C., and clears $1500 an acre
every year out of mud puddles--if mud puddles can be measured by the
acre.
Mr. Shaw is a pond lily farmer, and despite his lack of his good
right arm, he poles his boat about his mud puddles and gathers in
the pond lilies. His is not exactly a "dry farm" and neither wet nor
cloudy weather bothers him. Furthermore, the demand for his pond
lilies in Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, and even New York,
and Chicago, is greater than he can supply.
Mr. Shaw secured this swamp for almost nothing, as it was considered
worthless. He divided it into fifteen pools with little dams between
them, and rollers on the dams to enable him to drag his boat from
one to the other. From May to late in September he is busy every
morning gathering lilies. His average is about 500 a morning, which
he ships in little galvanized iron tanks with wet moss.
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.
Pages:
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151