The evening world., 1911-12-02
75Xl5O.

= Tow large a plot should a nal purchase when he decides to
remove to the country, build his own house there, and com
= 4 mute daily to a city office? This question thousands Of
families will consider during the winter. 1t will have as many answers
al there are real estate companies with suburban Developments"
The answers will range all the way down from several acres to a plot
about twenty by seventyfve feet. What is the right answer for the
Average man who wants to take are of lawn and garden himselfp
About as many persons buy too little land as buy too much.
The imaginative commuter can enjoy all the sensations OF a Sabine
farmer on a plot only forty feet wide, but he must expect to see
rtther more of his neighbors in summer than he does in a city fiat;
they will be on their front porch, and it may be only a few feet from
lie own. On such a plot there is no room for croquet, and inadequate
space for a vegetable garden, and one begrudges setting aside any
thing for fence-room; yet with children he ought to have a fence.
An acre Of land is a little more than 200 feet square. 1t is more
land than any commuter can look after, unless he lets most Of it lie
wild, or unless he has boys old enough to help him. He can look
after a plot half that size, say a plot 100 feet wide and two hundred
feet deep; but there are times in the planting season and times in the
lawns period of most rapid growth when it will not be comfortable to
have 10 much land. 1t will require nearly all his spare time to spade
and sow and cultivate the vegetable garden. 1t will require about
three hours a week to NOW and trim the lawn. Besides this, there
are the shade trees and grape arbor to prune. Sooner or later, most
people with h-ii acre plots hire men to help care for them.
Better have a little less land than one can comfortably care for
th4n a little more. Then if one has time to spare he can use it profit
ably in putting his place in the pink Of condition, in achieving little
effects of landscape gardening. in creating cumps of ~shrubbcry for
masking purposes, in building and adjoining summer houses and
pergolas. The half-acre place cared for by the commuter himself will
not show these elegances. He is content to have it look decent
most Of the weeds out Of the garden, the lawn moved but not trimmed
about the edges, the trees merely prcsentable, the general effect good
but the detail deficient. II he wants to shunt the care Of the place
on another man for a few weeks, he may not succeed; in the villages
around New York people with spare time will sometimes accept
work, but they are not keen for it.
For the average committing person a plot Of land rs feet wide by
$50 feet deep will be found just about right. This is a quarter Of an
acre. 1t affords a lawn that a vigorous worker can NOV in an hour.
A strip from Is to 20 feet deep across the entire width of the plot
should be set aside at the rear for the vegetable garden. This the
commutcr an spade and plant and tend himself, and on it he can
raise all the salads, cabbage and tomatoes, all the string and lima
beans, all the onions, radishes, beets, carrots and parsley that he needs.
He can also raise much of the sweet corn that his table requires.
On such a plot the commuter can get his exercise, wreak his art
impulses, diversity his table, and yet have time to play golf and tennis,
or go trampng. In a realty sense 75x15O feet is the golden mean.