PRELUDE 



THIS book is written in response to hundreds of re- 

 quests for some detailed description of the way of life 

 and of the experiments with domestic production 

 referred to in my previous book, This Ugly Civi- 

 lization. Since the collapse of the great boom in Octo- 

 ber, 1929, these requests have greatly increased in 

 number. 



It is not an exaggeration of the situation today to 

 say that millions of urban families are considering the 

 possibility of flight from the city to the country. But 

 the realization that there had been for fully half a 

 century a flight of millions from the country to the 

 city seems to me an essential prelude to consideration 

 of any move back to the land. Not only had the pro- 

 portion of farm population to city population in the 

 United States declined over a long period of years, but 

 for many years prior to 1930, the total farm popula- 

 tion of the nation itself declined. Since 1930, and the 

 ending of the last period of city "prosperity," the 

 movement has completely reversed itself, as is shown 

 by the table on the following page. 



This migration of millions, back and forth, between 

 city and country, is to me evidence of profound dis- 

 satisfaction with living conditions both in the country 

 and in the city. It is something which those consider- 



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