FLIGHT FROM THE CITY 7 



if we only sought long enough for the necessary in- 

 formation, and that efficient machinery would pay 

 for itself in the home precisely as it pays for itself 

 in the factory. 



The part which domestic machinery has played in 

 making our adventure in homesteading a success can- 

 not be too strongly emphasized. Machinery enabled 

 us to eliminate drudgery; it furnished us skills which 

 we did not possess, and it reduced the costs of pro- 

 duction both in terms of money and in terms of 

 labor. Not only do we use machines to pump our 

 water, to do our laundry, to run our refrigerator 

 we use them to produce food, to produce clothing, to 

 produce shelter. 



Some of the machines we have purchased have 

 proved unsatisfactory something which is to be ex- 

 pected since so little real thought has been devoted 

 by our factory- dominated inventors and engineers to 

 the development of household equipment and domes- 

 tic machinery. But taking the machines and appli- 

 ances which we have used as a whole, it is no exagger- 

 ation to say that we started our quest of comfort 

 with all the discomforts possible in the country, and, 

 because of the machines, we have now achieved more 

 comforts than the average prosperous city man en- 

 joys. 



What we have managed to accomplish is the out- 

 come of nothing but a conscious determination to 

 use machinery for the purpose of eliminating 

 drudgery from the home and to produce for our- 



