INTRODUCTION. 31 
There had been bad years, low prices, diseased 
lambs, all sorts of troubles. Grimly we had held on. 
‘‘We can’t afford to change now,’’ we declared. ‘‘We 
have made too many mistakes in what we are doing. 
To change now would be to lose all we have gained 
by making these mistakes; we don’t have to make 
the same mistakes the second time.’’? So we held 
on, confident that our scheme was a safe and reason- 
able one, based on alfalfa growing, the alfalfa fed to 
lambs, the manure put out for corn, the well en- 
riched corn stubble sown to alfalfa, often with addi- 
tional phosphorus and as much as possible of the 
corn and alfalfa fed back to lambs again. 
But during these years we were in debt, a little at 
first, but steadily the debt grew. We owed for labor 
to dig drains, we owed for labor and materials to 
build fences and barns. We did all the labor that 
we could do with our own hands, but we were too im- 
patient to wait to develop the place ourselves. 
‘‘Harming either is or is not a business proposi- 
tion,’’ we declared. ‘‘If it is a safe business propo- 
sition this thing will pay some day, and if it is not 
we will break and be done with it. If we can’t farm 
as a business proposition we prefer to break up 
trying it.’? And ever and often the writer, the 
older of the brothers, declared to Willis, his willing 
lieutenant: ‘‘It is only a question of one good year, 
just one good year, and the lambs will pay every 
dollar that we owe and we will have the ditches laid, 
the buildings built, the fields made fertile, and it 
will all be ours.’’ 
