Until recently it was thought that alfalfa could be successfully raised only in the West. Three crops annually have been raised on Long 
Island, with a yield of about five tons to the acre 
The Small Farm and Its Possibilities on Long Island 
THE NATURAL ADVANTAGES OF THE INTENSIVE METHODS AND SMALL ACREAGE —THE 
ISLAND’S OPPORTUNITIES IN VEGETABLES, FRUIT, ALFALFA, FLOWERS, BERRIES AND POULTRY 
by H. B. Fullerton 
Photographs by the author. 
T HE one-man, big acreage 
category of the antiques, 
shelf, in the museum of 
reminiscences of early 
customs and methods, 
with such things as the 
home soap-kettle, vil¬ 
lage tannery and the 
open-pan sugar refin¬ 
eries. We have the 
documents and columns 
of authentic figures 
from European sources 
to prove how over¬ 
whelmingly the thor¬ 
oughly developed and 
persistently cultivated 
small acreage farm 
shows enormous ad¬ 
vantages, both in crop 
yield and income re¬ 
turn, over large acre¬ 
age producing not one- p Qr 
tenth its possibilities. 
farm is rapidly sliding into the 
It will soon rest upon the same 
During the last decade practical Americans have demonstrated 
the astounding crop values resulting from thorough and continu¬ 
ous cultivation and care 
on small acreage. Or¬ 
chards of but ten acres, 
inspected daily by eyes 
trained by practice to de¬ 
tect the first sign of in¬ 
sect injury, of fungus 
development or of buds 
starting where limbs are 
undesirable — where 
spraying is done with 
businesslike and unde¬ 
viating regularity, where 
pruning has been re¬ 
duced to a science, where 
thinning of fruits has 
proven a wonderful divi- 
dend-yielder, where in¬ 
dividual hand-picking is 
the only course pursued, 
where packing is done 
with mathematical pre- 
the man who is tired of the city pace, the Long Island farm of ten acres 
provides at least a respectable income, and an ideal life 
( 205 ) 
