Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-01-09

As9INcTON d. c. Dec. 24-If you
M vacant land about your house, this may
" and should be made means of economizing on
food products Not only may individual suostan-
TALLY cost and add to the quality and Varle
ty his food by being backyard farmer but II All
suburban back yards were intelligently USED
to this end the food supply of the nation would
be greatly increased and prices forced down accord
ingy.
OF course backyard farming is practicable un-
less you have fair of leisure time and can
make Of your amateur yeomanry recreation as well
as source of profit Most persons take pleasure in
such work, they have gotten fairly started and
it is an of education and manual train
ing for children.
Vegetable gardening and poultry raising the two
forms of farming that be most conveniently
and proftably practced The object of this article is
not to details of either of these avocatons
department of agriculture will supply that in
formation anyone-but to point out to you the pos
sbilities and advantages of being farmer as
far possible.
In the first place. it does not take much room to
have a garden. The experts decided that space
twenty-five by seventy feet size, if properly cult
vated will yield enough vegetables to keep small
family supplied. Half an acre can be made to pro-
duce S1eO worth vegetables in and when it
is taken into much more than that town
or suburban family would have to spend for the Vege
tables in open market, and how much more desr-
able are raised home, the profit of gardening
becomes evident.
The average backyard garden gives no such return
as this chiefly because it is not planned rightly You
should begin about this time laying out the plan Of
YOUR garden on a piece of paper and studying your
government bulletins and books the subject. Your
plans should chiefly to two ends; namely,
getting two possible three out of land,
producing the vegetables that most expensive
to buy and hardest to get fresh
For example if you can buy plenty Of ca5bages and
into Tho far in
the fall at reasonable price, it would be foolish to
devote your garden space to these things. Likewise,
in general it would not you to raise melons or
squashes because they cheap when in season and
take I'D a. large amount Green peas and
stringbeans, the other hand, would probably be adj
vantageous plant because they must be fresh
to be good, usually expensive. The matter Of
what plant, however, is essentially individual
problem and that you must think out What do
you like that hard buy? That is the gis of the
problem.
The advantages of homegrown any other veg
etabIes are self-evident. you produce n your
own garden to be fresh and free from Infection
and it very often the only way that such produce
be obtained
The other great avocation is poultry raising.
again, thousands Of opportunities are neg
lected; while more persons although they raise
poultry, make a practical success of it. OF
poutrykeeping in cities and is restricted
by law and only suburbanite country dwer1er
can take of supplementing his supply.
The great essentials to profitable poultry-raisng
a small SCALE the government chicken experts,
are to select good breed of chickens, utilize
the scraps from family table In feeding Them
buy feeds In fact, this utilza
ton of garbage which would otherwise be wasted is
the basis economical poultry Although
study of the matter has been made 1T is asserted
that there are families support
the table while many
support twice that
OF course a laying flock Of hens than
that number of chickens including and young
stock in summer However. both of these classes