




Vol. XXVIIT 
HENRY FIELD’S 
SEED SEN 
“FOR THE MAN BEHIND THE HOE’? 
Published by Henry Field in the Print Shop 
Shenandoah, Iowa, September, 1944 



WHY 
BUY FRUIT? 
“To eat of course’? you say. 
“Why not buy it? It’s good eat- 
ing and healthy for everybody, 
especially the children, and we 
just couldn’t or shouldn’t do 
without it. 
Sure, that’s true,.every word 
of it, but what I mean is that 
you don’t need to buy it. Did 
you ever stop to think that you 
ean grow it yourself instead? 
Anda lots better arm lots cheaper 
than you ean buy it? And you 
have lots more of it, and have it 
right handy when you want itt 
V’ve heard more screaming 
this summer about the high 
price of fruit than anything 
else. And it is high. Really 
too high, but we must have 
fruit anyway. 
What you should do right 
now, while you’re good and mad, 
about it, is to plan to plant your 
own just as soon as the Lord 
will let you. - Most everybody 
who has any ground at all has 
yoom to raise at least a little 
fruit, maybe a lot of ipiae We 
doesn’t take much room to grow 
a surprising amount of fruit. 
Even on the back end of a 
town lot you can have a dozen 
or so of fruit trees—apples, 
plums, pears, peaches, cherries, 
ete.—and nice patches of straw- 
berries, raspberries, blackber- 
ries, grapes, and so on. It 
doesn’t take a very big place to 
make a lot of fruit. 
And if you have plenty of 
room you should have an acre 
in fruit. Set it in apples 40 
feet apart each way, with 
plums, cherries and peaches, at 
the 20 feet spaces in between. 
This will give you 27 trees of 
each—just a nice amount. Then 
set small fruit in the rows with 
the trees and raise garden in 
the middle between the tree 
rows. Works fine. 
Here’s about what you should 
have: 

This is my youngest daughter, Letty, who is in service 
She is the youngest of my 8 daughters 
and the only one still single. . The rest are all married and 
with homes and families of their own. You have seen 
pictures of several of them in Seed Sense, but have prob- 
ably never seen Letty before. After graduating trom High 
School and Business College, she worked for two or three 
years in office work in Chicago, and at the outbreak of 
the war she enlisted in the WAVES. She is now stationed 
at a Naval Station across the river from Washington, D. C. 
She likes the Navy immensely and has worked up to & 
rank about equal to a sergeant in the army. Most of my 
other children are too old for army or navy service, but I 
have a flock of grandchildren in the various services. 
Maybe some day I'll show you pictures of them, but it 
would take pretty near a whole page of Seed Sense tq print 
them all. Yes, the other one in the picture is me, myself. 
Reason. you didn’t recognize me at first is that Tam dressed 
up in honor of Letty being home on furlough. Yes, Pm 
getting older. -Qne of these days Pll begin to be an old 
man. Not yet though. H.F. 
in the WAVES. 
Apples, Plums, Cherries, and 
Peaches, 27 each; Strawberries. 
200 to 500; Raspberries, 50 to 
100; Grapes, 25 to 50; Boysen- 
berries 12 to 25; Currants and 
Gooseberries 6 to 12 each; Rhu- 
barb, 12; Asparagus, 100. 
If you dont’ have room in the 
tree rows for everything, plant 
some in the middles. More of all 
these wouldn’t hurt you a bit. 
for if you can’t use it all your- 
self, they are always ready sale- 
and an acre like this could eas- 
ily make you more money than 
any 10 acres of regular crops. 
besides plenty for yourself. 
Plant an assortment of vari- 
eties. Some of everything. Early 
and late, so yo will have tresh 
_ fruit all sum mer ions and ee 
canned for all winter. Wouldn’t 
that be great? The small stuff 
will bear the next year, big stuff 
in two or three years. 
The cost would not be great. 
Surprisingly reasonable. You 
will find complete prices on all 
these things farther over in the 
Seed Sense. 
When to plant ?—Hither fall 
or spring (early spring) on 
most kinds of fruit (except ber- 
ries of all kinds, which should 
be set in very early spring 
only). 
Now—better sit down right 
now and figure out what you 
will want, the whole complete 
list, and place the order right 
now while you are in the notion 
and are determined to. have 
your own fruit instead of buy- 
ing little dabs of it at big prices. 
We will book the order now at 
our low fall prices, send the 
trees in the fall if you wish, and 
send the rest early in the 
spring. Or send it all in the 
spring if you prefer. 
The advantage of ordering 
now is that you get lower 
prices, and, still more impor- 
tant, you will be sure of get- 
ting the stuff and getting it 
early, where if you wait till 
spring to order you may be late 
getting it—or still worse, may 
not be able to get it at all. We 
had to send back thousands of 
dollars last spring for orders we 
simply couldn’t fill. 
So get busy and order now=— 
then you'll get it and set it. 
And “live happy ever after.” 
H. F. 
