Getting the Rural Savor into City Life 63 



presides, with its branch houses in several American 

 cities, as well as in London, Melbourne and Bombay, 

 only a secondary consideration. 



His magazine article struck a responsive chord in 

 many hearts, and brought him many letters of ap- 

 preciation, one of which I wrote from my office in the 

 Department of the Interior at Washington. Probably 

 this book would not have been written at this time ex- 

 cept for that incident, which is my excuse for the fol- 

 lowing quotation: 



"Your philosophy has a distinct bearing on the 

 garden city plans we are considering here. The num- 

 ber of persons who can purchase and improve aban- 

 doned farms, and give them the necessary attention, 

 is comparatively small, and I fear it always will be; 

 but the home-in-a-garden which we have in mind, where 

 the man will own an acre or two of ground and be 

 shown how to make the most of it by intensive means 

 applying not only to the soil but to various kinds of 

 livestock will enable multitudes to take your prescrip- 

 tion of good, useful and productive work instead of 

 play. 



"The people to whom I refer are probably not golf- 

 players now, but they are in need of rural experience, 

 and hunger for some touch of the open spaces." 



He thought it good philosophy and called for a 

 program. I answered: "It would take a book." He 

 retorted, "Then by all means write it." 



Our problem, then, is to get the rural savor into 

 city life; to open the way to homes on the land for 

 the multitude of our country-minded now living within 



