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Show j; By FRANK R. ARN.OLD This is a story of thrifty men nnc J women living in cities and towns win have made not only a part of thei: I living, but also a bank account ou1 ol their back yards. Out where the wrsl begins the heart is popularly suppose I to expand and the back yard with ii j When you reach Utah you And its (tin back yard's) normal size to bo 1 1-i acres, but in cities this Is often re duced by real estate men to the size of a pocket handkerchief, but no yard la too small to grow a few radishes a plant of garden sage, or a grape j The most productive piece of land I I know is a back yard 27 foot square, i The owner gets economy of light bv j planting first a row of corn, then three rows of potatoes, then two rows oi corn, then three rows of potatoes, then I two more rows of corn, and finally a j row of spring onions and carrots, re-placed re-placed in late August by late lettuce, I Just as the corn has been preceded in j the spring by radishes and lettuce. I Economy of space is secured by hav- I ing cucumbers and cantaloupes run around in the corn and by digging the i potatoes early and planting peas on July 30 in their place. The cucumbers do "well in the partial shade of the corn, the cornstalks are cut off before the cantaloupes are fully ripe, and the late peas bore this year way into No- member. A clothes line is strung high ! over the low-growing potatoes and In as so that the primary purpose of a back yard is not interfered with. Here are some of the results of that I garden: Its owner has a family of -even and the garden kept ihem this year in potatoes from July 1 to Octo- her 1. The 103 hills of corn gave them i' 4 IS ears, and the straggling cucumber j ines gave thorn 5S3 "cukes" exclusive j of many little ones used in pickling, i There were, besides, cantaloupes until 1 October 15, onions, letluco, and car- ! rota enough to distend pleasantly the seven stomachs all summer. For corn the owner plants both Early Minneso- ta and Peep of Day. The first has the I advantage of having no worms, but l grows 8 or 9 feet high and hence j makes too much shade, while the sec- j ond matures early and grows only 5 feet high. It is a commonplace among back i yard owners to maintain that a man j in his leisure moments should raise all j the vegetables be needs on his table. One of the most thrifty of these back' yard farmers also asserts that he i would also keep a cow, no matter ' where he lived, and a pig anywhere1 1 that the city would let him. Here is1 '1 what mail carrier did while living on1 a little town place, 4 by 12 rods. Even when buying all his hay and hiring his pasturage he found a cow a most ! profitable animal. He paid about $5 II a month for feed for seven months,' ! and $2 a month for pasture for the 1 other five. Add to this $2 50 for doc-J I tor's bills and accidents and $1.50 for I breeding, and the cow cost him about j $50 a year. That same cow averaged I twenty quarts a day for six months J 1 and as he sold the milk to his neigh-J I bors for 5 cents a quart, he got $1 a day from his cow for 180 days, which gave him a handsome profit of over 550. He did the milking himself and his children carried out the milk. It is j the man with many cows selling his1 j milk to the dairies at an average of 2 1 cents a quart who cannot make It pay The robber cow downs him every time. I This same mail-carrier had senso j enough to buy a pure bred sow for $13. j His father-in-law Baid he was crazy to, i pay so much for a pig. But that sow I made the father-in-law blush with her noble record. The first spring she had, a litter of nine which sold at $4 each I and in the fall she presented her lord and master with twelve more which I j sold at $3 each, thus bringing him $72 in cash in one year. For six years she kept up the same noble maternal rec- ord and died last year in trying to pro- I duce a litter of sixteen. The pigs sold easily to farmers because of their fine' I pedigree, and their owners used to' I laugh at the idea of so-called practical I country farmers coming year after year to buy stock from a city mail I carrier. Probably more back yard lovers j I have fooled with hens than with cows' T or pigs. It pays to keep a few to sup- ply the home table, but to make mon-I mon-I ey out of poultry you have to have a 3 surpassing love for the hen and a sci- j entific knowledge of feeding. I know j an Insurance man who on a small half acre of back yard has worked out a I hen story worth telling. He loves his I birds almost as much as he does his j wife and has for his slogan, 'Feed 'em j green stuff." He maintains that two- I fifths of a hen's diet should be green stuff, and when he cuts the front lawn j he dries the grass carefully, revives it j in winter with hot water, and feeds it I out to the grateful hens. If he is de- ii llverlng a policy and sees a sugar beet i fall from an overloaded wagon, he I pounces on the surplus and bears it I proudly home to his biddies. Fortu- nately the streams in his town are I green the year through with water cress and this he considers as mOS stimulating rood, abounding as it doe. in water bugs and Insects. Each hoi ; gets three ounces of main per day which is one-hall ol her diet, and at I grain doesn't average more than 1 l I cents a pound, his egg production doo; inn cost him diar. 'I'l l- remaining one tenth of a hen's dallj sustenance should be protein or animal food in sonifi form. Endowed with these prin clples the insurance man started last year on November 1 with thirty-three pullets and sixty-six odd hens and roosters. Pullets began laying about that time if they are ever coins to amount to anything, and these thirty-three thirty-three laid an average of $21 worth oi egs each month until July, oi which $11 was profit. And they aol declared this handsome dividend, but they paid for the support of the barren ropstei and the idle old hens who did not gel onto their job until late in January, and thus were supported in idleness for three months by the noble tnirty-three tnirty-three pullets. Sometimes our dreams come true in i he back yard, dreams of beauty as well as of money. I have a bookkeeper bookkeep-er friend who was born in Leeds, Entr-jland. Entr-jland. His father had hired a square rod of garden outside the city and the whole family used to walk three miles on Sunday just to look at the wonder-j wonder-j ful spot. Then and there the boy resolved re-solved that 6ome day he would have a l garden of his own, and when he came to America and saw for the first time a peach orchard in full bloom, ho I thought he had surely reached the land of flowers. Seventeen years ago I he bought a lot eleven by seventeen rods, built his house on the highest corner, and resolved to make a wild garden out of the rest, a garden that I would take little care or planting but j would show a succession of beautiful 'bloom all through the summer. Anything Any-thing that would winter-kill lie didn't I want, and now, little by little, he has acquired what is probably the finest collection of perennials yvest of the Mississippi. He is so delighted with his garden that he has twice bought more land and always so that he could have more room for his perennials. Early in the spring come the low perennials per-ennials such as snowdrops, bCilla. crocus, cro-cus, and violets. Then the cowslips, primroses, forpet-me-nots, and bleeding bleed-ing hearts. The garden has its special seasons when the lilacs or the iris or the peonies are in their glory'- Sometimes Some-times the neighbors call his place Shasta Grove, so abundant are the Shasta daisies, and later they might earily call it Dahlia Dell. Phlox Park, Rudbeckla Retreat or Columbine Corners, Cor-ners, so numerous are these flowers. All around the garden is a high privet hedge which gives the garden privacy and distinction. And the whole collection collec-tion has cost him little but the joy of working among his beloved flower. The garden has all been built up by-exchange by-exchange or by sales, for the nmney from selling his flowers usually goes to buy new varieties. Sometimes a dull-witted neighbor will say to him, "You ought to take a course in a gymnasium gym-nasium you are shut up so much as a bookkeeper " And he has his reply always ready. "I've a garden in summer and a woodpile wood-pile in winter and I'm so much ahead My ten children can tell you the names of more plants than a high school botany bot-any teacher. And one summer I sold $125 worth of flowers. I never sell less than $75 worth. Not a bad side issue for a bookkeeper." Sometimes a back yard success turns into a very7 profitable side venture. I know one college professor who loved gardening more than golf or tenuis. He bought four acres of fruit trees and small fruits close by for $1750. The first season he sold fruit off the place to the amount of $800 But as he had hired much work done he had a net profit of only $490 This summer he la making about the same profit. He finds the home market an excellent one and saves much picking expense by letting people come and pick their own fruit and pay so much a pound for it He finds strawberries, apples, and peaches most profitable, and was much surprised to find how many black currants cur-rants ho could sell. The most thrifty of my stories is that of the mail carrier whom I have mentioned already as finding cows and pigs so profitable on a city lot. His back lot has expanded into a farm of seven acres which he manacp in his leisure outside his mail delivery. He has to get up often at 4 in the morning morn-ing to get time enough to attend to every thing, and he also has obtained permission to eat his dinner while delivering de-livering mail so as to gain a little extra ex-tra time. He is a type such as is only to be found in the state of Utah. After four years on a mission in Samoa he came back with debts to find his home burned down and crops bad. Thrift and intelligence pulled him out of that hole. He got a job as mail carrier at $50 a month and by playing the cor-' cor-' net three nights a week at a skating r link" he goi enough to live on and was. ! able t" save all his salary. On hie ' l seven acres ho has an acre of aspara-J aspara-J gU8 between young trees which he con ; riders on.- of his best money makers. For Blxtj two days this spring he cut from 150 to 200 pounds dally from this . acre which he sold in the local market for from 6 to 12 cents a pound and) made during the season over $300 from I , this one sourct alone. He had to gel I up early to do it as it often took fourj hours to cut 200 pounds and he had! I to be a man of letters at 8.30. His , I Wife is a Dane and loves to make but-, .) tor. and so he supplies the local hos-j .'jiit.il with milk and butter. Apples and: strawberries he also finds paying I Crops and has definite ambitions villi ; regard to raising Shetland ponies. Every Ev-ery inch ol his land is made to work. Hen and then- lie has a Hump of gar-den gar-den sage which no one else In town ) raises and w hic h he sells in hunches in his neighbors. Every moment of his day is full, for he does most of his work himself, and even shoes his own horses and mends his own wagons. And yel he always has a few moments to read ever; evening, just before go-nu go-nu io bed. "The pillows of my bed," he says, 'Were made to sleep on, not to roll around on." One can easily understand his sound slumber after such active days. You may have guessed that he is a Welshman, Welsh-man, and you will admit that his equal for thrifty activity would be hard to find in any state. And yet, even you may be as prosperous as ho if you boom every inch of your back yard for all it is worth. o o |