in the neighborhood of $600 per acre. Ten acres bought four years ago 

 at thirty dollars an acre, which had been partially improved, sold this spring 

 for $270 per acre. One eighth of an acre was set to loganberries, which 

 last year produced $107 to the owner. I am informed by a local firm of 

 grocers, who are handling fruits and berries, that one man this year picked 

 from mixed berry vines — phenomenal, dew, and blackberries — a crop 

 amounting to $885 from one and an eighth acres." 



The cultivation of strawberries is a demonstration of this kind of 

 gardening. Mr. Markley, of Fresno, and his son at Turlock are preparing 

 ground for twenty acres of strawberries for the San Francisco and other 

 markets. The plants will cover the ground as thickly as compatible, with 

 barely room for irrigating and picking the closely set rows. On some seven 

 acres he kept from twelve to fifteen Japs busy picking during the height 

 of the season, — quite a long one, — and he shipped a ton per day. There are 

 still berries growing in the field, and the patch has been a producer since 

 May. The neighbors near the patch have been living on berries since the 

 owner quit picking. William Potts, near Turlock, has one intensive acre 

 of strawberries from which he netted over $600 this season in actual sales. 



In dairying, Mr. W. P. Stevenson, near Ceres, is making a marked suc- 

 cess. He has ten acres of alfalfa from which he is feeding fifty-one first- 

 class milch cows. It is in ten equal checks. From the first check he cuts 

 the green alfalfa and feeds it. While cutting and feeding the next check, 

 he highly manures and applies gypsum to the first check, and so on 

 down the line. Repeating the process, by the time he has fed off the last 

 check, the first one is ready to be cut again. 



In the matter of alfalfa grown for hay, Mr. D. B. Thompson is at this 

 date (Oct. 10th) almost ready to cut his crop for the sixth time. His 

 hundred acres will average him a gross income of from sixty to seventy 

 dollars an acre, which is more than the price he paid two years ago for the 

 land. Others, in various parts of the county, have cut the fifth crop, and 

 expect to harvest a sixth. And this is the result, of course, of judicious 

 irrigation and keeping the land in a high state of fertilization. 



Sometimes two crops are raised on the same ground in one season, — 

 to-wit, grain hay followed by Kaffir or Egyptian corn, or Irish potatoes, or 

 even an early and late crop of the latter, the ground being irrigated again 

 for the second crop. This is on virgin soil, or, strange to state, on land that 

 has been closely cropped with grain for the last thirty or forty years, during 

 which time no fertilizers were used. But in later years the land was often 

 summer-fallowed. 



With abundant irrigation water and systematic fertilizing, intensive 

 farming and gardening will be resorted to as the years go by and land be- 

 comes increasingly high in price, till ten acres will be quite a ranch, and 

 five acres yield a living for a small, industrious, managing, and economical 

 family. 



CONDITIONS FOR INTENSIVE FARMING 



CLARENCE E. EDWORDS 



THERE is no land on earth where intensive farming is more profitable 

 than in California. In those countries where vast populations on 

 small areas of cultivable lands are compelled to farm on the intensive 

 plan, is found the most comfort in the home, while in those countries 

 where great tracts are held under one ownership is found the greatest 

 poverty. But the intensive farming of other lands than California is not 

 at its best, for neither climate nor soil is found at its best there, and the 

 intensive farmer requires the best of both for the greatest success, and in 



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