Barters & Bootstraps

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Issue # 93 - May/June 1985

barter—we announced in issue 37 our still-standing offer: Send us a short account of an actual barter (write to Success ful Swaps, THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS, 105 Stoney Mountain Rd., Hendersonville, NC 28791), and if we print it in this column, you'll receive a year's subscription (new or extended) to MOTHER.

Likewise, if you now operate, or have ever operated, a home business that was inspired by an article you read in MOTHER, tell us about it in approximately 500 words (write to Bootstrap Businesses, THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS, 105 Stoney Mountain Rd., Hendersonville, NC 28791). Be sure to mention how you started your enterprise—including how much seed money you needed—the amount you make (net), and anything else that might be of assistance to other entrepreneurs. If your story is used in this column, you'll receive a free two-year subscription to MOTHER.

In the state penitentiary, where prisoners aren't allowed to have money, a man has to know how to barter! And when I traded one stack of magazines for another and found my first copy of THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS, I knew I'd discovered a treasure. After reading your magazine—which put so many of my dreams into words—I just had to get my hands into the soil!

So I bartered again . . . this time with the warden: I'd keep his flower bed weed-free if I could have a 20' X 20' plot of ground to garden. Then I traded an afghan I'd crocheted during the winter for several packages of vegetable seeds. The ground had been in clover for more than 50 years, so with the help of a shovel—the only tool I was allowed to use—and some composted scraps from the chow hall, I soon had really fine soil.

Many five-gallon buckets of water later, my first-ever garden was bursting into bloom! I couldn't believe how many vegetables I harvested. What I couldn't eat myself I swapped: tomatoes for pairs of jeans, radishes for books and magazines, cabbages for a fan, and watermelons for the typewriter I'm using to write this letter! But the best thing that came out of my garden was a feeling of accomplishment from hard work. Even in prison a man can dream of selfsufficiency and freedom, and—as I now know—he can also work toward it!

R.N. Missouri