The garden yard

No man knows, nor can know, the capacity of a yard of earth, for it is unlimited, just as the speed of the engine is unlimited. Just as with the engine, the only question is whether it would pay to make it do any more—it may cost too much. Where land is cheap, labor is high; there intelligent cultivation will pay, but intensive cultivation will not. That is the place where the field crops should be raised.

But the garden crops should be raised right round the towns and cities and it is foolish to get to a distance from them. Stay right where you are and get the piece of land that is best for your purpose; buy it, if you can without paying too much for it; if not, rent it for as long a term as you can; or get permission to use the bit of land, the vacant lots—there are plenty even in the most crowded cities—and raise your truck and your income on those lots. Without separating yourself from your acquaintances or exiling your wife and children, learn to get your living out of the earth.

Suppose that a man owns his house, even if it be but a bit of a bungalow, and suppose he has a little bit of land on which he can raise the most of what the family eats; he may have to work hard, especially if his family cannot help in the work, but at least he is independent; at least panics, lock-outs, change of circumstances or even loss of health will not reduce him to starvation.

If you have a farm, Intensive Cultivation should interest you all the more. Every farm is full of opportunities to make good money; but you must not make the usual mistake of half working a big piece of land; that means that you will always be overworked, always have a lot of things that you know ought to be done, but cannot find time to do; always have common grade crops that bring common prices. Everyone that is overworked is underpaid, for he cannot do his best work.

Use the big fields for pasture, or for raising fine horses, or for pigs or Angora goats or even for sheep; you had better let the fields run wild rather than half cultivate them.

Keep accounts and watch your chance to sell all the land that does not pay well. It may be that you are missing a fortune in the old neglected orchard, or in the chestnut or hickory grove. The black walnuts or butternuts, that are usually left for the neighbors’ boys, may be the most profitable part of the farm.

The wood-lot may have possibilities for barrel hoops, which may be sold to the improvement of the timber. It may need only thinning to bring you a steady income while it increases in value.

Fine apples grafted on the old trees that now bear only cider apples, if properly sprayed and thinned so as to give first-class fruit, may sell for more than all the corn you can raise.⁠[1]

The “pesky briers” that the farmer struggles with year by year, may be the raspberries and blackberries that will sell readily for good prices, when they are cultivated, to the summer residents or boarding-houses. Your exposure and soil may be just the place for the fine strawberries with which, when nicely separated from the second and third grades, no market is ever overstocked.

But if you are always behind with the work and always short of cash or worried to pull through, you have no time to think of these things and no means to hire labor nor to develop them.

That pond may be needed, if it were cleared out, for a profitable ice supply, furnishing paying work in the winter. The stream may be a valuable water-power or at least may bring a high-priced crop of water-cress; or it may be the very water needed, when properly distributed, to make yours the most fertile land in the county. The bit of swamp land, that raises nothing but mosquitoes, may need only a few dollars’ worth of cranberry sets to be the best paying acre in the country side.

There may be a veritable gold mine in a neglected quarry, or brick-clay pit, or kaolin clay deposit, or in a sand bank, or a vein of marl.

Possibly you could rent the farm house or let camping sites for the summer to people who would pay city prices for much of your stuff; so that you could afford to keep help enough to leave only the easy work of superintendence for you. Brains save more work than machines.

If you are raising the same crops that your neighbors do, harvesting at the same time, and getting the same prices that everyone else does, you may be sure that you are neglecting your chances.

The money is in finding things to raise that will sell, and that do not have to compete with all the others.

Says the Farm Journal: “Farmers need more time to plan their work and look after the business and economic end of their calling. The employer who makes a full hand in barn and field from 5 A. M. till 8 P. M., has no other time to devote to the real business of the farm than the hours in which Nature imperatively calls upon him to rest, and a man with aching muscles and tired limbs is not in condition to think clearly or plan intelligently. It is poor economy for a farmer to take the place of a dollar-a-day man in the field, when in so doing he has left no leisure in which to work out the details of his operations.”

Think—think—it is true that we ourselves must work with the men if we are to get the best work out of them; there is a big difference between saying “Go, do that,” and “Come and let us do this.” But it is not enough to work; any jackass can do that.

You know the old fable: “A farmer got his wheels stuck fast in a miry road. The man knelt down in the mud crying to Hercules to come and help him. Said Hercules, “Get up and put your shoulder to the wheel, I help only those who help themselves!”

(There is a new part to that fable)—Now the mire was very deep and even Hercules’ help was not enough; so he called on Pallas, the Goddess of Wisdom. Said she, “Put this lever under the wheel.” Then the wagon was easily lifted out.

Since then, some one else suggested using wide tires, so that the wheels would not sink at all, and another invented a split-log road-drag to keep the roads hard. But we are still waiting for the farmers to learn to use them.

Maybe the roses in the bit of garden would bring you bigger money, if they were made to bloom at the right time, than the potatoes that take twice as much outlay and ten times as much work.

Pick out as much land as you can attend to without walking your legs off, and raise on it the best crops that bring the best prices and let the rest take care of itself.

The market is more important than the crop. Consult the editors of your agricultural papers about where to sell. Require bank reference from any commission merchant that you do not know, and write to the bank for its report on him before you ship to him. Make his acquaintance, if possible, and talk to him about what he can sell the best; naturally, he will take more interest in the affairs of a man that he knows than in a stranger. Don’t go to town or to the boat or railroad with half a load or with a load of poor stuff. Arrange with your neighbors to take enough for them to make your trip pay.

If a trolley or a carrier can be brought into use to make regular shipments, see some merchant or hotel man and arrange to supply him constantly. Then lay out your plantings so as to have a constant supply of what he needs.

If you are choosing a farm or have a chance to sell yours, inquire and look to see if you can find one near a good market where you will earn your own commissions. The way to find out what you want is to talk about it to everyone you meet. A good local map will help you, but of course the real estate agents know more about what is for sale and the prices and values than you could learn in a year’s travel. No men, except editors and hotel clerks, are so ready to give information as the real estate agents. Remember, however, than even when they are honest (most of them are, like the rest of us, as honest as circumstances allow), the successful real estate agent must see the rosy side of the peach and may not point out the worm-hole on the other side. You will have to look for that yourself.

When you have found what you want, point out that you are buying to improve, so that the security will be better every day, and fight for easy terms and for a long mortgage. You can get the privilege to pay off any time that you cannot use the capital to better advantage.

Let some good lawyer examine the records and see that the papers are all straight, and guarantee the title. If there is a local title insurance company its policy is worth all it costs, and will help you greatly should you want to sell or to raise another mortgage.

Buy your land—don’t rent it; it does not pay to put your work into another man’s land.

Every improvement in the condition of the earth—agricultural, mechanical, ethical, educational, political or even religious must go eventually and mainly to the benefit of the owners of the earth; therefore get hold of a bit of the earth, so that everyone who does good will do that good for you.

Get a small bit of land near the market rather than a big bit away from it, because the more people there are near you the better you can live and the more money you can make. Besides it is much pleasanter and better for the wife and children, as well as for yourself, to be near schools, libraries, proper company, stores, than to be away out among stumps. A growing town will make you rich when it grows out your way, because you are in the way and when the land is wanted you must be paid to get out. Meanwhile, you can get manure and help much easier and cheaper than if you were at a distance.

Don’t put your labor or your money into expensive buildings: they only invite the tax assessor; but get proper buildings—they may be only shacks, but they should be well planned shacks, for you must have room enough to shelter your tools, wagons and farm machines, to house your stock, to store your crops, to sprout your seeds, to save your manure and to do indoor work during bad weather.