SMALL FARMS 



77 



guiding the reader to utilize from three to ten acres 

 in a profitable way such encouragement to inten- 

 sive horticulture will have justified its publication. 

 The future of the industry appears to tend toward 

 small farms thoroughly tilled, and its growth to 

 considerable proportions to depend upon the care 

 and skill with which limited premises are brought 

 to conditions of reasonable perfection. Without ven- 

 turing precarious prophecy we can tell from the 

 well trailed present that a controlling factor in the 

 future will be the encouragement average farmers 

 receive to plant a few acres each— not dreaming 

 of gilded millions made in vast plantations. Some 

 distance northwest of Salt Lake City, sheltered on 

 every side by snow capped Rockies, there is a small 

 apple orchard, where, upon less than two acres, 

 fruit is grown rivaling that of the world in size 

 and quality, selling readily at twenty to fifty cents 

 apiece. These superior apples find their way even 

 to London and Berlin, where specimens occasion- 

 ally appear more upon exhibition than as a market 

 staple ; but the intensive cultivation which precedes 

 each crop, including even the training of limbs, 

 selection of fruit spurs, and pruning of blossoms, 

 is considered with that care and devotion which in- 

 dicates an artist spirit directing the work. Such 

 systematic labor, applied in our line, would result 

 in thoroughbred fig orchards, for no one can fore- 

 cast the extent to which trees may be improved by 

 intelligent field work, their amelioration by evolu- 

 tion in breeding, and in the selection of parent 

 varieties. 



