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THE LITTLELANDERS OF SAN YSIDRO
ONE ACRE, AND HAPPINESS,
AS DEMONSTRATED BY THE
LITTLELANDERS OF SAN YSI-
DRO VALLEY: BY OLGA BREN-
NECKE
T ~O begin with, in order to understand
       the Littlelands movement you must
       disabuse your mind of almost every
       preconceived idea of farming, and
lay yourself open to an astounding propo-
sition. It is that no living man is capable
of producing from one acre the utmost
which it is capable of yielding. This is the
basic proposition upon which the Littlelands
movement is founded. It is no longer a
theory, for scores of Littlelanders have
proved it to be a fact.
  It will be remembered that several years
ago Bolton Hall, in advancing his propa-
ganda of "a little land and a living," set
three acres as the minimum tract from
which a man might be expected to support
himself and a family. Since then several
SAN YSIDRO VALLEY, THE HOME OF THE LITTLE-
LANDERS.
illustrations of accomplishment in the East-
ern States have proved that half as much
land or less, under intensive cultivation,
will suffice for the purpose. On the Pacific
,Coast, where the tiller of the soil has the
added advantage of constant summer, it
has been demonstrated time and again that
two acres or less, if intelligently handled,
are quite enough to maintain five persons in
comfort and leave them at the end of each
year with a surplus of profit.
  To return to the Littlelanders: the Colony
in the Valley of San Ysidro, near San
Diego, was established with deliberate de-
sign. The founders deemed it essential for
the success of their experiment that the land
occupied should be in the vicinity of a city.
This was quite as much for social inter-
course as for the advantage of a nearby
market. Perhaps the success which has at-
tended this departure from the usual lines
of farming in the three years of its life has
been due largely to the location of the
Colony. The fact that the Littlelander has
CALIFORNIA LATH-HOUSE FOR FORCING PLANTS.