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Five Acres and Independence
A Handbook for Small Farm Management
By Maurice G. Kains Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 1973 Dover Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-31688-8
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
MANY a wreck has been the result of taking the family to the country, and afterwards having part or all of it become thoroughly dissatisfied. There are so many rough realities in a life of this kind that it takes the poetry out of the visions of joy, peace, contentment and success that arise in the minds of many.
H. W. Wiley, In The Lure of the Land.
PEOPLE who think they "would like to have a little farm" naturally fall into two groups; those who are sure to fail and those likely to succeed. This book is written to help both! Its presentation of advantages and disadvantages, essential farming principles and practises should enable you to decide in which class you belong and whether or not you would be foolish or wise to risk making the plunge. In either case it should be worth many times its price because, on the one hand it should prevent fore-doomed failure, and on the other, show you how to avoid delay, disappointment, perhaps disaster, but attain the satisfaction that characterizes personal and well directed efforts in farming.
If your experience in the country so far has been confined to vacations or summer residence and if your reading has been limited to literature that depicts the attractive features of farm life in vivid colors but purposely or thoughtlessly glosses over or fails to emphasize the objectionable ones you will doubtless be shocked at the stress placed in this book upon the drawbacks. My reason for doing this is that I want to present conditions not only as I know them to be but as you are almost certain to find them. "To be forewarned is to be forearmed."
You may already know the country in summer, perhaps in spring or autumn—maybe during all the "growing season"—but do you know what it is to spend the winter in the country? How would you like to be snowed in as my family and I have been so that for ten weeks neither you nor your neighbors could use an automobile because of the deeply drifted snow? Can you and your family stand the isolation usually characteristic of farm life? Do you know from experience the meaning of hard, manual work from dawn to dark—and then by lantern-light? Are you prepared to forego salary or income for months at a stretch? I don't seek to frighten you but merely to indicate that though farm life has its joys and satisfactions it also has its drawbacks.
No matter in which of the groups mentioned you place yourself, it is natural that you should ask whether I am a practical man or merely a professor or a writer! Though I must confess to having held professorial and editorial positions, these were because of my familiarity with practical matters. My experience began before my earliest "little red schoolhouse" days and, barring interruptions, has continued until the present.
My boyhood duties included not only the usual chores of the farm and those connected with fruit and vegetable gardening, poultry and bee-keeping, horse and cow care, but canning and pickling, soap and candle manufacture, meat curing and wine making; in fact, practically everything which characterized farm life only a remove or two from pioneer conditions.
As my father, until my young manhood, was a renter of one place after another, I not only learned the disadvantages of this style of husbandry but gained considerable experience by correcting the mistakes of former tenants (and even owners!), especially in making neglected orchards, vineyards and gardens productive, and in learning how to manage a wide variety of soils.
At various times I worked on five farms, on one or another of which the leading features were dairy cattle, sheep, grain, hay, fruit, vegetables and bees. As the owners of these places were good farmers and communicative I learned much from them in addition to how to handle tools and implements effectively. At one time I owned a fruit farm with poultry as a side line, at another I managed the fruit department of a produce-raising concern, at still another planted about fifty acres of orchard and vineyard for a commercial orchardist. As occasion has presented I have also worked in greenhouses and nurseries.
Though, like a politician, I might "point with pride" to some personal successes I would rather present more significant ones made by others. Conversely, as some of my mistakes taught me more than the successes I prefer to hold them up as "horrible examples" (instead of the errors of others!). So you, Reader, may "henceforth take warning by my fall and shun the faults I fell in!"
CHAPTER 2
CITY VS. COUNTRY LIFE
Farming must be a family affair just as much as it has ever been, but the modern way is not to make a drudge of any person, adult or minor. The work of the farm demands system and departments. Each person who is required to perform any of the labor should have it so shaped that it will stimulate energy, sense of responsibility and love for the calling.
C. C. Bowsfield, In Wealth from the Soil.
ONE of the most striking characteristics of each "depression period" is the tacit acknowledgment of city dwellers that "the farm is the safest place to live;" for though there is each year a migration from the country to the city and a counter movement to the suburbs and a less pronounced one to more agricultural environment, the movement becomes an exodus when business takes a slump and employees are thrown out of work.
So long as the income continues the employee is prone to quell what desires he may have for rural life and to tolerate the disadvantages of urban surroundings rather than to drop a certainty for an uncertainty; but when hard times arrive and his savings steadily melt away he begins to appreciate the advantages of a home which does not gobble up his hard-earned money but produces much of its up-keep, especially in the way of food for the family.
More than this, however! He realizes at the end of each year in the city that he has only 12 slips of paper to show for his perhaps chief expenditure—rent; that he and his family are "cliff dwellers" who probably do not know or want to know others housed under the same roof; that his children "have no place to go but out and no place to come but in"; in short, that he and they are ekeing out a narrowing, uneducative, imitative, more or less selfish and purposeless existence; and that his and their "expectation of life" is shortened by tainted air, restricted sunshine and lack of exercise, to say nothing of exposure to disease.
Contrasted with all these and other city existence characteristics are the permanence and productivity of land, whether only a small suburban lot or a whole farm; the self-reliance of the man himself and that developed in each member of his family; the responsibility and satisfaction of home ownership as against leasehold; the health and happiness typical not only of the life itself but of the wholesome association with genuine neighbors who reciprocate in kind and degree as few city dwellers know how to do; the probably longer and more enjoyable "expectation of life"; but, best of all, the basis and superstructure of true success—development and revelation of character and citizenship in himself, his wife, sons and daughters.
Which, think you, is the better citizen, the man who pays rent for a hall room, a hotel suite or a "flat," or the one who owns a self-supporting rural home and therein rears a family of sons and daughters by the labors of his head and his hands and their assistance?
In a poignant sense city existence is non-productive; it deals with what has been produced elsewhere. Moreover it is dependent upon "income" to supply "outgo" and in the great majority of cases has nothing to show—not even character—for all the time and effort spent. Country life reverses this order; it not only produces "outgo" to supply "income" but when well ordered it provides "surplus." Nay, further, it develops character in the man and each member of the family. Nothing so well illustrates this fact as "Who's Who in America" a survey of which will show that the majority of the men and women listed in its pages were reared in rural surroundings. Here they learned not only how to work and to concentrate but inculcated that perhaps hardest and ultimate lesson of all education, obedience, succinctly stated in Ecclesiastes: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."
Of course, decision to renounce city existence for country life is not to be hastily made; however, for the health, the joy, the knowledge, the formation and development of character and the foundation of a liberal education there is no comparison. But what, do you inquire, is a "liberal education?" Let us listen to that great scientist, Thomas Huxley:
"That man has a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength and in smooth working order, ready, like the steam engine, to turn to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with the great and fundamental truths of nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness and to respect others as himself."
Where, I ask, can a boy or a girl acquire and develop such qualifications so well as on a farm, well managed by loving parents who are enthusiastic business and domestic heads of the enterprise and who explain and insist upon obedience to the laws of nature as well as those of the land and who live in harmony with their neighbors?
CHAPTER 3
TRIED AND TRUE WAYS TO FAIL
Almost any farm needs a much larger working capital than the proprietor provides. The more successful the farm is, the more it absorbs or ties up capital. It pays to hire the extra capital needed, precisely as one would hire extra teams for ice—or silage—harvest.
David Stone Kelsey, In Kelsey's Rural Guide.
ANYBODY can buy a farm; but that is not enough. The farm to buy is the one that fits the already formulated general plan—and no other! It must be positively favorable to the kind of crop or animal to be raised—berries, eggs, vegetables, or what not. To buy a place simply because it is "a farm" and then to attempt to find out what, if anything, it is good for, or to try to produce crops or animals experimentally until the right ones are discovered is a costly way to gain experience, but lots of people will learn in no other.
Even supposing that the farm discovered is exactly suited to the branch of agriculture decided upon—where is it located? Are there good neighbors, schools, churches, doctors, stores, electric power and bus lines and other features of civilization near by? How are the roads kept, winter and summer? What about taxes? Still more important, how and where can its products be marketed? "Before deciding on a spot for a garden," wrote Peter Henderson, 75 years ago in Gardening for Profit, "too much caution cannot be used in selecting the locality. Mistakes in this matter are often the sole cause of want of success, even when other conditions are favorable."
Failure in other instances is due to lack of either "investment" or "working" capital or both; for though one may have sufficient funds to buy and perhaps stock a place, other moneys must be available to carry the venture until the "cash crops" are able to produce them. For instance, though certain vegetable crops and everbearing strawberries may make individual cash returns within a few months of being planted, "regular season" strawberries require 14 or 15 months, bush berries, grapes and asparagus three years; peaches four or five and apples from five to ten or even more! How is one to pay expenses, taxes, insurance; in fact, how is one to live until they pay for themselves and something besides?
This was the fix that an acquaintance got into. As his case is typical a rehearsal of its main features may serve as a horrible example and warning to some reader at present headed that same way! He had bought a farm on a good road and good for his purpose but—seven miles from the nearest local market town. There was considerably more land than he needed, especially as nearly a third of it was second growth woodland on which he paid taxes but got no return except a little firewood. The house being an old one and about as well ventilated as a corn crib, was inadequately heated by stoves, so he installed a furnace; it lacked plumbing and electric current so he put these in. These improvements reduced his capital but did not increase his income from the place. With high hopes he planted and cared for 1,000 fruit trees and had plantings of small fruits. For three years he strove to make ends meet but just as the trees were ready to bear their first crop he was obliged to sell—fortunately not at a loss of actual cash but at one of time, effort and hopes.
Another common cause of failure is tumefaction of the cranium, popularly known as "big head!" Though this malady is not limited to people who take up farming it is perhaps most conspicuous and most frequently characteristic of city people who start in this new line, especially the poultry branch. With fine nonchalance they disregard fundamental principles, turn a deaf ear to the voice of experience, adopt crops unsuited to the local conditions or without regard to the market demands, and so on. Usually not until the disease has run its course is there hope for such cases, but after the most virulent ones have been well dosed with ridicule or have paid a heavy fool tax the victims may not only recover and become immune but may in time admit that farmers, like Old Man Noah, "know a thing or two!"
After they have taken up farming, many a city man and his wife—particularly his wife!—have run the gamut of emotions through all the descending scale of delight, gratification, pleasure, surprise, perplexity, annoyance, disgust and exasperation (a full octave!) to discover how popular they have become since moving to the country. Not only do their intimate friends drop in unannounced on fine Sundays but less and less intimate ones even down to people who just happened to live around the block arrive in auto loads and all expect to remain for dinner, perhaps supper also!
This sort of thing is highly unfair, first because the city "friends" never return the courtesy, second because unreasonable amounts of produce—especially chickens, eggs, and butter—are wasted (yes, wasted because there is no quid pro quo), and third, because of the work, particularly the wife's.
Sunday after Sunday one wife of my acquaintance made such a slave of herself as cook and hostess that at last her husband laid down the law. In brief he said: "These people come only for your good dinners. They drain your energies and our profits. We must stop both losses." And they did!
As you will probably have to solve the same problem let me tell you the answer: For Sunday dinners have corned beef and cabbage, beef stew or hash! Good luck to you!!
Among various other ways which help lead to failure are unfavorable soil; undrained land; rocks and stones; wrong crops; improperly prepared and tilled land; too large area devoted to lawns and ornamental planting; excessive time devoted to pets, especially such as occupy areas that should pay profits; inadequate manuring or fertilizing; failure to fight insects and plant diseases and many others.
In farming, as in every other enterprise, success depends primarily upon the man who undertakes it. Not everybody who starts will succeed. On the other hand the man who has the following personal qualifications, no matter what his previous calling or location may have been, stands a good chance of succeeding. Natural liking for the business is the most important asset because it will assure willingness and patience to work and be painstaking, to be open-minded and to be as alert to detect irregularities as to adopt and apply new knowledge.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Five Acres and Independence by Maurice G. Kains. Copyright © 1973 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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