vi INTRODUCTION 
The average American little needs advice on 
the conduct of his farm or business; or, if he 
thinks he does, a large supply of such help in 
farming and trading as books and periodicals 
can give, is available to him. But many a man 
who is well to do and knows how to continue 
to make money, is ignorant how to spend it in 
a way to bring to himself, and confer upon his 
wife and children, those conveniences, comforts 
and niceties which alone make money worth 
acquiring and life worth living. He hardly 
realizes that they are within his reach. 
For suggestion and guidance in this direction 
there is a real call, to which this series is an 
answer. It proposes to tell its readers how 
they can make work easier, health more secure, 
and the home more enjoyable and tenacious 
of the whole family. No evil in American rural 
life is so great as the tendency of the young 
people to leave the farm and the village. The 
only way to overcome this evil is to make rural 
life less hard and sordid; more comfortable and 
attractive. It is to the solving of that problem 
that these books are addressed. Their central 
idea is to show how country life may be made 
