INTRODUCTION. 31 



There had been bad years, low prices, diseased 

 lambs, all sorts of troubles. Grimly we had held on. 

 1 ' We can ? t afford to change now, ' ' we declared. * l We 

 have made too many mistakes in what we are doing. 

 To change now would be to lose all we have gained 

 by making these mistakes; we don't have to make 

 the same mistakes the second time." So we held 

 on, confident that our scheme was a safe and reason- 

 able one, based on alfalfa growing, the alfalfa fed to 

 lambs, the manure put out for corn, the well en- 

 riched corn stubble sown to alfalfa, often with addi- 

 tional phosphorus and as much as possible of the 

 corn and alfalfa fed 'back to lambs again. 



But during these years we were in debt, a little at 

 first, but steadily the debt grew. We owed for labor 

 to dig drains, we owed for labor and materials to 

 build fences and barns. We did all the labor that 

 we could do with our own hands, but we were too im- 

 patient to wait to develop the place ourselves. 

 "Farming either is or is not a business proposi- 

 tion, " we declared. "If it is a safe business propo- 

 sition this thing will pay some day, and if it is no<t 

 we will break and be done with it. If we can't farm 

 as a business proposition we prefer to break up 

 trying it." And ever and often the writer, the 

 older of the brothers, declared to Willis, his willing 

 lieutenant: "It is only a question of one good year, 

 just one good year, and the lambs will pay every 

 dollar that we owe and we will have the ditches laid, 

 the buildings built, the fields made fertile, and it 

 will all be ours." 



