HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 167 



ing "come back" when conditions changed so 

 as to give the farmers handy and profitable 

 markets for livestock, and when hogs and cat- 

 tle were put upon the farms to eat the crops 

 there. That was the beginning of prosperity; 

 prosperity could continue only upon that basis ; 

 and only those might share in it who adopted 

 the new practice. Just about the best feature 

 of it was that the farmers who were feeding 

 livestock on their land and carefully putting 

 back the manure were providing a reserve fund 

 of prosperity whose value was all too little 

 known. Not many of them had taken the 

 proposition apart, wheel and spindle and screw, 

 to see just how it worked; so they were still 

 blundering a little ; but even at that they were 

 blundering along in the right direction. 



Remembrance of that prairie farm drama, 

 as we had seen it, gave us plenty to think about 

 in planning our scheme here. The more we 

 thought it over, the more it appeared that 

 farming simply isn't and simply can't be made 

 a business of one year's crop-growing alone, 

 nor of the crop-growing of any number of un- 

 related years. That way lies failure. Through 

 the interlocking years of the life of the farm 

 there must run an uninterrupted, constructive 



