The Arizona sentinel., 1897-01-23
TEN ACRES ENOUGH.

Waldo F Brown. in New York Weekly
 Tribune.
 I remember that Q book bearing the above title was published many years ago. I think I read it when boy and later I read MT. Greeley's book, "What I Know of Farming" Both books were inspiring and helpful, and I believe that I have been a better farmer for reading them. If I was beginning life over again would be- gin on ten acres rather than to ruin in debt as much as l did when l started in the '50'5, A moderate debt to valuable property is stimulus to young man to industry and econ omy, but overlooking with debt is likely to have a bad effect on his character. If he is thoroughly honest and conscientious he will often be too saving, and by the time he is out of debt the habit of saving will have de- generated into penuriousness, and his own life and that of his family will be clouded to the end. If on the other hand he is one of the sanguine kind, upon whom debt sits lightly, he is in great danger of trespassing too far upon his credit, and finally losing 1t altogether, by failing to redeem his promises. The young man who starts on ten acres of good land, near a vil- lage where he can get a supply of manure and find a market for his pro- duce, will start on safe basis, for small farms always sell more readily and at better prices than large ones, and if he concludes later that he wants more land he can sell and buy @ larger farm, if he cannot buy more land near enough so that he can work it economically. What shall the man with a ten-acre. farm grow? Evi- dently he cannot make a living from corn, hay, wheat, hogs and cattle, as the man may with quarter section of land, and so he must study his market and soil and edeclde with which of the many profitable pro- ducts which are possible to him he can do best. As with larger farm, l would advise first that he grow as far as possible everything that his family can use. Milk, butter, eggs, poultry, fruits and vegetables can all be grown in the greatest abundance, and 1t will not take one long to find out what his market demands, and to grow a sur plus of such things. It would be quite within the possibilities to run a ten-acre farm as milk farm at a large profit, and the safe way would be to begin with from two to four COWS, establish short milk route and increase as the business grew. With milk retailing as it does from four to five cents a quart, over $lO0 worth of milk year can be sold from good COW, and this will give good profit ii most of the food is bought. One of the most successful dairymen of my acquaintance keeps 100 COWS on a ten-acre farm, and buys all his feed. 1 He sells milk at wholesale at an aver age of about three cents a quart, and averages about $100 per COW, but he feeds high, so that his COWS soon get fat, and whenever COW falls off in her milk so as to make it unproftable to keep her she goes to the butcher, and fresh COW takes her place, as he never breeds a COW and keeps no dry ones. There will be much waste from garden to feed to COWS, and two acres of sorghum with the cornfodder from a couple of acres will keep four or five COWS year.
 Set apart half an acre or so for poultry, and here should be $20O or more to add to the list profits, It will not do to let the poultry have the run of the garden, but each colony must have lot fenced so that they can be confined when necessary. From an eighth to fourth of an acre will answer for each sixty or seventy hens. Such fram should grow from a half-acre to au acre of cabbage, as this is very profitable crop. Planted 3 by 23 feet gives nearly 5000 to the acre, and, with a good strain of flat Dutch cabbage, we find four-ffths of them will head We sold out our crop this fall at $4 per hundred, and if we had kept a