The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1879-06-19
What May be Made on a Quarter
Acre

p. S. Kennedy, in an address before the
first regular quarterly meeting of the Mont
gomery county, Indiana, Horticultural So
ciety, makes the following estimate of what
may be realized upon a quarter acre Of well
enriched ground:
LET me show you how much may be
raised on one quarter of an acre, a patch say
tour rods by ten. Such a piece of ground
will grow :, 420 hills OF potatoes, making the
rows three feet apart and putting a hill every
Is inches. If six hills make a peck, and
this Is not a large estimate for good ground,
well tended, the yield will be a little over
one hundred bushels, or at the rate of four
hundred bushels to the acre. But this is
not all. If the potatoes be an early variety,
and be planted early, they will be so far
matured by the 10th of June that you may
run a furrow between therows and plant one
grain OF early sweet corn every nine inches.
This will make about 4,S4O stalks to the
fourth of an acre. By the time your corn
begins to shade the ground, the potatoes will
be fully matured, and may be dug and sold,
or spread out in a cool, dry cellar. If the
stalks OF corn all bear ears, you Will have
1910 ears, or a little over four hundred
dozen, which, at ten cents a dozen, Will sell
for $40, or one half of it may be dried for
winter use. 1t makes an excellent food, and
no one need ever be hungry who has a good
supply of dried sweet corn. But this is not
all yet. Your roasting-ears will do to gather
and sell, or dry, as you may choose, about
the first of August, when the ground may
be cleared off and sown in turnips: If the
season favorable, you will likely have one
hundred bushels on the quarter of al acre,
as turnips are a great thing to yield, in rich
ground, if the seed are properly distributed.
AS to the amount OF money that can thus be
realized from one fourth of an acre it will of
course depend on the prices at which such
produce can be sold. But the average IN
come will not likely fall short of 500. [
am not here guessing at what might be done,
or telling what | have heard from others,
but what | have seen done and helped to do.
And, when such results can be produced by
a little well-directed labor, is it not astonish-
ing that we should find able-bodied men
begging from door to door for something to
eat?
But let me impress upon your mindsthe
necessity OF making your ground rich. You
can t raise anything on poor ground, and all
the labor bestowed upon it will be thrown
away. An old farmer once said to a son who
had married and was about to 90 on a farm
of his own, My son, never 90 in debt, but
IT you do, let it be for your manure. There
is a whole book full Of wisdom in this adj
monition. 1t you can't find manure with
which to enrich your ground, you can soon
enrich it with clover. If your patch is
small haul manure and put on it. and haul
all ysu can get. If you can't find manure
at a convenient distance, then keep one half
in clover and turn it under. In this way
you can make your ground as rich as may be
desired In a few years. At any rate you
must not only make it rich, before you need
look for any good results in gardening and
fruit raising