balance of the year telling what a good time they had while in the 

 country. 



My heart yearned for those old peaceful sunny days out under the 

 open sky where I could lay my ear close to nature and list to her sym- 

 phonies. After four years of municipal life I forsook the city and went 

 back to the country, and you will find me today on my five-acre ranch 

 near Palo Alto, reveling in the choice products of my land and enjoying 

 the really good things of life. 



I have learned that most men who live in the city dream of the time 

 when they can have a country home all their own. Most men tolerate 

 the city because they think they can make more money there and thus 

 be able to sooner own that sunny country home. Most men who have 

 their business in the city, and can afford it, have country homes. We 

 only rush to the city to make money faster so we may the sooner 

 realize our dream of a country home. Instead of going through all this 

 agony and travail of earning money with which to buy a country home, 

 why in the world don't someone teach us how to earn and make this 

 dream home of ours right in the country and thus begin to live in the 

 fullest sense right from the start? 



I have tried both lives, and I believe I have chosen the true. I 

 have been practicing this art of living on a little land here in California 

 for fifteen years, and today I am so enthusiastic over the possibilities 

 from a little land that I am only too glad to run and tell the story. 



There should be a way whereby those with little means can secure 

 a home in the country without waiting until the best part of life is 

 spent trying to pile up money enough to purchase it. If a country 

 home is good for the rich, it should be a blessing to the poor. I believe 

 that some scheme can be worked out where those with a little money 

 can make a beginning in the country and evolve this country home and 

 thus secure all its blessings at once. 



There is an art of living well on a little land, and I know, for I am 

 doing it every day, and my life work is to do it so well that he who 

 runs may read. 



I not only want to do it well for my family's sake, but I want to do 

 it so well that I may be able to help those who wish to learn this sanest 

 of all arts. 



I sometimes dream of a colony of little country homes where even 

 those with small means can vie with the rich in their country homes in 

 all the luxuries and opulence of choice products produced on a little 

 land. Where this art of living is taught as carefully and thoroughly as 

 all the other arts, and where we can have poetry every day instead of 

 all prose. 



That's my dream! A colony of little, neat, country homes filled 

 with sincere, earnest, sober people, all formed into one school the 

 school of life, where you don't prepare to live, but live while you are 

 preparing; where all instruction is not theory, but practice; and where 

 the necessaries of life can be produced without long, weary hours, 

 thus leaving enough time for music, and poetry, and social ties, and all 

 that we call culture. 



That's my dream! A colony where the art of growing vegetables is 

 made so clear that all good things from the soil await the good house- 

 wife in the kitchen, where the art of producing berries and fruits is 



