Starting a Farm Without a Dollar 



FRED NEWTON 



SlARl'INGa strawberry farm with- 

 out a dollar of capital as I did, and 

 having won sufficient success to jus- 

 tify my faith in the strawberry as a basis 

 for successful business enterprise, I feel a 

 peculiar interest in The Strawberry mag- 

 azine and what it stands for, and wish to 

 add a contribution of good cheer to its 

 splendid teachings. What I shall say 

 here is not for the purpose of personal 

 publicity, but in the hope that my exper- 

 ience may encourage some honest, but 

 faint-hearted man, out of work, out of 

 money, perhaps, and seeking for a means 

 of livelihood, to turn to the business that 

 requires so little capital and so little time 

 lo secure desired results — strawberry pro- 

 duction for market. 



One advantage I possessed at the be- 

 ginning of my career as a strawberry 

 man was my knowledge of and experi- 

 ence in carpentering. For sixteen years I 

 had been engaged in that work, and it is 

 a good thing to know how to handle a 

 hammer, saw and plane when you go out 

 to start a home in the wilderness. But 

 though I was a good carpenter, and was 

 employed a large share of the time; and 

 although my good wife was a tailoress and 

 earned many a dollar at her trade that 

 helped us out of the tight places, yet it 

 appeared that every dollar we earned was 

 taken up in the purchase of the necessar- 

 ies of life, and I saw no chance of getting 

 ahead in the city. 



So I came out to Holland, about ten 

 miles from Toledo, Ohio, and bought 

 sixty acres of wild land, all but one acre 

 covered with scrub-oak and underbrush. 

 This was bought on a contract, without 

 paying one dollar down. I moved out to 



By Fred Newton 



the land in 1901, and "batched it" until I 

 had built a house and barn; and these I 

 built on borrowed money, for all I had 

 li\- way of capital was a reputation for 

 honesty. But I was bound to have a 

 home of my own — a productive home, 

 rather than one that took every dollar my 

 wife and 1 could raise just to keep going. 



On the first spot of cleared ground — 

 and it was a ver>' small patch — 1 set out 

 as many strawberry plants as it would 

 stand, and although I was an amateur, I 

 succeeded so well that I now have two 

 and a half acres in berries, and am get- 

 ting ten more in readiness for plants to be 

 set next spring. I also have fifteen acres 

 in orchard, composed of apples, peaches, 

 plums and cherries, and I now have 

 made sufficient payments on my land to 

 put everything on the safe side of the 

 ledger. 



That is not all. My work in clearing 

 up and planting out the land has doubled 



MOTHER EARTH may offer 

 her choicest cradle, the sun 

 may lavish his brightest rays, the 

 gentle showers flood down upon 

 the balmiest winds of spring to nour- 

 ish the infant plant; yet if this child 

 of the First Great Cause has been 

 touched by the blighting breath of 

 decay, or is the offspring of perverted 

 parentage, all the kindly care of loving 

 Nature, aided by the hand of man, 

 only emphasizes more strongly that 

 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that 

 shall he also reap.' " 



its value, and the scrub land of five years 

 ago is today worth $80 an acre. Of 

 course I have worked hard, and I have 

 had to do some close planning to bring 

 about these results, but that is what 

 makes the work really interesting. Then 

 too, I have not forgotten that 

 beauty has a value all its own, even if it 

 may not be expressed in dollars and cents. 

 My buildings though not elaborate, are 

 well-planned and situated among nicely 

 designed driveways, greensward and 

 flower beds. And neither my wife or 

 myself would entertain for a moment the 

 proposition to go back to city life. 



Who can measure the advantages of 

 country life, with its simplicity, its econ- 

 omy, and its wide opportunities for the 

 development of self-reliance and inde- 

 pendence, not to mention a competence? 

 Here we have our own cows, chickens 

 and pigs, and vegetables and fruits in 

 abundance. And we have built up an 

 independent trade so great that I ne\er 

 have been able to supply the demand for 



Page 31 



my fancy strawberries. Even with the ten 

 acres I expect I shall have to disappoint 

 some of the people who would like to be- 

 come my customers. 



The fact that 1 was in debt never 

 caused me to forget that the strawberry 

 requires large quantities of manure, and 

 every season my beds have been gener- 

 ously supplied. I also have cultivated 

 intensively, and have produced high-grade 

 berries. In packing I always have aimed 

 to make the box first-class from top to 

 bottom, with the result that my custom- 

 ers stay with me and my trade is perma- 

 nent. Next season I shall get out an at- 

 tractive label so as to acquaint dealers 

 with my berries, and when my whole 

 field is in bearing expect to do a large and 

 satisfactory business. 



Of the general question of the availa- 

 bility of strawberry production to the 

 man of limited means, I am convinced 

 that nothing else offers so large an op- 

 portunity in this direction. There is no 

 other line from which one may get sj 

 large returns from so limited an invest- 

 ment of capital in so short a time. If one 

 engages in tree-fruit culture, he must 

 wait for years before getting back a dol- 

 lar. But with the strawberry your plants 

 set out one spring yield you a generous 

 return the next, if you have followed 

 proper cultural methods. It is a busi- 

 ness, too, into which the inexperienced 

 may venture, for one may begin on so 

 small a scale as not to feel it, and then as 

 his experience increases he may add to 

 his area, confident that by so doing he 

 will add largely to his income. 



There is another feature that is not al- 

 ways recognized, and that is the small 

 area upon which one may earn his living 

 with strawberries. When I was a young 

 man I lived on a farm in Michigan — 

 spent my entire boyhood and youth there. 

 The man who made $50 an acre a year 

 was considered a good farmer. In those 

 days it was not so important, perhaps, for 

 land was not so high as it is now. But 

 compare that with what one acre of 

 strawberries will earn. Instances where 

 an acre has produced quite $1,000 are 

 numerous, while it is a common thing for 



THE HOME OF MR. NEWTON 



