GOOD Fx\RM GARDENS 51 



took a man and team nine hours to plow out the pota- 

 toes and two men six hours each on three days to pick 

 them up. The cost was as follows : Preparing 

 ground, two dollars and fifteen cents ; seed, eight 

 bushels at sixty cents, four dollars and eighty cents ; 

 cutting and planting, two dollars ; cultivating, three 

 dollars and sixty cents ; harvesting, four dollars and 

 twenty cents ; total, sixteen dollars and seventy-five 

 cents, or eleven and two-tenths cents per bushel. Writ- 

 ing since the contest I\Ir. Atwood says : 



The experience gained from the prize garden 

 was so great and important that it would be hard to 

 tell which was the most so. One very essential part 

 was that it pays to keep an itemized account of the 

 work, kinds and amount of seed planted ; see which is 

 the most productive and give the garden proper care 

 and attention. By so doing a person can tell just what 

 benefit it is and which part pays best. 



Having thoroughly investigated it I can honestly 

 say that every farmer should grow enough at least for 

 family use of such kinds or varieties of garden vege- 

 tables as they would most desire, the size of the garden 

 depending largely upon the size of the family using it. 



Born in Whiteside county, Illinois, August 29, 

 1856, I received a common school education and lived 

 there until the year 1880, when I moved to Page county, 

 Iowa, where (with the exception of two years that I 

 lived in Omaha, Nebraska, most of the time conduct- 

 ing a hotel, and in Florida one season studying their 

 mode of gardening and fruit raising, and part of a 

 season on the Pacific coast for the same purpose), the 

 principal part of my time has been put in farming and 

 gardening. While living on the farm I filled several 

 small offices, including that of township justice of the 

 peace. In 1890 I took the United States census in a 

 part of Fremont county, Iowa, and in 1900 I took it 



