Three Acres And Liberty | Page 8

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