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Three Acres And Liberty

B >> Bolton Hall >> Three Acres And Liberty



Created by: Steve Solomon ssolomon@soilandhealth.org
Edited by Charles Aldarondo Aldarondo@yahoo.com





THREE ACRES

AND

LIBERTY

BY

BOLTON HALL

AUTHOR OF

"THINGS AS THEY ARE," "THRIFT," ETC.

REVISED EDITION

_"A sower went out to sow and he sowed that which was in his heart
--for what can a man sow else!"_ From "THE GAME OF LIFE."

_Or, as the Vulgate has it,--

"Exitt qui seminat seminare semen suum."_

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1918

All rights reserved._






Copyright 1907 and 1918

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1907.

Reprinted April, July, 1907; March, 1908; June,

September, 1910; April, 1912; April 1914.

New edition, revised February, 1918.






FOREWORD





We are not tied to a desk or to a bench; we stay there only because
we think we are tied.

In Montana I had a horse, which was hobbled every night to keep him
from wandering; that is, straps joined by a short chain were put
around his forefeet, so that he could only hop. The hobbles were
taken off in the morning, but he would still hop until he saw his
mate trotting off.

This book is intended to show how any one can trot off if he will.

It is not a textbook; there are plenty of good textbooks, which are
referred to herein. Intensive cultivation cannot be comprised in any
one book.

It shows what is needed for a city man or woman to support a family
on the proceeds of a little bit of land; it shows how in truth, as
the old Book prophesied, the earth brings forth abundantly after its
kind to satisfy the desire of every living thing. It is not
necessary to bury oneself in the country, nor, with the new
facilities of transportation, need we, unless we wish to, pay the
extravagant rents and enormous cost of living in the city. A little
bit of land near the town or the city can be rented or bought on
easy terms; and merchandising will bring one to the city often
enough. Neither is hard labor needed; but it is to work alone that
the earth yields her increase, and if, although unskilled, we would
succeed in gardening, we must attend constantly and intelligently to
the home acres.

Every chapter of this book has been revised by a specialist, and the
authors wish to express their appreciation of the aid given them,
particularly by Mr. E. H. Moore, Arboriculturist in the Brooklyn
Department of Parks; Mr. Collingwood of the Rural New Yorker and Mr.
George T. Powell; and to thank Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright, and also
Mr. Joseph Morwitz, for many valuable suggestions; also all those
from whom we have quoted directly or in substance.

We have endeavored in the text to give full acknowledgment to all,
but in some cases it has been impossible to credit to the originator
every paragraph or thought, since these have been selected and
placed as needed, believing that all true teachers and gardeners are
more anxious to have their message sent than to be seen delivering
it.

In truth, teaching is but another department of gardening.

Practical points and criticisms from practical men and women,
especially from those experiences in trying to get to the land, will
be welcomed by the authors. Address in care of the publishers.

The Report of the Country Life Commission, with Special Message from
the President of the United States, is especially important as
showing the connection of Intensive Cultivation with Thrift for war
time.

It tells us that:

"The handicaps (on getting out of town) that we now have specially
in mind may be stated under four heads: Speculative holding of
lands; monopolistic control of streams; wastage and monopolistic
control of forests; restraint of trade.

"Certain landowners procure large areas of agricultural land in the
most available location, sometimes by questionable methods, and hold
it for speculative purposes. This not only withdraws the land itself
from settlement, but in many cases prevents the development of an
agricultural community. The smaller landowners are isolated and
unable to establish their necessary institutions or to reach the
market. The holding of large areas by one party tends to develop a
system of tenantry and absentee farming. The whole development may
be in the direction of social and economic ineffectiveness.

"A similar problem arises in the utilization of swamp lands.
According to the reports of the Geological Survey, there are more
than 75,000,000 acres of swamp land in this country, the greater
part of which are capable of reclamation at probably a nominal cost
as compared to their value. It is important to the development of
the best type of country life that the reclamation proceed under
conditions insuring subdivision into small farms and settlement by
men who would both own them and till them.

"Some of these lands are near the centers of population. They become
a menace to health, and they often prevent the development of good
social conditions in very large areas. As a rule they are extremely
fertile. They are capable of sustaining an agricultural population
numbering many millions, and the conditions under which these
millions must live are a matter of national concern. The Federal
Government should act to the fullest extent of its constitutional
powers in the reclamation of these lands under proper safeguards
against speculative holding and landlordism.

"The rivers are valuable to the farmers as drainage lines, as
irrigation supply, as carriers and equalizers of transportation
rates, as a readily available power resource, and for raising food
fish. The wise development of these and other uses is important to
both agricultural and other interests; their protection from
monopoly is one of the first responsibilities of government. The
streams belong to the people; under a proper system of development
their resources would remain an estate of all the people, and become
available as needed.

"River transportation is not usually antagonistic to railway
interests. Population and production are increasing rapidly, with
corresponding increase in the demands made on transportation
facilities. It may be reasonably expected that the river will
eventually carry a large part of the freight that does not require
prompt delivery, while the railway will carry that requiring
expedition. This is already foreseen by leading railway men; and its
importance to the farmer is such that he should encourage and aid,
by every means in his power, the large use of the rivers. The
country will produce enough business to tax both streams and
railroads to their utmost.

"In many regions the streams afford facilities for power, which,
since the inauguration of electrical transmission, is available for
local rail lines and offers the best solution of local
transportation problems. In many parts of the country local and
interurban lines are providing transportation to farm areas, thereby
increasing facilities for moving crops and adding to the profit and
convenience of farm life. However, there seems to be a very general
lack of appreciation of the possibilities of this water-power
resource as governing transportation costs.

"The streams may be also used as small water power on thousands of
farms. This is particularly true of small streams. Much of the labor
about the house and barn can be performed by transmission of power
from small water wheels running on the farms themselves or in the
neighborhood. This power could be used for electric lighting and for
small manufacture. It is more important that small power be
developed on the farms of the United States than that we harness
Niagara.

"Unfortunately, the tendency of the present laws is to encourage the
acquisition of these resources on easy terms, or on their own terms,
by the first applicants, and the power of the streams is rapidly
being acquired under conditions that lead to the concentration of
ownership in the hands of the monopolies. This constitutes a real
and immediate danger, not to the country-life interests alone, but
to the entire nation, and it is time that the whole people become
aroused to it.

"The forests have been exploited for private gain not only until the
timber has been seriously reduced, but until streams have been
ruined for navigation, power, irrigation, and common water supplies,
and whole regions have been exposed to floods and disastrous soil
erosion. Probably there has never occurred a more reckless
destruction of property that of right should belong to all the
people.

"The wood-lot property of the country needs to be saved and
increased. Wood-lot yield is one of the most important crops of the
farms, and is of great value to the public in con trolling streams,
saving the run-off, checking winds, and adding to the attractiveness
of the region. [Taken up in a special chapter of this book.]

"In many regions where poor and hilly lands prevail, the town or
county could well afford to purchase forest land, expecting thereby
to add to the value of the property and to make the forests a source
of revenue. Such communal forests in Europe yield revenue to the
cities and towns by which they are owned and managed."

These revenues would furnish good roads even in the poorest and most
sparsely settled districts.

There are a number of other reasons why people do not like to live
outside of cities--or do not succeed in farm work. There is the
difficulty of finding help. This, how. ever, rejoices the heart of
the modern sociologist. Consider--we first teach our children
independence and train them for everything but farm help or
household services. Then we degrade the "help" below a mill "hand"
so that people will not even sit at table with them at an hotel.
Next we fix a theory of conduct for them that keeps them constantly
under orders and pay them wages that make it hardly possible for
them to rise above the station to which we have appointed them.

Finally, when we move away from the haunts of men out to
Sandtown-by-the-Puddle we blame them that they do not rush to join
us. Most of them would be happier in penal servitude than in the
country. The work is as hard and requires as much skill as a
mechanic's work, besides personal qualities that are demanded of no
mechanic, and commands half its wages.

Those who, like Henry Ford, can afford to pay mechanics' wages for
help can get all they want.

Many people go to the country without plan, preparation, or
vocation, to make a living. They usually start to build a bungalow
but seldom get further than the bungle. Don't build anything without
plan. Get a comfortable house proof against cold and heat as soon as
possible and, above all, well ventilated. At present the air in the
country is good, because the farmers shut all the bad air up in
their bedrooms.

They say

"The farmer works from sun to sun
For the summer's work is never done."

We might add, it's never even half done--naturally. A donkey engine
can work like that, but then it hasn't any brains. No man can work
from sun to sun all summer and think at all or be good for anything
at the end of it.

Above all things don't work long hours, even in learning, with the
idea of saving that way. All up-to-date employers are agreed that an
eight-hour day produces more and better results than a ten-hour day
and that a twelve-hour day brings sheriffs and suicides instead of
profits.

That's just as true of the individual worker as it is of the factory
"hand." Yet most men and a few women proudly say that they "work
like a horse" (it's usually not true). They don't; a horse won't
work and can't work over eight hours a day steadily. Neither can
you: you may keep buzzing around much longer--but the best work
requires the best conditions and the best hours. You think, or you
flatter yourself that you think, that it is necessary; but nothing
is necessary that is stupid and wrong. It is hardly too much to say
that when we are tired out or ill either we have been doing the
wrong thing or doing it wrong.

There is besides, as an anti-rusticant, railroad discrimination in
favor of long hauls, but the main reason that the small farms of the
Eastern Coast are less settled than those farther west is the great
difficulty in getting farm loans or loans on farm buildings. New
York companies and others in the great cities will loan on farms
west of the Alleghenies, but even the otherwise excellent eastern
Building Loan Associations usually restrict themselves to places
within twenty-five miles of a city. The Jewish Agricultural and
Industrial Aid Society will help approved Jewish farmers to buy and
build: and there is a Federal Land Bank in Springfield, Mass., which
lends to some Farmers' Associations, of which some four thousand are
already formed. It is hoped that the State Land Bank of New York
City may improve the situation in New York for Farmers'
Organizations, but "generally nearly all available funds of the
local banks seem to be drawn off for investments in Wall Street."

However, it is not to be forgotten that this difficulty is reflected
in the lower prices of eastern Land.

One more thing that keeps many people from the country and drives
some people back to the city is the mosquito (of course there are
mosquitoes in town, but we are not out as much, so we notice them
less). Mosquitoes breed or rather we breed them, in still water in
which there are no fish, in pools, hollows in trees, wells, etc.,
and above all in old tin cans. They can no more breed without water
than sharks could.

Mosquitoes do not breed in grass, but rank growths of weeds or grass
may conceal small breeding puddles, and form a favorite nursery for
Mamma Skeet. A teacupful of water standing ten days is enough for
250 wrigglers; their needs are modest.

Different species of mosquitoes have as well-defined habits as other
birds and are classified as follows: Domestic, Migratory, and
Woodland.

The common domestic or pet species breed in fresh water, usually in
the house yard, fly comparatively short distances, and habitually
enter houses. They winter in cellars, barns, and outhouses. Some of
them are conveyors of malaria.

The Migratory Species breed on the salt marshes, fly long distances,
do not habitually enter houses, and are not carriers of diseases so
far as known.

Certain varieties of Woodland Mosquitoes breed only in woodland
pools, appearing in the early spring, and travel a greater distance
than the domestic species. They are not usually troublesome indoors.

It has been proved that malaria is transmitted only by certain
species of Anopheles, one of which is the domestic mosquito.
Eliminate this one species of mosquito and the disease will
disappear as a direct consequence. So if you hear that pretty little
song in the house, don't swear, thank the Lord that effects always
follow causes. You need never be without a bite in the house if you
have a nice cesspool handy for Sis Mosquito, for each one will have
a first-class feed with you every second or third day.

They are needless and dangerous pests or pets. Their propagation can
be prevented by draining or filling wet areas, by emptying or
screening water receptacles, and by spraying with oil where better
measures are not available. Oil should be sprinkled in any
cesspools, sewers, and catch basins, rain barrels, water troughs,
roof gutters, marshes, swamps, and puddles that cannot be done away
with. All ponds and large bodies of water should have clean sharp
edges, because in shallow, grassy edges larvae of the malarial
species are commonly found. Large ponds with clean edges, inhabited
by fish or predatory insects, are safe; smaller ponds, if wind
swept, and all ponds in the "ripple area" are safe. All rain pools,
stagnant gutters, overgrown edges of large ponds, and all
receptacles holding water not constantly renewed, are dangerous. You
raise most of your own mosquitoes.

Now a word specially concerning this revised edition.

The farm papers are supported mainly by men with large acreage, it
is the rise in value of these acres more than the rise in farm
products that has pulled the land-owning farmers out of the hole
that they were in up to about the year 1900. Farmers' knowledge,
liking, and equipment was for big fields, half cultivated, and at
first they did not like to hear that they had been wasting so much
of the labor that had bent their backs. Nor did they want to hear
that it would have been far more profitable to them to have
cultivated a few acres and left the goats and hogs or sheep to
attend to the rest as wild land until the long-expected settlers
came along to buy the land at dreamland prices.

Consequently, all the faults in the book there were, and some more
besides, have been picked out by these critics. It is surprising as
well as a notable compliment to the agricultural experts who revised
the first edition that, with one exception, no material error or
omission has been pointed out.

The more so because there is absolutely no limit to the advances in
methods and results in doing things, and in growing things, all born
of intelligent toil. Your suggestions may help the world to better
and bigger things. If you will listen at the 'phone you may sometime
hear a conversation like this:

"Hello, this is Mrs. Wise, send me two strawberries, please." "You'd
better take three, Madam, I've none larger than peaches to-day."
"All right; good-bye."

You may sometime see that kind of strawberry in New Jersey at
Kevitt's Athenia, or Henry Joralamon's, or in the berry known by
various names, such as Giant and different Joe's. But lots of people
have failed in their war garden work even on common things; lots
more ought to have failed but haven't--yet. Years ago, we, the book
and its helpers, started the forward-to-the-land movement which has
resulted in probably two million extra garden patches this war year.
I have had carloads of letters, at least hand carloads, about the
book, but not one worker who even tried to follow its counsels has
reported failure.

So don't let us have a wail from you because your "garden stuff
never comes up." Of course it doesn't; you have to bring it up, just
like a baby. That's what I've been crying for long years in the
wilderness ever since the first edition of this book. The Three
Acres may be bought on credit but eternal vigilance is the price of
Liberty and crops. To raise good crops costs time and attention and
sweat of body and of brains.

Here is a chunk of wisdom out of the excellent Garden Primer (which
you can get free by asking me for it):

"One hour a day spent in a garden ten yards long by seven wide will
supply vegetables enough for a family of six"; but the value of this
remark lies in the application of it. If you figure a bit on that
you will find that ten minutes a day will provide enough for one
person, but six hours once a week won't do. Six hours a day will
bring up a baby; but two days a week is criminal neglect for the
other five days. If you once let the weeds get a good start, say
after a rain, they will make even the angels swear. It's regular
attention that the baby and the garden and your education and your
best girl will require.

If you want more minute instructions about how to grow each
vegetable, put in words that anybody can understand without getting
a headache or a dictionary, look up "The Garden Yard" by the Author.
It is in nearly all libraries now, and it is the only book that
makes perfectly plain everything that a plain man needs to know
about growing plain things

So there is little to add in this new edition except to reinforce
what was not strong enough. In the present jumping market to revise
the prices quoted would be absurd, but it may be noted that, as in
the prices of 'cowers, the minimum prices are still about correct,
but the maximum prices have jumped almost out of sight. Every year
there are more and more very wealthy people who will pay nearly any
price for the very best. The world seems to be dividing into those
who have to count their pennies and those who couldn't count their
thousands. Of course, where war has prohibited the importation of
the strong bulbs and roots needed for forcing flowers, the prices
are about what any one who has any chooses to ask. Monopoly can
always get its own price.

This New Edition does not attempt to bring prices quoted up to date.
In these times not even a stock exchange telegraph ticker can do
that. Prices of goods in general have advanced at least 80 per cent.
By the day that this book is off the press they may have decreased,
or more likely advanced some more. The next day they may slump.
Prices of labor advance more slowly and do not slump so fast. Wages
of men gardeners have risen perhaps 50 per cent in the last ten
years, but women and children have learned to do much of the work.
They do the work cheaper because most of them have some one on whom
they can partly depend for support.

Similarly, when an example of total product given in the earlier
edition is still typical and has stood investigation, it is not
discarded in favor of a more modern instance.

It would have been easy to have revised all the figures, but of
little advantage to our readers. For example, it is encouraging to
the citizen to know that the average wheat yield per acre has
increased more than two bushels since the first edition of this
book, but it would not help the garden maker. The increase of
possible products tends to counterbalance the increased cost of
labor. So only the musty parts have been cut out of the book, which
is more needed now than ever.






TABLE OF CONTENTS





Chapter I: Making a Living--Where and How

Chapter II: Present Conditions

Chapter III: How To Buy The Farm

Chapter IV: Vacant City Lot Cultivation

Chapter V: Results To Be Expected

Chapter VI: What An Acre May Produce

Chapter VII: Some Methods

Chapter VIII: The Kitchen Garden

Chapter IX: Tools And Equipment

Chapter X: Advantages From Capital

Chapter XI: Hotbeds And Greenhouses

Chapter XII: Other Uses Of Land

Chapter XIII: Fruits

Chapter XIV: Flowers

Chapter XV: Drug Plants

Chapter XVI: Novel Live Stock

Chapter XVII: Where To Go

Chapter XVIII: Clearing The Land

Chapter XIX: How To Build

Chapter XX: Back To The Land

Chapter XXI: Coming Profession For Boys

Chapter XXII: The Wood Lot

Chapter XXIII: Some Practical Experiments

Chapter XXIV: Some Experimental Foods

Chapter XXV: Dried Truck

Chapter XXVI: Home Cold Pack Canning

Chapter XXVII: Retail Cooperation

Chapter XXVIII: Summer Colonies For City People






CHAPTER I

MAKING A LIVING--WHERE AND HOW





By thought and courage, we can help ourselves to own a home,
surrounded by acres of fruit and vegetables, flowers and poultry,
and learn the best methods so as to insure success.

In olden times any one could "farm," but it is necessary to-day to
teach people to obtain a livelihood directly from the earth.
Scientific methods of agriculture have revealed possibilities in the
soil that make farming the most fascinating occupation known to man.
People in every city are longing for the freedom of country life,
yet hesitate to enter into its liberty because no one points the
way.

Most sociologists are agreed that the great problem of our day is to
stop the drift of population toward the cities. Seeing the
overcrowding, the want and misery of our great towns, the
philanthropist chimes in with "Get the people to the country, that
is the need."

But there is no such need. Man is a social animal, he naturally goes
in flocks, he earns more and learns more in crowds. To transport him
to the country, even if he would stay, which happily he won't, would
be to doctor a symptom. As in typhoid, what is needed is not to
suppress the fever, that is easy, but to remove the cause of it.

It is not the growth of the cities that we want to check, but the
needless want and misery in the cities, and this can be done by
restoring the natural condition of living, and among other things,
by showing that it is easier and making it more attractive to live
in comfort on the outskirts of the city as producers, than in the
slums as paupers.

We know already that the natural and healthy life is, that in the
sweat of our faces we should eat bread. We observe that everything
we eat or use or make comes from the earth by labor; but no one
knows how abundantly the Mother can supply her children. It is well
said that no man yet knows the capacity of a square yard of earth.

The farmer thinks that he has done well if he gets a hundred and
fifty or two hundred bushels of potatoes from an acre; he does not
know that others have gotten 1284 bushels.

("Mr. Knight, whose name is well known to every horticulturist in
England, Once dug out of his fields no less than 1284 bushels of
potatoes, or thirty-four tons and nine hundreds weight (about 34
bushels to the ton), on a single acre; and at a recent competition
in Minnesota, 1120 bushels, or thirty tons, could be ascertained as
having been grown on one acre." P. Kropotkin's "Fields, Factories
and Workshops," page 114.)

Let us realize what an acre means. An acre is a square about 209
feet each way, 4840 square yards of land. A New York City avenue
block is about 200 feet long from house corner to house corner. It
has eight city lots 25 X 100 in its front; about double that space
(17-2/5 lots) makes an acre.

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