54 THREE ACRES AND LIBERTY 



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 in- 

 tensive culture and with irrigation. The Eastern and 

 Middle States can present just as good, if not better, op- 

 portunities, especially where land in small tracts is available 

 near the large cities. 1 



At Hyde Park, a little village three miles north of Read- 

 ing, 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 acres, only 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. 



1 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 competi- 

 tion, 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." 



