INTRODUCTION. 



A FARM is the only proper home. Work- 

 ing for yourself is the only true inde- 

 pendence. Labor on the land in the 

 open gives health and long Ufe. Raise a living 

 and sell the surplus. Work all the time, but 

 don't overwork. Make faces at the cynic who 

 says the farmer and his wife and children work 

 fifteen hours a day and then starve. It isn't 

 so. Work alone is not farming; you must 

 manage. Farming needs intelligence and care, 

 nothing more so. Everywhere you see good 

 farm-homes and poor ones; the difference is in 

 the farmer. What the good farmers do, aU can 

 do. 



In this book, the author tells how to lay out 

 the land, how to prepare and plant and harvest, 

 and how to make life joyous. He has boiled 

 down the experience of himself and his friends 

 and the information contained in bulletins and 

 books and catalogs. A cobbler or clerk or 

 typo, can take this book and with his tennis- 

 made muscle and his trade accuracy can make a 

 bare hving the first year, a good living the 

 second, and start a bank account the third. I 

 know it because I helped do it in my youth and 

 I have seen it done all my life. 



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