type natural to
it before domestication.

When land is cropped every season, the nitrogen, potash, and
phosphorus removed from the soil must be replaced in some form,
otherwise you have diminishing returns, while the expense for labor
is the same. In farming small areas for specialties you cannot
easily invoke the principle of rotation by enriching the land with
legumes, to be plowed under while green, the bacteria on the roots
of which gather nitrogen from the air, but you must get stable
manure or buy chemical fertilizers to maintain the fertility.

Special crops divide themselves naturally into two classes: those
raised for immediate shipment to market, and those to be hauled to
canneries. The first type are generally prepared in a more expensive
way, and need more care and attention. Each class requires its own
special forms of packing to conform to market peculiarities fixed by
the taste of consumers.

For the cultivation of all specialties, many items of preparation
are identical. Land must be well drained, it must contain a
sufficient amount of humus, or decaying vegetable matter, to make it
loose and porous; it must be free from sticks and stones or any
foreign matter likely to impede cultivation or obstruct growth. The
proper formation of a seed bed is a prime prerequisite to successful
cropping. After the land is manured and plowed it should be gone
over in all directions with a disk and smoothing harrow, until it is
of a dustlike fineness.

In thorough cultivation before the crop is planted, lies the secret
of many a success, and in its neglect the cause of many failures.
Intelligent handling of crops is in a large measure knowledge of the
influence of wind and rain, sunshine and darkness, on the particular
nature of the plant Delicate plants, for example, ought to be grown
where buildings or forests break the force of prevailing winds.
Sheltered valleys in irrigated sections have proved the best for
intensive cultivation. For thousands of years in China and Japan the
conditions of successful intensive cultivation have been well
understood, and to-day the most efficient gardeners are the Chinese.
In some parts of Mexico, for the same reasons, intensive cultivation
has reached a high development. In our own West we are catching up
on vegetables and fruits.

CHAPTER X

THE ADVANTAGES FROM CAPITAL

We have seen what a worker with very little money can do and how he
can succeed. A small capital