Three Acres and Liberty. Bolton Hall

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СКАЧАТЬ is small compared to the rice, millet, and wheat raised in China, India, and Russia, and is insignificant compared to the amount of produce grown on the myriad little farm plots.

      A comparison of productions as taken from the 12th and 13th United States Censuses in the bonanza farm states shows that the yield of wheat was:

      while New England shows 23.5 bu. per acre.

      In 1899 In 1909

       Minnesota 14.5 bu. per acre 17.4

       North Dakota 13.5 bu. per acre 14.3

       South Dakota 10.5 bu. per acre 14.6

      By 1917 these largely increased, but the differences remain.

      "The average extent of land tilled by one family in Japan does not exceed one hectare" (2.471 acres), less than two and a half acres. ("Japan in the Beginning of the Twentieth Century," page 89. Published by the Department of Agriculture and Commerce of Japan.)

      "Farm households contain on an average 5.8 persons, of whom two and a half persons per family may be regarded of an age capable of doing effective work."

      "So that here we have more than one person working on each acre and each acre supporting more than two persons, notwithstanding that their 22,000,000 tenant farmers pay sometimes four fifths of their product as rent." (Same, page 103.)

      Denmark, one of the best agricultural countries and probably one of the happiest communities on earth, reported

      1,900 farms of 250–300 acres,

       74,000 farms averaging 100 acres,

       150,000 farms averaging 7 to 10 acres,

       1,050 cooperative dairies, and so on.

      And so impressed has the ruling class there become with the advantage of this that the Government will supply the poor worker nine tenths of the means necessary to buy a small farm.

      Says Kropotkin, "the small island of Jersey, eight miles long and less than six miles wide, still remains a land of open field culture; but, although it comprises only 28,707 acres (nearly 45 square miles), rocks included, it nourishes a population of about two inhabitants to each acre, or 1300 inhabitants to the square mile, and there is not one writer on agriculture who, after having paid a visit to this island, does not praise the well-being of the Jersey peasants and the admirable results which they obtain in their small farms of from five to twenty acres—very often less than five acres—by means of a rational and intensive culture.

      "Most of my readers will probably be astonished to learn that the soil of Jersey, which consists of decomposed granite, with no organic matter in it, is not at all of surprising fertility, and that its climate, though more sunny than the climate of the British Isles, offers many drawbacks on account of the small amount of sun heat during the summer and of the cold winds in spring."

      ("The successes accomplished lately in Jersey are entirely due to the amount of labor which a dense population is putting on the land; to a system of land-tenure, land-transference, and inheritance very different from those which prevail elsewhere; to freedom from State taxation; and to the fact that communal institutions have been maintained down to quite a recent period, while a number of communal habits and customs of mutual support, derived there-from, are alive to the present time." ("Fields, Factories and Workshops.")

      "It will suffice to say that on the whole the inhabitants of Jersey obtain agricultural products to the value of $250 to each acre of the aggregate surface of land." (Same, page 113.))

      In a small plot the character of the soil is of little consequence. We hear of one garden in New York City on the roof of a big building where the janitor smuggled up the needed soil in baskets.

      The school gardens in New York City, some in a space as small as a hearth rug, one yard by two, show how to use a very small patch of land to the best advantage. Nor need it take more time than you can afford.

      "Some of the cultivators of city lots on Long Island who kept count of the number of days they worked, show the surprising conclusion that they earned, not farm wages (seventy-five cents a day with board and lodging for the worker), but mechanics' wages (four dollars per day) for every working day; as, for instance, a stone-cutter, assisted by his two boys, worked fifty hours and made $120.23." ("Cultivation of Vacant Lots, New York," page 12); and four city lots is a very little farm.

      But though one may not own even a little farm, almost any one who wants to can have a home garden—it needs but a small plot of land. Nor need we be discouraged because acquaintances who play at gardening tell us that their vegetables cost them more than if they bought them.

      They naturally would, with thoughtless methods of cultivation, with the selection of crops and the purchase of seeds left to an uneducated man who does all his work the way he saw his grandfather do it.

      Nor are we to be discouraged even by the "gentleman farmer" who runs a model farm, a model of how not to do it, for, notwithstanding its large capital, it seldom pays.

      I am passing such a farm now as I write in the train—it is surrounded by a cut stone wall. Do you suppose the owner business would pay if it were run in the same way that his farm is run? We know the story of the white sparrow to find which would bring luck to the farm—but it was out only at daybreak; the farmer got up each morning to find the sparrow and found a lot of other things to attend to, which did bring luck to the farm. I don't think the owner of that wall worked at it, at daybreak.

      The time is not far distant when the builders of homes in our American cities will be compelled to leave room for a garden, in order to meet the requirements of the people In the mad rush for wealth we have overlooked the natural state, but we see a healthy reaction setting in. With the improvements in steam and electricity, the revolutionizing of transportation, the cutting of the arbitrary telephone charges, it is becoming possible to live at a distance from our business. May we not expect in the near future to see one portion of our cities devoted entirely to business, with the homes of the people so separated as to give light, sunshine, and air to all, besides a piece of ground for a garden sufficient to supply the table with vegetables?

      You raise more than vegetables in your garden: you raise your expectation of life.

      Life belongs in the garden. Do you remember—the first chapters of Genesis show us our babyhood in a garden—the garden that all babyhood remembers, and the last chapter of the Apocalypse leaves us with the vision of the garden in the Holy City, on either side of the river, where the trees yield their fruits every month and bear leaves of universal healing. Just so will it be in our holy cities of the future—the garden will be right there "in the midst."

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

PRESENT CONDITIONS

       Table of Contents

      Up to the Civil War and for some years after, our people were almost wholly agricultural. National activity contented itself with settling and developing the vast areas of the public lands, whose virgin richness cried aloud in the wilderness for men.

      The СКАЧАТЬ