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 life. 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, all 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 living 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 lie. 
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