Tumbledown Farm .9 Acres (give or take an acre or two)

Excerpt: The swarm is the normal method of increase and, except as the bees swarm, there is no lasting addition-to the species. Swarming can be expected at the season when natural conditions are most favorable to establishing a new community. When the weather is warm and there is an abundance of honey in the fields,....

SWARM OF BEES TAKEN FROM A TREE. The swarming bees cover the bee-keeper and his basket.

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Excerpt: THE farmer who does not keep a cow has failed to appreciate one of the fundamentals of agricultural life. Not only is he to keep a cow, but she is to be a healthy cow. She is to give the milk and butter for the family, and especially for the child.

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Excerpt: There are signs that the consumption of these early vegetables is beginning to increase rapidly. English people are finding out that they can have the best greenstuff from January to April at little greater cost than from May onward. They also realize that vegetables grown on this system are much better to eat than vegetables grown at the mercy of the climate. What critics of French gardening do not understand is that the system grows things after the most natural manner. The reason why the vegetables are better to eat than other vegetables is that they grow continuously and at full speed from the moment that the seed germinates, and it is a general rule that the more quickly a plant grows the better it is to eat.

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Lettuce, carrots, and cauliflowers growing in one frame. Radishes having already been pulled.

Excerpt: If cold weather is approaching when the plants are two or three inches high, they may be covered with the disk-cultivator and allowed to grow out again without uncovering. If larger, they may be partially covered.


Lady-finger potatoes.

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Excerpt: If it were possible for every person to own a tree and to care for it, the good results would be beyond estimation.

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Excerpt: Much of the poultry offered for sale on our markets is thin in flesh and poorly dressed,--a testi­mony to the lack of skill or care on the part of the grower. The majority of the chickens now sold represent a waste. Not only are they inferior in quality and quantity of flesh, but they are very unsatisfac­tory to the buyer. It is the purpose of this discussion to deal almost entirely with the fattening, or perhaps one should say the "fleshening," of chickens, and to suggest how it may be accomplished.

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Excerpt: The most common water-fowl raised in domesti­cation, and the ones receiving attention here, are ducks and geese. While these are commonly con­sidered to be water-fowl, because they delight to be in the water, the accessibility of a body of water for swimming purposes is no longer held to be necessary in raising them.

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"Climate and Weather are of more concern to the agriculturalist than the soil itself." (Cleveland Abbe, Jr.)

Given the spring-like winter and the summer-like spring of 2012, what will this summer hold? And how will we stay informed and prepared? We decided to study up on "weather and climate" this week, especially its relevance for farming and gardening!

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Excerpt: The best success in growing plants from seeds depends in a large measure upon quick and per­fect germination, or "sprouting."

Seeds of plants are, primarily, germs, intended to produce young plants of the same genus. Be­sides the germ, the seed also consists of a packet of Baby Plant Food, containing exactly the elements necessary to furnish the nourishment needed to support the tiny plant until such time as will enable it to develop roots and leaves...

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Excerpt: Before deciding on the spot for a garden, too much caution cannot be used in selecting the locality; mistakes in this matter are often the sole cause of want of success, even when all other conditions are favorable.

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