Ten Acres Enough 



(Continued from page 250, January, 1913) 



The Garden — Female Management — 

 Comforts and Profits 



I MENTIONED some time ago that the wife 

 of the former owner of this place had left it 

 with a world of regrets. She had been passionately 

 fond of the garden, and had filled it with the 

 choicest fruit-trees, most of which were in full 

 bearing when we took possession. There was 

 abundance of all the usual garden fruits, currants, 

 gooseberries, grapes, and an ample asparagus bed. 

 It was laid ]out with taste, convenience, and lib- 

 erality. Flowers, of course, had not been omitted by 

 such a woman. But the garden bore marks of long 

 abandonment; great weeds were rioting in the 

 borders, and grass had taken foothold in the alleys. 



After I had got through with the various plant- 

 ings of my standard fruits — indeed, while much 

 of it was going on — I took resolute hold of the 

 garden. It was large enough to provide vegetables 

 for three families. 



I began by deepening the soil wherever a spade 

 could be put in. I hired a man for this purpose 

 and paid him ten dollars for the job, including 

 the hauling and digging in of the great pile of 

 manure I had found in the barnyard, and the clear- 

 ing up of things generally. I would have laid out 

 fifty dollars in manure, if the money could have 

 been spared; but what I did afforded an excellent 

 return. My wife and eldest daughter, Kate, 

 then in her eighteenth year, did all the planting. 

 I spent five dollars in buying for them a complete 

 outfit of hoes, rakes, and trowels for garden use, 

 lightly made, with a neat little wheelbarrow to 

 hold the weeds and litter which I felt pretty 

 sure would have to be hoed up and trundled away 

 before the season was over. 



They took to the garden manfully. I kept their 

 hoes constantly sharpened with a file, and they 

 declared it was only pastime to wage warfare on 

 the weeds with weapons so keen. Now and then 

 one of the boys went in to give them a lift; and 

 when a new vegetable bed was to be planted, it 

 was dug up and made ready for them. But the 

 great bulk of all other work was done by them. 



Cash for the Surplus 



THE work of weeding kept on through the whole 

 season, and as a consequence, the ground about 

 the vegetables was kept constantly stirred. The 

 result of this thorough culture was that nearly 

 everything seemed to feel it and the growth was 

 prodigious, far exceeding what the family could 

 consume. We had everything we needed, and in 

 far greater abundance than we ever had in the city. 

 I am satisfied this profusion of vegetables lessened 

 the consumption of meat in the family one half. 

 Indeed, it was such, that my wife suggested that 

 the garden had so much more in it than we required, 

 that perhaps it would be as well to send the surplus 

 to the store where we usually bought our groceries, 

 to be there sold for our benefit. 



The town within half a mile of us contained 

 some five thousand inhabitants, among whom there 

 was a daily demand for vegetables. I took my 

 wife's advice, and from time to time gathered such 

 as she directed, for she and Kate were sole mis- 

 tresses of the garden, and sent them to the store. 

 They kept a regular book account of these consign- 

 ments, and when we came to settle up with the 

 storekeeper at the year's end, were surprised to 

 find that he had eighty dollars to our credit. But 

 this was not all from vegetables — a good deal of 

 it came from the fruit trees. 



After using in the family great quantities of fine 

 peaches from the ten garden trees, certainly three 

 * Copyright, 1905, by Consolidated Retail Booksellers. 



times as many as we could ever afford to buy when 

 in the city, the rest went to the store. The trees 

 had been so hackled by the worms that they did 

 not bear full crops, yet the yield was considerable. 

 Then there were quantities of spare currants, 

 gooseberries, and several bushels of common blue 

 plums, which the curculio does not sting. When 

 my wife discovered there was so ready a market 

 at our own door, she suffered nothing to go to 

 waste. Whenever she needed a new dress for 

 herself or any of the children, all she had to do 

 was to go to the store, get it, and have it charged 

 against her garden fund. 



Cultivation Makes Money 



THE cause of this success with our garden was 

 not owing to our knowledge of gardening, for 

 we made many blunders not here recorded, and 

 lost crops of two or three different things in conse- 

 quence. Neither was it owing to excessive richness 

 of the ground. But I lay it to the unsparing war- 

 fare kept up against the weeds, which thus pre- 

 vented their running away with the nourishment 

 intended for the plants, and kept the ground con- 

 stantly stirred up and thoroughly pulverized. I have 

 sometimes thought one good stirring up, whether 

 with the hoe, the rake, or the cultivator, was as 

 beneficial as a good shower. 



When vegetables begin to look parched and the 

 ground becomes dry, some gardeners think they 

 must commence to use the watering-pot. This 

 practice, to a certain extent, and under some 

 circumstances, may perhaps be proper, but as a 

 general rule it is incorrect. The same time spent 

 in hoeing, frequently stirring the earth about 

 vegetables, is far preferable. When watering 

 has once commenced it must be continued, must be 

 followed up, else you have done mischief instead 

 of good; as, after watering a few times, and then 

 omitting it, the ground will bake harder than if 

 nothing had been done to it. Not so with hoeing 

 or raking. The more you stir the ground about 

 vegetables, the better they are off; and whenever 

 you stop hoeing, no damage is done, as in watering. 

 Vegetables will improve more rapidly, be more 

 healthy, and in better condition at maturity, by 

 frequent hoeing than by frequent watering. 



There are secrets about this stirring of the earth 

 which chemists and horticulturists would do well 

 to study with the utmost scrutiny and care. Soil 

 cultivated in the spring, and then neglected, soon 

 settles together. The surface becomes hard, the 

 particles cohere, they attract little or no moisture, 

 and from such a surface even the rain slides off, 

 apparently doing little good. But let this surface 

 be thoroughly pulverized, though it be done merely 

 with an iron rake and only a few inches in depth, 

 and a new life is infused into it. 



Cheated in a Cow 



BOTH myself and wife had always conveted a 

 cow, yet I was utterly ignorant of how to 

 choose one, and at that time had no friend to advise 

 me. But I suspected that no one who had a first- 

 rate animal would voluntarily part with it, and so 

 expected to be cheated. I hinted as much to my 



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wife, whereupon she begged that the choice might 

 be left to her; to which I partially consented, 

 thinking if we should be imposed on, I should feel 

 better if the imposition could be made chargeable 

 somewhere else than to my own ignorance. 



One morning a very respectable-looking old 

 man drove a cow and a two-weeks old calf up to the 

 door, and called us out to look at them. I did not 

 like the cow's movements — she seemed restless 

 and ill-tempered; but the old man said that was 

 always the way with cows at their first calving. 

 My wife seemed bewitched in favor of the cow and 

 was determined to have her, so I said nothing, and 

 finally bought cow and calf for thirty dollars. 



At the end of the week the calf was sold for three 

 dollars — a low price ; then my wife wanted the 

 milk, and she and Kate were anxious to begin milk- 

 ing. The first process in the operation of milking 

 is to make the cow's acquaintance; it will never 

 do to approach the animal with combative feelings 

 and intentions. Should the milker be too im- 

 petuous or frighten the cow, she will probably 

 prove as refractory as a mule. Especially in the 

 case of a new milker, who may be a perfect stranger 

 to the cow, the utmost kindness and deliberation 

 are necessary. 



Before commencing to milk, a cow should be 

 fed, in view of diverting her attention from the 

 milking. By this means the milk is not held up, 

 as the saying is, but is yielded freely. All these 

 precautions are more indispensable when the cow 

 has just been deprived of her calf. She is then 

 uneasy, fretful and irritable, and generally so dis- 

 consolate as to need the kindest treatment and the 

 utmost soothing. The milker should be in close 

 contact with the cow's body, for in this position 

 if she attempt to kick him, he gets nothing more 

 than a push, whereas if he sits off at a distance, 

 the cow has an opportunity to inflict a severe blow. 



Of every one of these requisites both wife and 

 daughter were utterly ignorant. They went 

 talking and laughing into the barn, one with a 

 bright tin pail in her hand, an object which the 

 cow had never before seen, and both made at her, 

 forgetting that they were utter strangers to her. 

 Their appearance and clamor of course, frightened 

 her, and as they approached her, she avoided 

 them. They followed, but she continued to avoid, 

 and once or twice put down her head, shook it 

 menacingly, and even made an incipient lunge at 

 them with her sharply pointed horns. These 

 decided demonstrations of anger frightened them 

 in turn, and they forthwith gave up the pursuit 

 of milk in the face of difficulties so unexpected. 

 We got none that night. In the morning we sent 

 for an experienced milker, but she had the utmost 

 difficulty in getting the cow to stand quiet even 

 for a moment. Longer trial produced no more 

 encouraging result, as the cow seemed untamable, 

 and my wife was glad to have me sell her for twenty 

 dollars. 



Buying a Good Animal 



IT WAS voted unanimously that another should 

 be procured, and that this time the choice 

 should be left to me. Now, I never had any idea 

 of buying poor things of any kind merely because 

 they were cheap. When purchasing or making tools 

 or machinery, I never bought or made any but the 

 very best, as I found that even a good workman 

 could never do a good job with poor tools. So with 

 all my farm implements — I bought the best of 

 their kind that could be had. 



I had repeatedly heard of a cow in the neighbor- 

 ing town, which was said to yield so much milk 

 as to be the principal support of a small family. 

 She had cost seventy-five dollars. By careful 

 inquiry, I satisfied myself that this cow gave 

 twenty quarts daily, and that five months after 

 calving- and on very indifferent pasture. I went 



