Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1908-05-30
When Ten Acres is Enough.

We are often asked whether a farm
er can make a living on a ten-acre
farm under irrigation. Many farmers
are so accustomed to quarter sections
that they can not realize how it is pos
sible to get along with such a small
lot as ten acres. Their idea ia that
one may with good luck make money
Off ranch of eighty or 160 acres, but
that ten acres cannot be made to pro-
duce even living. Now do not pro-
pose to go into any imaginary calcula-
tlons of how man can raise 81, 900 an
acre off asparagus or $500 off peaches
or 81 head from 1000 head of poultry.
have done too much practical farm
ing myself to be msled by any such
blooming nonsense. | shall base nv
calculations upon very conservative
estimates and upon method of farm
ing which | believe will appeal to the
common sense Of every practical West
erner.
My first point is that the small
farmer should raise everything he needs
to eat except groceries and this he can
do If he puts in the right kind of crops
and keeps cows, hogs and poultry. One
cow is no good on farm, for every
cow has or ought to have a dry season.
Two cows, therefore, should be kept
and they will not only provide food
for the family, but there will be sur
plus butter to sell and skim milk for
the pigs. An acre of alfalfa, we'll
cultivated and attended to will proudce
four tons of hay during the year which
will give a daily ration of % pounds.
Three acres with the assistance of other
| crops will later on keep two cows and
a horse and one horse will do all the
work on a ten-acre place.
If the alfalfa is soiled during the
summer it will also go much further
than if all is cut for hay and it will
be found in actual practice that three
acres will give all that is needed for
the cows and horse and leave good
deal over for the hogs. Two more
acres should be set out to orchard, con-
sisting mainly of winter apples.
peaches and plums. For the first two
or three years, beans and vegetables,
or food for the cows may be raised be-
tween the rows of the Young trees,
which should be set out not less than
24X2l feet. The house and buildings
will occupy half an acre. theEvneyard
quarter of an acre and rhubarb and
ASP aragus beds an eighth of an acre
each. This, with the house, makes up
six acres in permanent crop.
The remaining four acres should be
divided into two equal parts and farmed
III the following rotation: One year
one acre should be heavily manured and
laid out as a vegetable garden; an
oth0r should be moderately manured
and planted to potatoes which with in
tense cultivation will yield sure re-
turn of 5000. and if care is taken in
preserving them there will never be
any difficulty in selling them during
the winter. The acre in vegetables
will not only provide sufficient for
family use, but there will be consid-
cradle surplus that may be either sold
or fed to the cows and hogs.
The following year these same two
acres should be seeded to winter wheat,
followed the same summer by turnlps
or rape for the stock. After a vege-
table crop there should be no difficulty,
if the wheat is sowed in drills and
horse-hoed, in raising forty bushels to
the acre. / have raised ga bushels on
land that had been under the following
rotation: First year, cabbage, man.
ured with sixty tons of barnyard man
ure to the acre; second year, potatoes,
with no manure; third year. Ga bushels
Of wheat with no manure. This was
on a tweIve-acre field and no garden
plot. Two acres of wheat will provide
-four for the family and bran for the
COWS. Ranch.