264 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



location than to go back to the old days of the long haul to distant 

 markets. To be more explicit as to prices of land, I would prefer to 

 pay $200 per acre for a garden location within an hour's drive of a 

 good city market than to go back from ten to twenty miles distant for 

 the sake of getting $100 land. In selecting a location for either small 

 fruit growing or gardening, the grower should consider well the 

 advantages of good'soil, gentle slope, available help, good roads, etc. 

 He can well afford to pay a good bonus for such advantages. Better 

 have ten acres well located under such advantages than to attempt to 

 carry on the same business on a forty acre tract under adverse con- 

 ditions. Under the present stress of high prices for land adjacent to 

 our larger cities the beginner had best secure a lease for a term 

 of five years or more if possible. Rental values per acre, as a rule are 

 very much less. than the interest rates on land that is held at $200 and 

 upwards per acre. 



For instance, I am located now within the limits of a corporate 

 town where there are many idle acres that can be leased one year at 

 a time for from $8 to $15 per acre. If I paid the price asked for 

 this small land — $300 to $500 per acre — my interest bill would be 

 from $18 to $30 per acre, and my taxes beside. See the point? 



Possibilities of the Village Market. 



What I have said in the foregoing lines about the advantages of 

 the big market should not discourage any one who has the time and 

 talent for developing the garden market in our small towns and vil- 

 lages. 



I speak of developing a market, because that is a feature of gard- 

 ening tliat every man who makes it a business will have to encounter. 

 The garden business, in a two-fold sense, is a growing business. You 

 must grow your stuff for the market of course first, then you can, if you 

 will, make your market grow to meet your needs and ambition. 



Finding out what your customers want and are willing to pay 

 for at a profit to the grower is also an important feature of a growing 

 business. One may be located in or near a small town where he (or 

 she) can raise enough on a single acre perhaps to supply at first the 

 needs of the town. But these simple needs may be cultivated and 

 increased by means of a little genius and common sense until four or 

 five acres may be planted to advantage. 1 have known men who 

 would make a business of raising some special garden crop, like the 

 onion, and they would find a ready market for them among the farmers 

 who came to his village to trade. He might be compelled at times to 

 haul a few loads away to other towns near by, but it is a paying propo- 

 sition to specialize in some particular line of gardening, one for which 

 you have a taste and talent, good soil, etc. 



I have often known these village markets to afford better prices 

 for such staple articles as potatoes, onions, cabbage, etc., than could 



