsistence from
+the smallest area of soil. No community whose every member possesses
+this art can ever be the victim of oppression in any of its forms.
+Such community will alike be independent of crowned kings, money
+kings, and land kings."
+
+The future, it seems, has many strange dishes in store for the
+American stomach. Whether you are rich or one of the plain people
+that have to work, whether the idea of new fantastic food appeals to
+your palate or to your pocketbook, you will be attracted by the
+array of foreign viands with curious names which have already been
+successfully introduced and are now beginning to be marketed in this
+country. Mr. William N. Taft, in the Technical World Magazine,
+presents the following wild menu for the dinner table:
+
+Jujube Soup
+Brisket of Antelope
+Boiled Petsai
+Dasheen au Gratin
+Creamed Udo
+Soy Bean and Lichee Nut Salad
+Yang Taw Pie
+Mangoes
+Kaki
+Sake.
+
+This, he assures us, is not the bill of fare of a Chinese eating
+house, nor yet of a Japanese restaurant, it is the daily meal of an
+American family two decades hence, if the Department of Agriculture
+succeeds in its attempt to introduce a large number of new foods to
+this country for the dual purpose of supplying new dainties and
+reducing the cost of living. Uncle Sam has determined to decrease
+the price of food as much as possible, and, for this purpose,
+delegated Dr. David S. Fairchild, Agricultural Explorer in charge of
+the Foreign Plant Section of the Bureau of Plant Industry, in
+particular, to see what can be done about it.
+
+More than 30,000 fruits and vegetables have been tested by Uncle
+Sam's experts and, according to Dr. Fairchild, a goodly portion of
+the foodstuffs which have been regarded as staples since the days of
+the first settler are doomed. Consider for example "Jujube Soup!"
+Mention that to the average person and he will answer:
+
+"But I thought the jujube was a fruit, like an apple. How can you
+make soup of it?" The average person is right. The jujube is a
+fruit--but a most remarkable one.
+
+"It is about the size and appearance of a crab apple, but contains
+only a single seed. It grows on a spiny tree, long and bare of
+trunk, with its foliage cropping out at the very top like a royal
+palm of the tropics. The jujube itself has been used for years to
+flavor candies and other confections. But the essence is very
+expensive and comparatively rare, despite the profusion with which
+the fruit grows in its native habitat.
+
+"Dr. Fairchild, however, imported several specimens for the
+Department's gardens in California, where they are bearing
+prolifically. The arid sands of the southwest, where nothing but
+cactus and sage-brush formerly would grow, have been found to be
+excellent soil for the jujube, and it is the hope of Uncle Sam's
+food experts to see the entire Arizona and New Mexico deserts dotted
+with jujube orchards, with income to their owners. The jujube is
+delicious eaten raw, but it may be cooked in any manner in which
+apples are prepared, used as a sauce or for pie, preserved or dried.
+Finally, its juice may be used as a delicious and highly nutritive
+fruit broth."
+
+Petsai, or, as the Chinese have it, Pe-tsai, is a substitute for the
+cabbage. In appearance it is as different from cabbage as can be
+imagined. It is tall and cylindrical and its leaves are narrow,
+delicately curled, with frilled edges. The petsai can, however, be
+grown on any soil where the ordinary cabbage could be cultivated and
+in many sections where the native vegetable would languish. We are
+told it is no uncommon thing for a petsai to reach sixty pounds in
+weight. Department of Agriculture officials, however, advise that it
+be plucked when about eight pounds in weight, its flavor being then
+the most delicate and appealing.
+
+This new importation, Uncle Sam's experts hope, will cause a drop in
+the price of dinners. Cabbage long ago ceased to be a cheap dish.
+But petsai requires none of the care which has to be lavished on
+cabbage and will thrive in almost any climate and any soil.
+
+The soy bean, once started, grows wild and yields several crops a
+season. It can be prepared in a multitude of ways, from baking to a
+delicious salad. According to Doctor Yamei Kin, the head of the
+Women's Medical School near Pekin, milk can be made from it to cost
+about six cents a quart and equal to cows' milk. It would be a
+blessing if we could get rid of the sacred but unclean cow. One of
+the state dairy inspectors told me, "We consider milk a filthy
+product."
+
+It may be remembered that, only twenty years ago, almost all the
+dates consumed here came from the oases of Arabia and the valley of
+the Euphrates. To-day there are more than a hundred varieties
+successfully produced in California and Arizona. The wonders of
+today are the commonplaces of to-morrow, and there is no telling to
+what apparently impossible lengths science will go to relieve people
+of the burden they now bear in the price of food. It has scoured the
+ends of the earth for new delicacies and now experts will do their
+best to teach the people to use them.
+
+Have you ever heard of _"Whitloof"_ or _"Belgian Chicory"_ or have
+you ever dined in one of the better restaurants of large city where
+they have served during the winter months a salad composed of golden
+blanched oblong leaves about 2 inches wide and 5 inches long, only
+the outer edges showing a faint green? It is as delicate as the
+perfume of roses, as crisp as young lettuce, as delicious as
+asparagus, and as ornamental upon the table as the freshest fruit.
+
+In former years this salad had to be imported and you had to pay
+dear for a portion of it, a good reason why so few people know it. A
+Belgian farmer located near New York has grown many thousands of
+these plants this past summer.
+
+How would you like to grow this dainty salad right in your living
+room and cut several crops from a single planting lasting nearly
+three months? Secure an 8-inch pot and plant in it 12 roots packed
+in light sandy soil or pure sand. Invert another but empty 8-inch
+pot over this to keep out the light, place in a heated room, water
+daily, and in from three to four weeks you will find full-grown
+crowns, beautifully blanched ready for cutting. Six of such crowns
+make a large portion, sufficient for an entire family.
+
+In cutting, do not cut too close to the root, for another growth is
+made directly after the cutting, which matures in from three to four
+weeks, and still two other crops can be grown in this way, so that
+from a single planting four full crops can be had. Considering,
+then, that eight such treats can be had for the cost of a single
+dozen roots, we can all now enjoy what was formerly a luxury. This
+method is most interesting, for you can watch the daily progress of
+the growth of the roots, fascinating to young and old, and with
+three weekly plantings of a pot each this treat can be enjoyed twice
+a week from the 1st of February until May.
+
+For those who wish to enjoy it more often or in larger quantities,
+we suggest the following:
+
+Prepare a bed of soil 12 inches deep in your cellar in a dark place
+where the temperature is always above freezing. Plant the roots as
+close as their size will permit and cover the crowns with at least 3
+inches of soil. On top of this put straw so that when the crowns
+come through the soil they will not strike the light. When ready to
+cut, remove the soil as far back as the original root so that you
+can intelligently cut the growth to produce the crops to follow.
+
+As a substitute for the potato of commerce the "Dasheen" long ago
+passed the experimental stage. It has been served at a number of
+banquets in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York.
+
+While the tops of potatoes are useless as food, the tops of the
+dasheen make delicious greens, and tests indicate that good growers
+can depend on a crop of from four hundred to four hundred and fifty
+bushels per acre.
+
+The Udo is the plant intended by the Department of Agriculture as a
+substitute for asparagus, a delicacy which it closely resembles. It
+is more prolific than asparagus, grows in the same soil, and
+requires less attention.
+
+Not only plants but animals are experimented with by Uncle Sam's
+experts. Officials of the Bureau of Animal Industry claim that
+before long we will partake of antelope steak. For the antelope has
+been found to be particularly adapted to the more arid western
+sections of the country. And beyond that the gastronomist of the
+future will have to reckon with loin of hippopotamus!
+
+The lower valley of the Mississippi is admirably suited to these
+huge beasts, the flesh of one of which equals a score of cattle.
+African traveled epicures maintain that hippopotamus steak is as
+tender and inviting as the choicest beef. "For those who like that
+sort of thing, it is just the sort of thing they would like."
+
+It seems a bit remote to urge hippopotamus on us who do not yet know
+enough to eat sharks, tortoises, painted turtles, or even English
+sparrows. Anyhow the small gardener is more likely to succeed
+raising pheasants than to muss with a hippopotamus, at least in the
+suburbs. Pigs are more practical and make prettier pets.
+
+Our population bids fair to approximate two hundred million within
+the next fifty years, and, because of the exigencies of business, an
+increasing number of people will be engaged in non-food-producing
+vocations. These people, however, are all consumers and must be fed
+and clothed, and even now America offers the greatest market for the
+produce of the farm that any farmer in any country has ever had in
+all history.
+
+One of the coming ways of feeding them is the discovery and use of
+new foods. As in other things, after the war, whether we live in a
+better world or not, we shall live in an entirely different world,
+new ways, strange thoughts, and other foods. For the most of the
+following, _Business America_ and _Current Opinion_ are responsible.
+
+For the creation of new crop varieties or the improvement of those
+now in use we must depend upon the practical scientists who are
+engaged in plant breeding. The work of one of these, Professor
+Buffum, has been accomplished in a region that is apparently sterile
+and where plants grow only by coaxing through artificial moisture.
+
+His plant-breeding farms near Worland in the Big Horn Basin of
+Northern Wyoming lie at an elevation of 4000 feet, in a region of
+almost total natural aridity.
+
+After twenty years' work in Western agricultural colleges and
+Government Experiment Stations, Professor Buffum chose his present
+location because nowhere in the United States could he find
+conditions of soil and climate that induce to such a remarkable
+degree the breaking up of species, and mutation or "sporting" of
+plants.
+
+When the modern plant breeder seeks to produce something new by
+cross-fertilization a problem is encountered. For many years we were
+ignorant of the principle upon which nature operated in these
+hybrids or crosses. Finally a Bohemian priest named Mendel
+discovered the law. The central principle is that when the seed
+produced from a cross between two different species is planted, the
+progeny breaks up into well-defined groups. A certain percentage of
+the plants resemble one of the parents, a smaller percentage are
+like the other parent, and the rest seem to be a blend of both
+parents. These intermediates will not breed true to themselves,
+however; if seed from them is planted the progeny will split up into
+groups, showing the same percentages as the first generation to
+which they belonged. This has been generally accepted by scientists.
+
+In many of his productions Professor Buffum apparently has set the
+Mendelian law at defiance, for, by cross-fertilization, he has
+evolved plants which breed true to themselves, and their progeny
+does not break up into groups, according to the accepted theory.
+They show specimens resembling each parent, with the third composed
+of seemingly, but not really, blended specimens.
+
+These results are particularly vital in the development of plants
+adapted by selection for semi-arid agriculture. The Professor
+believes that the great areas of high plain country to be found from
+Canada to Mexico can be made more productive through planting crop
+varieties that have been bred to withstand the existing conditions
+which produce meagre returns from the vast expanse of territory
+under the present methods.
+
+In place of corn, which is difficult to mature even at moderate
+elevations, Professor Buffum has introduced improved emmers and the
+various hybrids resulting from crosses with other grains.
+
+Emmer itself is not a new grain, having been grown for centuries in
+Russia and southern Europe, and it is believed to have been the corn
+of Pliny, which he said was used by the Latins for several centuries
+before they knew how to make bread.
+
+Several years ago emmer began receiving attention as a stock food.
+The first planting of the grain at Worland resulted in some
+exceptional "sports," seemingly of a different type, with coarse
+straw and very large heads. With this as a basis, the seed was
+replanted and subjected to many experiments to increase its drouth
+and winter resisting qualities. Continued selections have shown, a
+yield of from a third more to twice as much as corn, that it is
+thirty per cent more valuable than oats for feeding horses, and that
+for stock fattening it is equal to corn, pound for pound. It is the
+most drouth-resistant and prolific of small grains, has been
+successfully raised from Montana to Mexico, and is being planted in
+Louisiana to replace oats because it is not affected by rust.
+
+Some of the yields recorded are enormous, varying from 40 to 104
+bushels per acre under dry farming, and as high as 152 bushels under
+irrigation.
+
+One stalk of Turkey red wheat was noticed as differing in many ways
+from all varieties, principally that the head was over eight inches
+in length, whereas the ordinary Turkey red wheat commonly used in
+the West has a head of only four or five inches.
+
+From this one stalk has been developed the Buffum No. 17 Winter
+wheat. The heavy beards were eliminated and the grains or kernels in
+each spikelet increased from the normal number of three to five,
+seven, and even nine. The hardiness of the new variety, together
+with its remarkably large head, means that when it is placed on the
+market the farmers who sow it need not fear winter killing and will
+have a splendid flouring grain, which will produce nearly double the
+average crop per acre.
+
+It is said that if a single kernel could be added to each head of
+wheat, the increase in annual production of this country would
+amount to over fifteen million bushels.
+
+If fodder crops can be substituted for a part of the corn now used
+for stock, it will be a great gain.
+
+In his alfalfa-breeding garden, Professor Buffum is raising over
+seventy different kinds, gathered from all parts of the world,
+showing that the plant is capable of wide variations. One hybrid has
+been obtained by crossing sweet clover with alfalfa; the clover
+grows wild in every state in the Union.
+
+There seems to be no limit to man's ingenuity and skill in plant
+improvement. Perhaps sometime we will try it with our children.
+
+In thirty years an exceptional ear of dent corn, through continued
+planting and careful selection each succeeding season, resulted in a
+few days' shortening of the growing period and an increased
+resistance to the cool nights of the higher elevation where it was
+under improvement; to-day, this corn matures about the middle of
+August at an altitude of 4000 feet, and has been yielding forty to
+sixty bushels per acre.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+DRIED TRUCK
+
+
+
+
+
+As a war measure the surplus vegetables in many city markets have
+been forced by the governments into large municipal drying plants.
+Community driers have been established in the trucking regions and
+even itinerant drying machines have been sent from farm to farm
+drying the vegetables which otherwise would have gone to waste.
+
+The drying of vegetables may seem strange to the present generation,
+but we are very young; to our grandmothers it was no novelty. Many
+housewives even to-day prefer dried sweet corn to the canned, and
+find also that dried pumpkin and squash are excellent for pie
+making. Snap beans often are strung on threads and dried above the
+stove. Cherries and raspberries still are dried on bits of bark for
+use instead of raisins.
+
+This country is producing large quantities of perishable foods every
+year, which should be saved for storage, canned, or properly dried.
+Drying is not a panacea for the waste evil, nor should it take the
+place of storing or canning to any considerable extent where proper
+storage facilities are available or tin cans or glass jars can be
+obtained cheap.
+
+For the farmer's wife the new methods of canning are probably better
+than sun drying, which requires a somewhat longer time. But dried
+material can be stored in receptacles which cannot be used for
+canning. Then, too, canned fruit and vegetables freeze and cannot be
+shipped as conveniently--in winter. Dried vegetables can be
+compacted and shipped or stored with a minimum of risk. String them
+up to the ceiling of the storeroom or attic.
+
+A few apples or sweet potatoes or peas or even a single turnip can
+be dried and saved. Even when very small quantities are dried at a
+time, a quantity sufficient for a meal will soon be secured. Small
+lots of dried vegetables, such as cabbage, carrots, turnips,
+potatoes, and onions, can be combined to advantage for soups and
+stews.
+
+In general, most fruits or vegetables, to be dried quickly, must
+first be shredded or cut into slices, because many are too large to
+dry quickly, or have skins the purpose of which is to prevent drying
+out. If the air applied at first is too hot, the cut surfaces of the
+sliced fruits or vegetables become hard, or scorched, covering the
+juicy interior so that it will not dry. Generally it is not
+desirable that the temperature in drying should go above 140 deg to
+150 deg F., and it is better to keep it well below this point. Insects
+and insect eggs are killed by the heat.
+
+It is important to know the degree of heat in the drier, and this
+cannot be determined accurately except by a thermometer. Inexpensive
+oven thermometers can be found on the market, or an ordinary
+chemical thermometer can be suspended in the drier.
+
+Drying of certain products can be completed in some driers within
+two or three hours. When sufficiently done they should be so dry
+that water cannot be pressed out of the freshly cut pieces, they
+should not show any of the natural grain of the fruit on being
+broken, and yet not be so dry as to snap or crackle. They should be
+leathery and pliable.
+
+When freshly cut fruits or vegetables are spread out they
+immediately begin to evaporate moisture into the air, and if in a
+closed box will very soon saturate the air with moisture. This will
+slow down the rate of drying and lead to the formation of molds. If
+a current of dry air is blown over them continually, the water in
+them will evaporate steadily until they are dry and crisp. Certain
+products, especially raspberries, should not be dried hard, because
+if too much moisture is removed from them they will not resume their
+original form when soaked in water.
+
+The rotary hand slicer is adapted for use on a very wide range of
+material. Don't slice your hand with it.
+
+From an eighth to a quarter of an inch is a fair thickness for most
+of the common vegetables to be sliced. To secure fine quality, much
+depends upon having the vegetables absolutely fresh, young, tender,
+and perfectly clean; one decayed root may flavor several kettles of
+soup if the slices from it are scattered through a batch of
+material. High-grade "root" vegetables can only be made from peeled
+roots.
+
+Blanching consists of plunging the vegetables into boiling water for
+a short time. Use a wire basket or cheesecloth bag for this. After
+blanching as many minutes as is needed, drain well and remove the
+surface moisture from vegetables by placing them between two towels
+or by exposing them to the sun and air for a short time.
+
+A mosquito net is thrown over the product to protect the slices from
+flies and other insects. Fruits and vegetables, when dried in the
+sun, generally are spread on large trays of uniform size which can
+be stacked one on top of the other and protected from rain by covers
+made of oilcloth, canvas, or roofing paper.
+
+A very cheap tray can be made of lath three fourths of an inch thick
+and 2 inches wide, which form the sides and ends of a box, and
+smoothed lath which is nailed on to form the bottom. As builders'
+laths are 4 feet long, these lath trays are most economical of
+material when made 4 feet in length.
+
+A cheap and very satisfactory drier for use over the kitchen stove
+can be made by any handy man of small-mesh galvanized-wire netting
+and laths or strips of wood about 1/2 inch thick and 2 inches wide. By
+using two laths nailed together the framework can be stiffened and
+larger trays made if desirable. This form can be suspended from the
+ceiling over the kitchen range or over a clear burning oil,
+gasoline, or gas stove, and it will utilize the hot air which rises
+during the cooking hour. It can be raised out of the way or swung to
+one side by a pulley or by a crane made of lath. When the stove is
+required for cooking, the frame is lowered or swung back to utilize
+the heat which otherwise would be wasted. Still another home drier
+is the cookstove oven. Bits of food, left overs, especially sweet
+corn, can be dried on plates in a very slow oven or on the back of
+the cookstove and saved for winter use.
+
+Where the electric "juice" is not monopolized, an electric fan in
+drying is economical, especially for those who already have a fan.
+
+Many sliced fruits placed in long trays 3 by 1 foot and stacked in
+two tiers, end to end, before an electric fan can be dried within
+twenty-four hours. Some require much less time. For instance, sliced
+string beans and shredded sweet potatoes will dry before a fan
+running at a moderate speed within a few hours.
+
+The dried fruit or vegetables must be protected from insects and
+rodents, also from the outside moisture, and will keep best in a
+cool, dry, well-ventilated place. In the more humid regions,
+moisture-tight containers should be used. If a small amount of dried
+product is put in each receptacle, just enough for one or two meals,
+it will not be necessary to open a large container.
+
+Your American ingenuity and the American practice of reading will
+show you a lot of ways of saving waste: for example, frozen potatoes
+are not necessarily spoiled, we are told by Mr. de Ronsic, a writer
+in the _Reveil Agricole_. They may be dried and then cooked as
+usual. The _Revue Scientifique_ (Paris), abstracting the article in
+question, says:
+
+"The potatoes must be dried to prevent decomposition, which takes
+place very rapidly after they have thawed out. . . . "The oven
+should be heated as for baking bread. Then, when it has reached the
+necessary temperature, which is easily recognized, the potatoes are
+put in, cutting up the largest. They are spread out in a layer so
+that evaporation may easily take place, the door of the oven being
+left open. From time to time the mass is stirred up with a poker to
+facilitate the evaporation. When the drying has gone far enough, the
+potatoes having become hard as bits of wood, they are withdrawn to
+make room for others.
+
+"Potatoes thus dried may be boiled with enough water to make a paste
+similar to that which they would have furnished if mashed in the
+ordinary manner, and which will answer very well, at least to feed
+stock. The potatoes will be found to have lost none of their
+nutritive value."
+
+Even if you haven't any acres--yet, there isn't any law against
+drying in the city. Either in sales or in saving it will help to pay
+for the country place later and the country place can be made to pay
+it back again.
+
+Call your product say "Landers' Desiccated Beans" or "Glory's
+Dehydrated Corn." They will sell better, they may even taste better,
+trying to live up to the description. There's dollars in a name.
+
+As a preservative ice must not be neglected. The _Country Gentleman_
+says:
+
+While the temperature is below the freezing point we should take
+advantage of even short frosts to lay up ice for next summer. The
+man without an ice pond need not be, without ice--he can freeze it
+in pans outdoors. An ice plant of this sort will cost from fifteen
+to twenty dollars.
+
+A double tank should be made of galvanized iron. The inner
+compartment of this tank should be ten feet long, two feet wide, and
+twelve inches deep. The top of the tank should be slightly wider
+than the bottom. The inner tank should be divided into six
+compartments by means of galvanized iron strips. The double tank
+should be placed near the outdoor pump, or stream, where it can
+easily be filled.
+
+Being exposed on all sides, the water will freeze in from one hour
+to three hours. A bucket of hot water poured into the space between
+the tanks will loosen the cakes of ice, each weighing 200 pounds.
+Four tons of ice will last the average family a year. The cakes may
+be packed away in the icehouse as they are frozen.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+HOME COLD-PACK CANNING
+
+
+
+
+
+To save vegetables and fruits by canning is a patriotic duty. The
+war makes the need for food conservation more imperative than at any
+time in history. America is mainly responsible for the food supply
+of the world. In this way the abundance of the summer may be made to
+supply the needs of the winter.
+
+By the modern cold-pack method it is as easy to can vegetables as to
+can fruits. Some authorities say it is easier. At any rate, it is
+more useful.
+
+In the cold-pack method of canning, sterilization does away with the
+danger of spoilage by fermentation or "working." Sterilization
+consists in raising the temperature of the filled jar or can to a
+germ-killing point and holding it there until bacterial life is
+destroyed.
+
+The word "container" is used to designate either the tin can or the
+glass jar.
+
+Single-period cold-pack canning, as distinguished from old-fashioned
+preserving, offers a saving in time, labor, and expense, and
+satisfactory results. As the foodstuffs are placed in the containers
+before sterilization, they are cold and may be handled quickly and
+easily. Then the sterilization period is frequently short. This is
+time-saving. Finally, no rich preservatives, such as thick syrups or
+heavily spiced solutions, are required. Fruits may be put up in thin
+syrups. Vegetables require only salt for flavoring and water to fill
+the container.
+
+Another advantage of this method is that it is practicable to put up
+food in small quantities. It pays to put up even a single container.
+Thus, when there is a small surplus of some garden crop, or
+something left over from the order from the grocer's, one can take
+the short time necessary to place this food in a container and store
+it for future use. This is true household efficiency--the kind
+which, if practiced on a national scale, will conserve our war food
+supply and will, after the war, cut heavily into the high cost of
+living.
+
+There are five principal methods of canning: (1) the cold-pack,
+single-period method; (2) the intermittent, or fractional
+sterilization method; (3) the cold-water method; (4) the open kettle
+or hot-pack method; and (5) the vacuum-seal method. Of these the one
+worked out on scientific lines by leading experts and used by many
+commercial canners is so much the best method for home canning,
+because of its simplicity and effectiveness, that it is recommended
+by the National Emergency Food Commission and the details are
+explained in their manual.
+
+The cold-water method can be used effectively in putting up rhubarb,
+green gooseberries, and a few other sour berry fruits. The process
+is simple. The fruit is first prepared and washed and then blanched,
+and finally packed practically raw in containers, which are next
+filled with cold water and then sealed. Some sour fruits packed in
+this way will keep indefinitely.
+
+A serviceable outfit may be made of materials found in any
+household. All that is necessary is a vessel to hold the jars or
+cans--such as a wash boiler or a large tin pail. This should have a
+tight-fitting cover. Provide a false bottom of wood or a wire rack
+to allow for free circulation of water under the containers.
+
+While suburban gardeners with large surplus of vegetables find it
+desirable to use tin cans, being more easily handled for commercial
+purposes, most of us find glass jars the more satisfactory and
+economical containers for canned vegetables and fruits. This is
+especially true when there is a shortage of tin cans. All types of
+jars that seal perfectly may be used. Use may be made of those to
+which one is accustomed or which may be already on hand. The rubbers
+must be sound but the glass jars may be used indefinitely. Glass
+jars are adapted for use in any of the cold-pack canning outfits. Be
+sure that no jar is defective.
+
+For use in the storing of products which are already sterilized,
+such as jellies, jams, and preserves, and the bottling of fruit
+juices, housewives may practice effective thrift by saving all jars
+in which they receive dried beef, bacon, peanut butter, and other
+products and bottles that have contained olives, catsup, and kindred
+goods.
+
+Blanching is important with most vegetables and many fruits. It
+consists of plunging them into boiling water for a short time.
+Spinach and other greens should be blanched in steam. To do this,
+place them in an ordinary steamer or suspend them in a tightly
+closed vessel above an inch or two of boiling water.
+
+Blanching should be followed by the cold dip, plunging into cold
+water after removal from the hot water. Cold dipping hardens the
+pulp and preserves the original color, enhancing the appearance.
+Blanching cleanses the articles and removes excess acids and strong
+flavors and odors. It also causes shrinkage, so that a larger
+quantity may be packed in a container. After blanching and cold
+dipping, surface moisture should be removed by placing the
+vegetables or fruits between two towels or by exposure to the sun.
+
+All this is so simple and the directions so easily followed that the
+average 12-year-old may successfully can vegetables or fruits. The
+steps and the precautions are:
+
+1. Select sound vegetables and fruits. (If possible can them the
+same day they are picked.) Wash, clean, and prepare them.
+
+2. Have ready, on the stove, a can or pail of boiling water.
+
+3. Place the vegetables or fruits in cheesecloth, or in some other
+porous receptacle--a wire basket is excellent--for dipping and
+blanching them in the boiling water.
+
+4. Put them whole into the boiling water. The Commission gives a
+time-table for blanching. After the water begins to boil, begin to
+count the blanching time; this varies from one to twenty minutes,
+according to the vegetable or fruit.
+
+5. When the blanching is complete, remove the vegetables or fruits
+from the boiling water and plunge them a number of times into cold
+water, to harden the pulp and check the flow of coloring matter. Do
+not leave them in cold water.
+
+6. The containers must be thoroughly clean. It is not necessary to
+sterilize them in steam or boiling water before filling them, as in
+the cold-pack process both the insides of containers and the
+contents are sterilized. The jars should be heated before being
+filled, in order to avoid breakage.
+
+7. Pack the product into the containers, leaving about a quarter of
+an inch of space at the top.
+
+8. With vegetables add one level teaspoonful of salt to each quart
+container and fill with boiling water. With fruits use syrups.
+
+9. With glass jars always use a good rubber. Test the rubber by
+stretching or turning inside out. Fit on the rubber and put the lid
+in place. If the container has a screw top do not screw up as hard
+as possible, but use only the thumb and little finger in tightening
+it. This makes it possible for the steam to escape and prevents
+breakage. If a glass top jar is used, snap the top bail only,
+leaving the lower bail loose during sterilization. Tin cans should
+be completely sealed.
+
+10. Place the filled and capped containers on the rack in the
+sterilizer. If the homemade or commercial hot-water bath outfit is
+used, enough water should be in the boiler to come at least one inch
+above the tops of the containers, and the water, in boiling out,
+should never be allowed to drop to the level of these tops. Begin to
+count processing time when the water begins to boil.
+
+At the end of the sterilizing period remove the containers from the
+sterilizer. Fasten covers on tightly at once, turn the containers
+upside down to test for leakage, leave in this position until cold,
+and then store in a cool, dry place. Be sure that no draft is
+allowed to blow on glass jars, as it may cause breakage.
+
+11. If jars are to be stored where there is strong light, wrap them
+in paper, preferably brown, as light will fade the color of products
+canned in glass jars, and sometimes deteriorate the food value.
+
+That's the whole trick.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+RETAIL COOPERATION
+
+
+
+
+
+COOPERATION in buying supplies at wholesale, in standardizing and
+shipping crops, in keeping grain in elevators, and fruit and some
+meats and poultry in cold storage has reached a high development
+among the farmers largely in the Northwest, much ahead of us "city
+folks."
+
+There are more than five thousand active Farmers' Cooperation
+Associations in the United States. Minnesota alone has over six
+hundred cooperative creameries, some of which have a laundry annex.
+The associations have six hundred and sixty thousand members and do
+a business of nearly a thousand dollars a year for each member.
+These are the people that we call "hayseeds"; if we could plant some
+more such "seeds," it would be a good job. But in cooperative retail
+domestic supply we are far behind England and other countries, even
+behind Russia. That is partly because our better retail business
+methods leave less room for the savings.
+
+A simple and easy but important beginning of cooperation was where
+each one took turns in delivering the milk and fetching supplies.
+One farmer might do it all every day for a small charge.
+
+The new South is developing a great business in this line. When you
+go to New Orleans look up the stores whose letter head reads:
+
+NELSON CO-OPERATIVE ASSOCIATION, INC.
+_Food Suppliers_
+OFFICE, 506 So. PETERS STREET. CREAMERY, ERATO ST.
+WAREHOUSE, 511 SO. PETERS ST. BAKERY, ELYSIAN FIELDS AVE.
+61 RETAIL STORES
+4 MEAT MARKETS
+
+In August, 1917, N. O. Nelson of the above concern writes in answer
+to my request:
+
+"It does not take 2500 words to tell all I know about Cooperation. I
+trust the inclosed may be serviceable for your book, and shall feel
+proud if it is.
+
+"I am doing my job here for two very practical reasons; first, the
+immediate service of reducing the cost of living to say 15,000
+families, mostly poor; second, to introduce economy in retailing.
+
+"The readers of such a book as yours are well aware of the wasteful
+ways of retailing goods. In every town and city there is a
+multiplication of stores, advertising clerks, teams, and other
+incidentals.
+
+"Likewise there is a lot of middle men and drummers, the buyers at
+the producer's end, the wholesalers or middle men at the consumer's
+end, with speculator and landowner at both ends. All of these have
+to be supported by the system, and the dear consumer pays for it.
+
+" The Cooperative store system, which was started in England 73
+years ago, eliminates most of these waste expenses. The system has
+kept spreading at an astonishing rate; in Great Britain there are
+now 3 1/2 million members, and more than a billion of sales a year.
+Other European countries are full of these stores. Many of the
+retail stores have from twelve thousand to fifty thousand members;
+their sales run into the millions. They are federated in a wholesale
+agency which buys for them and manufactures on an extensive scale.
+
+"By the economies thus introduced they are able to save regularly
+about 15%, besides paying interest on the capital employed, and
+accumulating a liberal surplus. It is simply a question of people
+getting together (all civilization is), contributing their own money
+and their trade, and thus avoiding all the waste expenses.
+
+"It is a very democratic plan; anybody is welcome to join it; every
+member has one vote and no more, they elect their directors, the
+directors elect the managers, and the managers employ the clerks.
+They sell at the market prices and every three or six months take
+account of stock and rebate the profits in proportion to each
+member's purchases, with half rate to non-members.
+
+"It appeals to the economical sense of the ordinary housekeeper, and
+to the ethical sense of those who want no advantage of their
+neighbor. It prevents some from getting unduly rich and it helps to
+keep many from being unduly poor.
+
+"The same principle has spread into farmer's work, especially
+Creameries. In Cooperative Creameries and Stores Russia has grown
+faster in the last 15 years than any other country, having at last
+reports over thirteen million members. This orderly getting together
+for common social needs has much to do with the orderliness of the
+Russian Revolution.
+
+"The United States has made large progress in producers' cooperative
+associations, but not much in stores.
+
+"I have in New Orleans a system of 65 stores on a modified system;
+it is a cooperative association but we sell at as low prices as can
+be afforded, for cash in hand. The sales amount to about 2 1/2
+millions, the most of it in the winter. The Association owns a
+Bakery, a Creamery, Condiment Factory; and Coffee Factory, and a
+1550-acre plantation. We are able to undersell the market about 20 %
+
+"People anywhere can make a cooperative store if they take it
+seriously. There should be about 200 members and $2000 in cash to
+start with: then get an honest and intelligent manager; start with a
+grocery, buy and sell for cash, either on the Rochdale plan of
+selling at full market prices and dividing the profits periodically,
+or on my plan of selling as cheaply as can be afforded. In either
+plan it works out into producing a large part of the goods sold,
+thus eliminating entirely the superfluous middleman.
+
+"Three acres and Liberty is the correct way of producing a living;
+with the adjunct of a cooperative store to do the selling of the
+surplus produced and the buying of goods needed, the small farmer is
+free from all the waste and trammels of trade."
+
+Now what's the matter with your helping your county and country and
+humanity by organizing those two hundred waiting buyers in your own
+town? You can be the "honest and intelligent manager" at a decent
+salary. If, later, the cooperators want another manager, why you can
+easily organize another store. The best information on this subject
+is the Cooperative News, Manchester, England; subscription two
+dollars.
+
+Evidence is daily accumulating that the food and farm problem is not
+so easy as many thought it to be a few months ago. This is made
+clear when economists say: "The really important question in the
+food problem is not distribution, it is production." It is
+unfortunate that this statement should gain belief at this time,
+when those who prey upon the producer are watching for any support
+from whatever direction.
+
+Passing by the obvious fact that production must precede
+distribution, notice that, with all the energy that has been devoted
+to production of farm products by the government experts, it is
+clear that not only is there a shortage, but that it has required
+all kinds of inducements, from the President down, to get the
+farmers to increase their output, the most potent of all being the
+cry of patriotism.
+
+Some explain this by showing how land monopoly prevents men going
+back to the farms. While this is perfectly true, it does not answer
+the question why farmers now in possession of farms are not working
+them near their capacity.
+
+The answer of the ordinary man to this is inefficiency on the part
+of the farmer, and up to the present this idea has passed as
+sufficient to account for the situation. The publicity given the
+whole farm question during the past six months, however, has to a
+large extent dispelled the inefficiency answer, as the farmer has
+responded so completely to the call, and the amateurs are beginning
+to realize that there is something in farming besides tickling the
+earth with a feather. All the facts so far brought out show the
+farmer abundantly able to produce all the foodstuffs needed,
+provided he has a reasonable certainty that he will be able to
+dispose of his produce at a price that will give him a fair return
+for his labor. This being the case, it is easy to see that putting
+more men back on farms would not remedy the condition we are now in;
+but would rather increase the difficulty.
+
+The fact is, the two blades of grass theory has been exploded, the
+increased production cry has been tried out, carried to its logical
+conclusion, and found wanting, and the inefficiency explanation has
+been proved a falsehood on its face. It is, therefore, obvious that
+with a proper system of distribution, the entire question of
+production will take care of itself; but just so long as the
+producers find it unprofitable to produce food, just so long will
+they have to figure carefully not to grow too much, or it would be
+better for them had they grown nothing at all.
+
+The reason why we have such divergent ideas on this subject is that
+so many people write about it who have had no experience in farming,
+while on the other hand there are few farmers who can state the case
+so the public can grasp the most obvious facts.
+
+Finally, it is a question of the government doing what it ought not
+to have done and leaving undone those things it ought to have done.
+It has granted to a few monopolies transportation and terminal
+facilities which enable them to hold up deliveries and thus control
+prices. The remedy lies in seeing that the government attend to its
+own business, which is securing equality of opportunity for all, and
+special privileges to none.
+
+It follows that cooperation should not stop either at production or
+at distribution. It must embrace the source of both, nor even stop
+at governmental plans of small holdings.
+
+As a business enterprise, combining philanthropy and percentage,
+capital has an opportunity.
+
+Accordingly an option should be secured upon a large piece of land
+not over forty miles from a large city, near a railroad station. The
+transportation at first is not important, as the new commuters will
+make a demand for it, and cheap autos will largely fill the gap; it
+will improve rapidly.
+
+If possible it should have a lake or a fair stream on it for
+irrigation and small water power; the soil should be examined by
+experts, to see that it is suitable for trucking and market
+gardening.
+
+The object should be to make a sort of vacant lot gardening plan on
+a grand scale. Heretofore the trouble has been that we have been
+unable to get land where there was any assurance that we could have
+it again the second year, and that the limited amount of land makes
+it impossible to give the men as much as they ought to have. They do
+not need much land, because a man working at intensive culture with
+only the rough plowing done for him cannot take good care of much
+more than one acre of land. He will probably make as much money out
+of one acre of land as he will out of two. Those who are willing to
+work should be given one acre of land, with the assurance that they
+can have it as long as they work it faithfully and comply with the
+simple rules which we have found so effective in the Vacant Lot
+Gardening work,--which are practically, that a man should attend to
+business and not annoy his neighbors. No contract or lease should be
+given the men, or indeed the women, for both work such gardens, as
+they have been doing for the past twenty years in several large
+cities, making at least a living upon the land and often a very
+large return.
+
+There must be a competent superintendent, for everything depends
+upon him, who would show the men what land they should use, what
+they should put in, instruct them how to do it, and market their
+products cooperatively. Experience in Philadelphia, and in some
+score of other cities where they have established Vacant Lot
+Gardens, shows that about ten per cent annually of the people prefer
+to work for others, and consequently take places in the country
+after they have learned to do market gardening. Some others, being
+dissatisfied with so little land, and wanting to own their own
+place, go off and buy land or lease it for themselves. This makes a
+constant drain from the gardens, leaving openings for others who
+will learn in time their trade; it is possible to make in this way a
+steady drain out of the cities to the country, and what is better
+still, an automatic drain.
+
+The land must be so near to a center of population that it may be
+possible to take a gang of men down there in the morning, show them
+what it is, and send back those who do not seem likely to make good,
+or who are dissatisfied; and that when men get their gardens
+successfully running, they may be able to bring their friends there
+to see what they have done, and say to them, "Go thou and do
+likewise."
+
+I have been at Trudeau, Saranac Lake, and at Stony Wold, the
+consumptive sanitariums, and found there both by observation and by
+testimony that to send back the convalescents to the bench or the
+workshop from which they came is practically to repronounce upon
+them the sentence of death from which the sanitarium has offered
+them a reprieve. The only practical thing to do with such
+convalescents, and with such persons who are not capable of their
+ordinary avocations, is to get them in some way upon the land. There
+is a large demand for persons who understand the new intensive
+gardening, and places can be found for more than we can hope to
+educate in that line.
+
+There should be buildings upon the land sufficient to bunk one
+hundred to one hundred and fifty men; accommodations could be made
+with the small timber for a considerable number. Many of these men
+would need some help, but most of them would shift for themselves if
+only they could get the opportunity to build upon the land and to
+have a secure tenure of it. A mere tenant knows that it is bunkum
+when he says "Our Country."
+
+It is perfectly practicable to sell about one half of the land in a
+year or two, and have a thousand acres or more left free and clear,
+which will cost the promoters nothing. Renting this out or selling
+it will repay the whole cost, and probably bring a large profit
+besides.
+
+This is no experiment, it is only to do the thing that we have been
+doing under various conditions with various sorts of men in
+different localities for the past twenty years in the Vacant Lot
+Gardens: namely, to give men the opportunity of living upon and
+cultivating land, putting up their own tents, shacks, or bungalows,
+and giving them such instruction and such help as does not cost
+anything more than the salary of the superintendent. There are
+abundant men who can make good and shift for themselves under those
+circumstances; the men who are available are single men, such men as
+those for whom Mr. Hallimond, a clergyman working in the Bowery, has
+been finding rural employment in the past ten years. Also many
+families will come to us through the Vacant Lot Gardens and the
+Little Land agitation. People such as these will increase the land
+value, for every decent man carries around with him at least five
+hundred dollars' worth of increase in land values which his presence
+adds to somebody's holdings of land. The struggle to pocket this
+increase accounts for much of the human drift from the field to the
+factory.
+
+God made the country; man made the city--and the devil made the
+suburbs, by the aid of the speculator.
+
+Alpha of the Plough says in the London _Star:_ "I was walking with a
+friend along the Spaniards-road the other evening talking on the
+inexhaustible theme of these days, when he asked, 'What is the
+biggest thing that has happened to this country as the outcome of
+the war?'
+
+"'It is within two or three hundred yards from here,' I replied.
+'Come this way and I'll show it to you.'
+
+"He seemed a little surprised, but accompanied me cheerfully enough
+as I turned from the road and plunged through the gorse and the
+trees towards Parliament Fields, until we came upon a large expanse
+of allotments, carved out of the great playground, and alive with
+figures, men, women, and children, some earthing up potatoes, some
+weeding onion beds, some thinning out carrots, some merely walking
+along the patches, and looking at the fruits of their labor
+springing from the soil. 'There,' I said, 'is the most important
+result of the war.'
+
+"He laughed, but not contemptuously. He knew what I meant, and I
+think he more than half agreed.
+
+"And I think you will agree, too, if you will think what that
+stretch of allotments means. It is the symptom of the most important
+revival, the greatest spiritual awakening this country has seen for
+generations. Wherever you go, that symptom meets you. Here in
+Hampstead allotments are as plentiful as blackberries in autumn. A
+friend of mine who lives in Beckenham tells me there are fifteen
+hundred in his parish. In the neighborhood of London there must be
+many thousands. In the country as a whole there must be hundreds of
+thousands. If dear old Joseph Fels could revisit the glimpses of the
+moon and see what is happening, see the vacant lots and waste spaces
+bursting into onion beds and potato patches, what joy would be his!
+He was the forerunner of the revival, the passionate pilgrim of the
+Vacant Lot: but his hot gospel fell on deaf ears, and he died just
+before the trumpet of war awakened the sleeper.
+
+"Do not suppose that the greatness of this thing that is happening
+can be measured in terms of food. That is important, no doubt, but
+it is not the most important thing. I am confident that it will add
+more than anything else to the spiritual resources of the nation. It
+is the beginning of a war on the disease that is blighting our
+people. What is wrong with us? What is the root of our social and
+spiritual ailment? Is it not the divorce of the people from the
+soil? For generations the wholesome red blood of the country has
+been sucked into the great towns, and we have built up a vast
+machine of industry that has made slaves of us, shut out the light
+of the fields from our lives, left our children to grow like weeds
+in the slums, rootless and waterless, poisoned the healthy instincts
+of nature implanted in us, and put in their place the rank growths
+of the streets. Can you walk through a working-class district or a
+Lancashire cotton town, with their huddle of airless streets,
+without a feeling of despair coming over you at the sense of this
+enormous perversion of life into the arid channels of death? Can you
+take pride in an Empire on which the sun never sets when you think
+of the courts in which, as Will Crooks says, the sun never rises?
+
+"And now the sun is going to rise. We have started a revolution that
+will not end until the breath of the earth has come back to the soul
+of the people. The tyranny of the machine is going to be broken. The
+tyranny of the land monopoly is going to be lifted. Yes, you say,
+but these people that I see working on the allotments are not the
+people from the courts and the slums; but professional men, the
+superior artisan, and so on. That is true. But the movement must get
+hold of the _intelligenzia_ first. The important thing is that the
+breach in the prison is made; the fresh air is filtering in; the
+idea is born--not still-born, mind you, but born a living thing. It
+is a way of salvation that will not be lost, and that all will
+travel.
+
+"We have found the land, and we are going back to possess it. Take a
+man out of the street and put him in a garden, and you have made a
+new creature of him. I have seen the miracle again and again. I know
+a bus conductor, for example, outwardly the most ordinary of his
+kind. But one night I mentioned allotments, touched the key of his
+soul, and discovered that this man was going about his daily work
+irradiated by the thought of his garden triumphs. He had got a new
+purpose in life. He had got the spirit of the earth in his bones. It
+is not only the humanizing influence of the garden, it is its
+democratizing influence too.
+
+"When Adam delved and Eve span
+Where was then the gentleman?'
+You can get on terms with the lowliest if you will discuss gardens."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+SUMMER COLONIES FOR CITY PEOPLE
+
+
+
+
+
+(Condensed from the Annual Report of the U. S. Department of the
+Interior of the Commissioner of Education. Vol. 2, now out of
+print.)
+
+BERLIN has not been boastful of a new sociological feature which it
+has developed within the last fifteen years, a feature so
+revolutionary in its bearing upon education and upon the general
+health of future generations, that it should be made known to the
+world. As yet little has been said about this new agency. It may be
+because it is not a governmental institution, but the result of
+self-help and of the recognition of a plain necessity. It may be
+assumed that if the summer colonies had been instituted by the
+government for the great majority who are poor it would not have
+succeeded so well as it has.
+
+The teachers, seeing that the horizon of their pupils was limited by
+brick and mortar (for open park spaces are rare in Berlin), came to
+the conclusion that only by giving their pupils opportunity to live
+in the open air could they lay a sound foundation of knowledge of
+natural objects and processes as a basis for school studies. The
+teachers of themselves, however, could apply only palliative
+remedies, such as having sent to them, from the botanical gardens,
+thousands of specimens of plants, twigs, flowers, fruit, etc., for
+nature study in the schoolroom; planting flower beds around the
+schoolhouses; also, brief excursions into parks, and hanging up
+before the class colored pictures of landscapes and rural scenery.
+
+While in many cases, especially in large cities, the necessity was
+recognized of getting the children out of the great desert of brick
+and mortar into the open air and into companionship with life in the
+field, the garden, the brooks, and the woods, it had nowhere
+resulted in a systematic effort to aid the children of an entire
+city in that way until it was tried in Berlin. Of course it is well
+understood, not only abroad, but in New York and in other large
+cities of this country, that something must be done to alleviate the
+want of space and fresh air, and so recreation piers and roof
+gardens are provided, excursions of schools into parks are
+undertaken, open-air playgrounds are instituted, and similar efforts
+are made tending to mitigate the evil effects of city life; but all
+these efforts are merely sporadic or temporary; they do not attack
+the evil at the roots; moreover they are only drops in the bucket
+when compared with that which is necessary.
+
+This tendency to cooperative and collective action has resulted in
+this particular case in thousands of the children's _"Arbor
+Gardens"_ round about the city. It is an experience "en gros," one
+of such dimensions that cavil ceases and admiration rises supreme.
+
+The German poor are very poor indeed, but parents were induced to
+rent, at a price of 4 marks ($1) or about 20 cents a month from May
+to October for the summer season, a patch of land in the suburbs of
+Berlin unfit for farmland because cut up by railroad tracks and
+newly laid-out streets. On one of these patches a family might erect
+an arbor, or a small structure of boards with a wide veranda and a
+corrugated iron roof, for housing themselves and children during the
+summer months. The dwellings are of the most primitive kind and
+rather flimsy; no permanent structure can be allowed, for at any
+time the owner of the land may give notice to vacate for the purpose
+of erecting a row of houses, railroad buildings, or other permanent
+structures. The tenants themselves build fences of wire or plant
+hedges to keep the different plots apart. On these patches the
+children, under the guidance of teachers, parents, and appointed
+guardians, began to sow flower seeds, plant shrubs, vines, and
+trees, or raise kitchen vegetables, each group or family according
+to its own desires and needs. Since the "arbors" are small they do
+not decrease the arable land of the allotments much, and there is
+still room left for swings, gymnastic apparatus, and similar
+contrivances, as well as bare sandy spots for little tots to play
+in. The various allotments are mostly uniform in size and are
+reached by narrow three- or four-foot lanes, on which occasionally
+are seen probationary officers or guardians who keep the peace and
+settle cases of disturbance.
+
+The "arbor gardens" are established on every square rod of unused
+land round about the city, on vacant lots, far out to the borders of
+the well-trained woods and royal forests. Small tradesmen, laboring
+men, civil officials of low degrees, etc., have found it profitable
+to forsake their tenements in the city and move kith and kin into
+those "arbor colonies." The tenements in Berlin are as bad as in our
+own big cities, only better policed.
+
+Not all of these arbor gardens are occupied by families during the
+night. Thousands return to their city homes evenings. Some parents,
+unable to free themselves from toil in town, send their children
+under guidance of servants, and spend only occasional Sundays and
+holidays with them.
+
+The people, especially the children, getting some information
+concerning the treatment of the crops from competent advisers in
+school and out in the arbor colonies, derive great good from their
+horticultural and floricultural work. Families who are aesthetically
+inclined devote their space to flowers and trailing vines
+exclusively; others, utilitarians from necessity, plant potatoes,
+carrots, turnips, beets, beans, strawberries, and the like. The
+feeling of ownership being strongly developed in the children in
+seeing the results of their own labor, the crops are respected by
+the neighbors and pilfering rarely occurs, except perhaps in a case
+of great hunger.
+
+Several hundred or a thousand of such patches of land, or gardens,
+situated in close proximity to each other, form an arbor colony,
+which has a governor, or mayor, who is an unpaid city official. He
+arranges the leasing of the land, collects the rents, and hands them
+over to the gratified landowners who don't even have to collect
+them. There is always a retired merchant or civil officer to fill
+the office, to which is attached neither title, emolument, nor
+special honor. He is assisted by a "colonial committee" of trustees
+selected from the colonists, who act as justices of the peace, in
+case disturbances should arise. If colonists prove frequent
+disturbers of the peace or are found incapable of living quietly,
+their leases are not renewed. Of course there are such cases, but
+they are rare.
+
+Since the size of an "arbor garden" is from about two sixteenths to
+three sixteenths of an acre, say two or three New York City Lots,
+those forming a colony make a considerable community, in which the
+authority of the committee, or board of trustees, is absolute, and
+the few cases they have had to adjudicate have generally been caused
+by nagging women. It is claimed in the press that these colonists
+are literally without scandals, and that the life led by young and
+old is a most peaceful and happy one. People who are hard at work
+are not likely to be quarrelsome: good wholesome food, much exercise
+in play and labor, and an abundance of fresh air and sunshine are
+conducive to happiness, especially as the clothing may be of a
+primitive kind, or need not conform to the dictates of fashion.
+
+A teacher remarked: "It is noticeable that since these school
+children are engaged in lucrative work which does not go beyond
+their strength, and since they see with their own eyes the results
+of their labor, a sense of responsibility is engendered which has a
+beneficial influence upon school work also. Respect for all kinds of
+labor and a decrease in the destructiveness so often found among
+boys are unmistakable effects of the arbor gardens. It is not easy
+work which the children perform, for spade and rake require muscular
+effort; but it is ennobling work, for it leads to self-respect,
+self-dependence, and respect for others, as well as willingness to
+aid others. The most beautiful sight is afforded when, on a certain
+date agreed on by the members of a colony, a harvest festival is
+held. Then flag raisings and illuminations and singing and music
+make the day a memorable one."
+
+Most of the families had not the means to buy the lumber and
+hardware to erect an "arbor," and yet they were the very ones to
+whom the life in the open would be of the greatest benefit. Hence
+philanthropy erected the structures. The Patriotic Woman's League of
+the Red Cross built half of all the "arbors" of the colony found on
+the "Jungfernheide." Many colonies reach into the woods, and
+naturally are of a different character from those in the open, for
+there tents are used instead of wooden structures. For protection
+during the night watchmen pace up and down the lanes; this before
+the war entailed a cost of 7 1/2 cents a month to each family. The
+season lasts from May 1 to October 1.
+
+The school-going population meanwhile attend their schools, which
+used to be reached by means of the elevated cars or surface tramways
+for 2 1/2 cents and much cheaper if they have commuters' tickets. Many
+schools are near enough to be reached on foot. The children do not
+loiter on the way, but when school is out they hurry "home" to begin
+work in the garden, or to sit down to a meal on the veranda, which
+is relished far more than a meal in a city tenement house filled
+with fetid air and wanting in light. Nearly every one of these
+gardens has a flagpole, and at night a Japanese paper lantern with a
+tallow dip in it illuminates the veranda. These, with flags by day,
+make a festive appearance. The teachers find that city children who
+spend the five months in the open air are well equipped with
+elementary ideas in physical geography and astronomy. Their mental
+equipment is better, indeed, in all fields of thought, their
+physical health is improved, as well as their ethical motives and
+conduct.
+
+To realize the full extent of these wholesale efforts (for put
+children into close contact with nature and they will improve in all
+directions), it is well to take a ride on the North belt line
+(elevated steam railroad), the trains of which start from the
+Friedrich's street depot and bring one back after a ride of an hour
+and a half. Then one may do the same on the South belt line. On
+these two trips one will see, not hundreds, but tens of thousands of
+such "arbor gardens" full of happy women and children at work or
+play. The men come out on the belt line when their work in town is
+done. The writer was riding through the city on an open cab, and
+seeing hardly any children on the streets and in the parks, he
+asked, "How is it that we see no children out?" "Ah, sir," was the
+reply, "if you will see the children of Berlin you must go out to
+the arbor colonies outside of the city. There is where our children
+are." Subsequent visits to these colony gardens showed that Berlin
+is by no means a childless city. To judge from the multitudinous
+arbors to be seen from the windows of the belt line cars there must
+be 50,000 to 75,000 of them. As far as the eye reaches the
+flagpoles, the orderly fences, and the little structures can be
+seen; and since the city has 2,000,000 inhabitants, it is very
+likely that an estimate made by a city official of several hundred
+thousands of children thus living in the open air, is not excessive.
+The most beautiful and best-arranged gardens are not found in the
+vicinity of railroads, but several miles out toward the north and
+the south of the city. Here, where the soil is better, fine crops
+are raised.
+
+If we turn our eyes homeward and contemplate the many thousands of
+small efforts made in this country toward the alleviation of city
+children's misery, we can say truthfully that we in America are
+perhaps fully alive to the necessity which has prompted the people
+of Berlin to action; we only need to be reminded of Mayor Pingree's
+potato patches on empty city lots, our children's outing camps, our
+occasional children's excursions, and the like. Still, there is
+nothing in this country to compare with the thousands of Berlin
+"arbor gardens" and their singularly convincing force. Like a
+circus, all this is supposed to be for the children, though it
+usually seems to need about two grown people to escort each child.
+The elders enjoy the gardens even more than the circus.
+
+The arbor gardens of Berlin should not be mistaken for the numerous
+"forest schools" (Waldschulen) in Germany. These schools "in the
+woods" are for sickly children, both physically crippled and
+mentally weak. The pupils have their lessons in the open, and the
+teachers live, play, and work with them; long recesses separate the
+various lessons and a two-hour nap in the middle of the day out in
+the open is on the time-table of every one of these schools. These
+special open-air schools for weaklings and defectives are now found
+in many parts of Germany, notably in Charlottenburg, Strassburg, and
+the industrial regions of the Rhineland.
+
+The example of Berlin has been followed in other German cities, such
+as Munich, notably in Dusseldorf on the Rhine, where the arbor
+gardens are called "Schreber gardens" in honor of the man who
+promoted their establishment. There is a large colony of such
+gardens along the Hans-Sachs street, where Lima beans, peas,
+lettuce, cucumbers, potatoes, and many other garden vegetables are
+raised; even strawberries, raspberries, and fruit trees are found
+here. But the city being more lavishly provided with parks and open
+spaces than others of its size, the necessity for open-air life has
+not made itself felt as forcibly as in Berlin.
+
+And think of the cleansing influence of all this. Light and air and
+labor--these are the medicines not of the body only, but of the
+soul. It is not ponderable things alone that are found in gardens,
+but the great wonder of life, the peace of nature, the influences of
+sunsets and seasons and of all the intangible things to which we can
+give no name, not because they are small, but because they are
+outside the compass of our speech. The God that dwells in gardens is
+sufficient for all our needs--let the theologians say what they
+will.
+
+"'Not God! in gardens? When the eve is cool?
+Nay, but I have a sign--
+'Tis very sure--God walks in mine.'"
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Three Acres And Liberty, by Bolton Hall
+
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