Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1870 — A Three-Acre Farm. [ARTICLE]

A Three-Acre Farm.

Ten years ago, an Irishman—who, for short, we will call St. Nick—bought three acres of land, for which he paid, with a one story new house thereon, four hundred and fifty dollars—counting the tenement three hundred and seventy-five, and the land the balance. Hiring a pasture, he purchased a cow, and with serene faith began to work in his new-bought soiL It was worn out: a poor pasture: it would not summer a two-years-old steer, and the rent would have been considered exorbitant if over four dollars a year. He has since added two acres of rocky bush pasture, but with better soil than his purchase, and in addition to the crops raised on both, he annually hires sls worth of pasturing, and buys $25 worth of hay. „ Last year, with his first purchase and one acre of his last under cultivation, he raised (actual measure), of potatoes, one hundred and ten bushels; of corn, eightyfive bushels of ears; of beans, three bushels and three pecks; of cabbages, seven hundred heads; besides twentyone bushels of oats, and a little oyer one ton and a half of clover-hay. He fattened two hogs, one of which sold for 14J£ cento a pound, and weighed three hundred and four pounds; the other, salted fol- himself, weighed three hundred and one noun da His dairy, now increased to two cows, brought him a little overs 90 in Cush ior the butter told, and $21.43 for 111 • two c-il vt s His dozen hens (average) bonght nearly all the store supplies for a family of three,

besides paying for their food. And, in addition to all this, he raised a calf, which a neighbor gave him, that enters upon its second summer, worth at least $lB. All this from the labor of a man quite advanced in years, and physically incapable of doing much more than half a man’s work. He bought the house and land mostly on credit; has his debts now nearly paid; has doubled the value of both his purchases, and when his labor is over, will leave his wife and daughter quite a little estate worked out of this sterile, rootbound and rock-bound soil in ten years. He commences this year with a light heart, at least fifty loads of manure, two cows and the calf, two wintered pigs, twenty hens, and the promise of raising more on his five acres tnan half the poor farmers in the country will raise on fifty. —Hearth and Home.