The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-08-01
SOME HINTS FOR FARMERS.
Wonders Accomplished in France on
Small Lots of Ground.
(From the Atlanta Constitution. J


Small Lots of Ground.
(From the Atlanta Constitution)
Man naturally wants the earth, or at
asst that part of it whi ch adjoins his
his particular estate, but he makes great
mistake when he engages in farming on
an extensive scale.
Prince Krapotkine, who has made q
careful study of the subject in France,
gives number of instances in the couns.
try districts around Paris, where COM
paratively ignorant farmers have made
small market gardens enormously pro-
ductive. One farm is mentioned by him
of two and seven-tenths acres which pro-
duces annually l25 tons of marketvegeta-
bles of all kinds. The owner of this farm
by building walls to protect his land from
cold winds, whitening the walls to secure
all possible radiated heat, and by the
constant and judicious use of fertilizers
has his little farm il productive condi-
tion from the 1st of January to the last
of December. By simple and inexpen-
siVe means he has practically located his
farm the tropics.
a French gardener does not care what
kind of soil he starts with. he would
be satisfied with an asphalt pavement,
because he makes his soil, and so much
of it that he has to sell it to keep his
place from being gradually raised above
the level of the surrounding country.
when farmer once understands the laws
of chemistry he has no difficulty In
making soil that contains all the materials
needed for plant life.
Prince Krapotkine speaks of one
gardener who hes covered half an acre
with q glass roof, and run stream pipes
supplied by small boiler under the
ground sheltered by this covering. The
result has been that he has cut every day
for ten months from 1000 to 1900 Large
lunches of asparagus, product whicn
under ordinary conditions would require
sixty acres of land. But this result has
been surpassed by an English farmer,
who has made one-scre mushroom
farm Weld him an annual income OF
$4,000.
Under the French method of culture
it would be possible to make one square
mile support 1000 human beings. On
such a scale of productive capacity this
country would support population Of
5000, 600, 900. Even when We knock off
a fair percentage for mistakes, exsgger-
ations aid unfavorable conditions, it win
be seen that We are in no danger of hay
ing an oyercrouded population for many
centuries to come. There is no reason
why our Eastern farmers should go West
for mere elbow room. Their great draw
back is not the want of more land; it is
the possession of too much Land.
In some localities in Switzerland the
traveller on the plains or in the valleys
looks up to towering precipice 1900
feet above head. When he laboriously
climbs to the summit, expecting to find
nothing but a bare rock, he sees before
him the smiling expanse of productive
fields, with pretty cottages dotting the
landscape. The peasant proprietors
started with only the naked rook under
them. They carried the rich soil of the
valleys in baskets on their backs up the
steep mountain side, and went to work
with a will until they transformed their
sterile patches into blooming gardens.
The success of European farmers with
all the. forces of nature against them
should be an inspiring lesson to our tillers
of SOIL The American small farmer has
only to unite brain work with hand work
to make himself Independent and COM
Portable if not rich. But without this
union of the brain and hand there can
be no great and permanent success.