We have shown what an acre has produced.  You must figure out for yourself what you can make your acres produce and what the product can be sold for.

All progress in agriculture has come heretofore through experiments, made mostly by uninformed and untrained men.  What may not be done by practical learning and applied intelligence?

The wonderful recent advances have been made in just that way.

“The modern improved methods in agriculture, known collectively as intensive farming, have nearly all had their origin in the hands of truck farmers and market gardeners.  No class of the rural population is more alert in utilizing the newest researches and discoveries in all lines of agricultural science, and none keeps in closer touch with the agricultural colleges and experiment stations.”  ("Development of the Trucking Interests,” by F. S. Earle.)

Still, it is not advisable for the ordinary city dweller, however intelligent, without other means and without either experience or study, to cast himself upon a small patch of ground for a living; but if he can give it most of his time mornings and evenings, or if he sees, as many do, that he will be forced out of a position, it would be well for him seriously to consider intensive cultivation as a resource.

It would be the greatest blessing to our day laborers if they could secure an acre of land which they could till in conjunction with their other labor.  If time and change 90 works upon society as to put the laborer out of a job, he will be safe in his acre home and can live from it and be happy and contented.

The time required to cultivate an acre is much less than is generally supposed.

The maximum time required seems to be that given in the University of Illinois Experiment Station at Urbana, Bulletin 61, by J. W. Lloyd, at the rate of 140 hours (say 14 days) with one horse and 250 hours (say 25 days) for hand labor.  With a great variety of crops, or with poor labor add one half to this time allowance.  The results vary greatly.

An acre of northeastern Long Island will produce 250 to 400 bushels of potatoes at a selling price of fifty to seventy five cents per bushel, which wholesale, at those figures much below present prices, bring an income of $125 to $300 to the grower.  The actual cash outlay in one instance was: 

Seed Potatoes

$10.00

Commercial Fertilizer

13.00

Spraying for blight and pests

4.00

TOTAL

$27.00

250 bu. selling at the minimum price

$125.00

Less the cash outlay

27.00

Income to the grower from an acre

$98.00

A production of 400 bushels costs no more cash outlay per acre, while the income is big wages to the farmer.