CHAPTER IV.
LOCATION.
How to buy land and why; how to help the poor to keep themselves on the land and what plain people have actually done; the record yields and how they have been raised; how much capital can be used by one man, are considered in “A Little Land and a Living.”
How much of a crop you may be able to get; how much or rather how little capital it takes; how much labor is needed; where cheap lands are to be found and how to clear wild land and how to build, are all treated fully in “Three Acres and Liberty,” now published in fine shape at fifty cents. So this “hand book” need only show what other things are included in the term “location.”
If you are thinking of the character of the soil when hunting for a garden plot, you will more than ever think also about the importance of location. Any soil, even the best sandy loam, needs some fertilizing and watering, and you cannot afford to use land where manure can not be had easily, or where there is not a good water supply. To pay high for fertilizer cuts the profit from your small area, and this is more especially true if your soil is clayey and needs much preparation-tillage. In most cities you will find stable-keepers and others who will give you manure or street sweepings in the winter in return for hauling it away. That is a great advantage to you, but if you locate your garden where truckage amounts to two or three dollars a load, you have offset the advantage you derived from the free manure. Also, if your water supply is poor, you will find it difficult to carry your crops through the hot weather.
MARKET.
You can raise a good crop from good soil properly fertilized, but if you cannot market it to advantage, you can’t sell it at a profit. A long railway haul not only injures the garden truck, but it also eats up the profits. Therefore, get your plot near a town or city where the expense of selling is reduced to a minimum and where the demand for garden products will at least equal the supply.
So the good-garden-plot tests are three: first, the character of the soil, second, the location as regards the market, and third, the demands of that market. He who must of necessity use the land where he is, will, if he uses his brains as well as his hands, find his reward satisfactory, even though it fall below the returns from a plot with all advantages.