Reasons for Learning Gardening 23 
by fresh vegetables? Why is it often better to raise fresh vegetables 
than to buy them? 
Name persons in your neighborhood who either make a living 
by growing plants and selling the produce or increase the family 
income in this way. Is the number of persons who make a living 
by growing plants large as compared with the number in other 
important occupations ? 
Things to Do and Observe 
1. To determine whether gardening is profitable. Determine 
whether or not a garden pays by keeping an exact account of 
everything done or money spent, and of everything harvested 
from your garden throughout the entire garden season. Keep 
this record in some permanent form (perhaps the diary form will 
be easiest). At the end of the season put down in one column 
just what the garden cost in actual expenditures for labor, tools, 
seed, fertilizers, and other materials, and include also an estimate 
of the value of your own labor. In another column set down the 
market value of all produce obtained, whether used by the family, 
sold or given away, or allowed to go to waste. Compare the two 
totals. 
After balancing the money account decide whether the edu- 
cation and training you have received through caring for the 
garden is of any particular value to you. 
2. To find out whether families without gardens use vegetables 
freely. A wealthy farmer in a farmers’ meeting argued that it 
was cheaper for him to buy strawberries for his family than to 
raise them, but when questioned about it, he admitted he had 
bought none the past year. Find out, if you can do so, whether 
families who buy their vegetables use them as freely as those who 
have gardens. 
