I 



THE SELF-SUPPORTING HOME 5 



speaking) "wise ones" have already done this, 

 and if you have the "push," the common sense 

 and the "wide-awake-ness" that go with a love 

 for seeing and making things grow, why you, too, 

 can begin to reap the reward, and become one of 

 those "lucky fellows." 



Don't for a minute think that your yard is too 

 small, or, because the grass has been trampled out 

 of sight and swamped with ashes, that the real 

 live soil isn't there. How about the girl who planted 

 a few cents' worth of seeds and raised enough plants 

 to brighten her summer just about 99 per cent, 

 on a hole in the ground, six feet long and eight 

 feet wide! Another plant lover had to fight 

 against a brick paving and won out by making 

 portable flower beds from boxes and old tin kettles ! 

 Think of the householder who used the winter's 

 accumulation of ashes to fill up a ravine back of 

 his house, then, in the quarter- acre of soil on top, 

 raised $100 worth of vegetables. There are a 

 good many such cases, bits of which I shall cite 

 now and then later on, but of which the whole 

 story has been saved every time, with a record of 

 the actual cost, the exact returns, and even, at 

 times, the number of minutes spent each day, 

 cultivating, watering — and harvesting the crops. 



Another objection that you may try to raise is 

 that you've "never done any gardening." Per- 

 haps, in your frankness, you will declare that you 

 don't even know how vegetables look, growing, 

 nor when you ought to pick them. Well, that was 

 the way with some of the others, and they sue- 



