WHAT AN ACRE MAY PRODUCE 55 



There are no secrets, Mr. Shearer says, about his method 

 of farming. A study of conditions, the application of com- 

 mon-sense methods and untiring energy, he asserts, will 

 enable others to do what he has done, but that most men 

 would kill themselves with the work. 



In an agricultural exchange a small farmer tells that he 

 makes a living and saves some money from a ten-acre farm. 

 Before he was through paying for his land, which cost $100 

 an acre, building his house, fences, and outbuildings, he went 

 in debt $1300, having about the same amount to start with. 

 He is near a good market, and in five years has paid off the 

 debt, and has been getting ahead ever since. He raises poul- 

 try and small fruits, and says that it is a good combination, as 

 most of the work with poultry comes in winter, while he can do 

 nothing out of doors. He maintains that a ten-acre farm 

 rightly managed will bring a good living, including the com- 

 forts and some of the luxuries of life, and says : " This I have 

 fully demonstrated, and what I have done others may do." 



Maxwell's Talisman says : 



"E. J. O'Brien of Citronelle, Alabama, received $170 clear 

 from an acre of cucumbers shipped to the St. Louis market. 

 He was two weeks late in getting them on the market. He 

 says those two weeks would have meant nearly double the 

 net returns. He does not consider this an extraordinary re- 

 turn and hopes to do better next year." 



"Professor Thomas Shaw writes of a plot of ordinary 

 ground in Minnesota comprising the nineteenth part of an 

 acre, which for years kept a family of six matured persons 

 abundantly supplied with vegetables all the year, with the 

 exception of potatoes, celery, and cabbage. In addition, 

 much was given away, more especially of the early varieties, 

 and in many instances much was thrown away." 



