The horrors of Dante's Inferno are not much worse than the ordeals 

 which many go through with in the over-crowded cities. Dishwashers 

 and greasy potwashers down under the ground in basements over hot, 

 steaming, greasy water, away from fresh air and sunlight, compelled to 

 toil for that gnawing and insatiable appetite which can never be 

 satisfied. These may have gotten past the place of dreams that might 

 come true and only live for the short flashes of memory of betterjdays 

 conjured by strong drink. Clerks behind long counters walking up 

 and down on hard floors until they have corns on their feet and become 

 "kidney-footed," as waiters call it, and their limbs stiff and calloused 

 this is their little world, delving out goods to the passing public in a 

 mechanical way, only a cog in the great wheel that grinds out their 

 lives. Compelled to punch the time clock on the minute every 

 morning, regardless of moods or desires, with no initiative, forever 

 following others' orders, with no heart in the work, and the only 

 stimulus that induced by hopes of promotion. Promotion only means 

 more money so that those luring dreams of that independent country 

 home can be the sooner realized. 



Nature is calling man back to the natural, free, independent, 

 healthy life on the soil. There is something in the heart that hungers 

 for the flowers, and trees, and birds, and hills, and forests, and streams; 

 and man rushes from the city on every occasion to gratify this longing. 

 For six months the city man looks forward to a country vacation and 

 for the other six months he has the memory of that vacation to stimu- 

 late his dreams and hopes. Dreaming, planning, stinting, saving, 

 enduring the most disagreeable jobs, in order that that ideal of a quiet, 

 peaceful, restful, country home can be realized. There ought to be 

 some way, some plan by which we could obtain the heart's desire early 

 in life without drudging away the best part of life in distasteful work 

 trying to accumulate enough to purchase the ideal. What a bountiful, 

 well-fed world this would be if we only had schools that would teach 

 the boys and girls the joy of producing the essentials of life from the 

 soil. We have drifted away from the real life. 



So it was that the crowing of a cock in Madison Square Garden in 

 the great City of New York called me, a wanderer from Nature's ways, 

 back to the old country home of my boyhood days. I wrote home to 

 father and told him I wanted to come back to the soil and that I 

 wanted to go into the poultry business as my life work. I rather think 

 that father thought that the poultry business was a little business for 

 a boy to go into who had been to college, taught school, worked in a 

 store, waited in a hotel, and "traveled over so much of the world," 

 but he was glad to hear that I was wanting to return to the old farm 

 and wrote for me to come at once and that we would go in together. 

 Before coming home I visited many of the large poultry farms around 

 New York and Philadelphia and received inspiration enough to give 

 me a momentum to carry me over many a hard place in the years to 

 come. I became alive to the magnitude and opportunities in the 

 poultry business. I bought poultry books and subscribed for poultry 

 magazines, and, to be candid, became a poultry crank. With all the 

 enthusiasm from the journals and books and visits to large poultry 

 plants I was carried away, and stepped off the train near my old home 

 place with a new purpose and a new life work before me. 



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