Preface 



NEAR the completion of his book the author, 

 if he dare relax, sits back, and calls all the sad cap- 

 tains of memory to name those who came from 

 the varying shore of the world to make his book 

 for him. He battles the temptation to write scores 

 of dedications. For he knows he has created little; 

 rather, collated the "sifted wisdom" of his pro- 

 genitors. To dedicate a book a dozen times is to 

 quarrel with convention: the preface remains the 

 author's outlet for his gratitude. There the living 

 customarily take precedence of the dead. Yet the 

 person before all others who must shoulder re- 

 sponsibility for my book is the late Jay E. House. 

 He not only guided my early, wavering auctorial 

 steps; at a time when others looked down their 

 noses at my experiments in home-use farming he, 

 out of his practical experience on the land, en- 

 dorsed and encouraged them. 



From the long list of the living I present these 

 representative names: John Heilman, who com- 

 bines with a natural gift for part-time farming the 

 spirit and ability to carry on his shoulders the 



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