MAKING A LIVING WHERE AND HOW 9 



"Some of the cultivators of city lots on Long Island who 

 kept count of the number of days they worked, show the sur- 

 prising 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 be- 

 cause 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 culti- 

 vation, 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's 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 morn- 

 ing to find the sparrow and found a lot of other things to at- 

 tend 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 



