ers most in this respect, but that does not
prevent her producing hundreds of thousands of tons of sweet corn
for canning and vast quantities of eggs and butter. Fruit does well
on the lower coast; a small orchard of peaches or plums will in
three or four years from planting make a comfortable living. Bush
fruits grow in abundance and give never-failing crops.

Poultry is peculiarly successful on the rocky hills, because they
are nearly always dry or well drained. Dairying can be made to pay
if near a creamery, or where milk can be sold at retail. The
prospective settler here should bear in mind that wherever he goes,
the first year will produce little more than a kitchen garden; the
second enable him barely to pull through, and the third give him a
start at a permanent income. In farming, as in all other businesses,
only those will succeed who know what they want and how to get it;
who have selected with care the locality best suited to the special
crops they intend to raise; and after having once made a selection,
stick until they have compelled success.

The lure of the vast West and of the new South is not forgotten; but
the time has passed when the young man could go West to take a farm
of Uncle Sam's. Desirable land is too expensive for the pioneer, and
the constant toil and comparative isolation of the prairie farm
offers but a poor sort of liberty, though it still affords a living.

But close to the growing towns in those states small plots of land
can still be had to work with the same bright prospects that are
offered near the great metropolis.

In nearly all the sections within the area of intensive cultivation,
timber is still plentiful enough to make it the cheapest building
material; and persons who really want to get to the land can
contrive a sufficient shelter, like a pioneer's, for from two to
five hundred dollars.

CHAPTER XVIII

CLEARING THE LAND

It is pretty good fun to hack at bushes and to chop trees down and
then to chop them up. If there is only a small part of the land to
be cleared, a man can easily learn skill with the ax and do it at
odd times, but he was a wise old man of whom his little girl said,
"When grandpa wants anything, that moment he wants it." It is now
that we need the land; but even if it is covered with trees, there
is no cause for discouragement. Lumber is so high that the local or
portable sawmill men will buy the timber by the acre. They will cut
the trees