Many school children know how to get results on a little land.  Mr. Mahoney, Superintendent of the Fairview Garden School, Yonkers, New York, estimates that the total value of produce grown on the 250 gardens, composing the school plot, in all about one and one quarter acres of land, was $1308, or at the rate of more than a thousand dollars per acre.  When it is taken into consideration that all the labor was done by boys ranging in age from eight to twelve years, this result is truly astonishing.

What may not adult skilled labor produce when applied freely to the land.

CHAPTER IX

TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT—­SPECIALIZED CROPS

To subdue the land with an ax, a plow and a spade is possible; millions of acres have been so subdued.  This method, however, is the most expensive of all, as in our times, markets won’t wait, and the man who wants to get on must produce as quickly as possible.  To do so, he must have the best tools.  They will pay for themselves many times over in a single year.  For the farm, the following list, in addition to a well-stocked tool chest (hammer, saw, plane, ax, etc.) covers the indispensible: 

1 team horses (these may be hired) $200.00 1 walking plow 10.00 1 disk or cutaway harrow 25.00 1 farm wagon 50.00 1 cultivator (two horse) 25.00 1 one-horse cultivator 8.00 Shovels, pick, mattock or grubbing hoe 10.00 Work harness for two horses 25.00

TOTAL $353.00

These things you must have to get the land in proper shape for seeds or plants; but special crops require special tools.  A scythe is good to keep weeds away from fences.  A sickle is handy to keep down grass.  To reduce living expenses, a cow for $60, and fifty hens at fifty cents each, say $25, will supply a large family with milk and eggs.  Most people make the mistake of buying too many things and these poorly selected.  It is better to have too few tools than too many, for tools are often dropped where last used, and so are lost.  Then if money is scarce, you may not be able to make a shelter for your machines and tools, and they will rust through the winter.  Many farmers, through neglect, have to replace their tool equipment every four or five years, but with attention and care, the original equipment, even to the team, ought still to be in use twenty years after their purchase.  I know many instances where this is true.  The above equipment is the minimum for beginning work.  The character of additions to it will depend much upon the crops which you select as the money getters.

For general market gardening and the kitchen garden too, the following tool list, together with the above, will include everything absolutely necessary.

Wheel hoe $6.00
Spade and fork, each $1.00 2.00
Push hoe .65
Watering can .60
Rake and common hoe 1.00
Bulb sprayer .25
Trowel .10