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 



