Although this method will give far larger results than any other yet reported, it may not be practicable, nor may it give such phenomenal crops always; still, it is not the only case of enormous crops. As far back as 1828 crops from 900 to 1340 bushels per acre had been grown in England, and in 1884 the Editor of the _Rural New Yorker_ reported a yield of 1391½ bushels from an acre on the paper’s experimental farm. In the light of such figures, the average of 100 bushels looks too mean to be considered. Why not grow more? Potatoes cease to grow when they become dry, so the grower must see that the land is irrigated, and liquid manure is the best material, although plain water will do, if the soil is richly fertilized. Many growers now plant on flat land and hill up only to counteract too much moisture. Then there are profits in small fruits if intensively cultivated. Strawberries will always find a market if they are large, ripe, sweet and clean. Anybody can grow small, sour ones, and they will sell, but there is no profit in the price. The market is never so glutted that fine, large fruit will not bring a fancy price. Be sure in picking, to have three baskets on a board, and have the picker assort the berries as picked. Usually, this will about double the price that you can get. A good yield is 6000 quarts per acre, but they have been known to yield all the way from 21,000 to 35,000 quarts per acre. (See “A Little Land and a Living,” pp. 141-143.) The good price is for the garden product that is better than its kind, and specializing on one thing helps to make you grow the best of that thing. You naturally try to find out all you can about it, and if there is an improved method, or somebody has grown a larger crop than you, you are going to know how he did it. Grow your family vegetables on a portion of your plot, but if there is room at all, save the rest for some specialty. If you cannot grow crops at all, perhaps you can specialize on raising animals. You have a considerable variety to choose from, because, as I have shown in “A Little Land and a Living,” and also in “Three Acres and Liberty,” there is a market for everything, from bees and poultry to fish and silver foxes. (The foxes were sneered at, first off, but the Department of Agriculture has just published a bulletin on breeding foxes.) CHAPTER XXVI. WATCHING AND SPRAYING.