The Naturalizing of a City Man 
Editor's Note:—The author of this narrative—begun in the December number-—had refused to lurite the story 
of his experiences in going from business life to a farm. His objection zvas that the published account taken 
from his closely zvritten diary would contain nothing of the joy and inspiration he felt in getting close to Nature, 
and would be merely a matter-of-fact list of happenings with their message lost. He finally consented to zurite 
it in his ozvn zvay, allowing memory and imagination to lend color to those days of struggle which arc now cher¬ 
ished recollections. He preferred to hide his identity under the disguise of another person, but the essential 
facts are true and full of practical information. This is the fifth installment and deals zcith the first rezvards of 
the man’s labors. Subsequent issues zvill show hozu the farm developed to a paying basis. 
I N spite of the multitude of things that occupied his attention 
during these busy opening weeks of spring, jMantell could 
not stop thinking about the amount of waste land which the plan 
of the farm had revealed. It bothered him incessantly, and took 
him off on many a solitary tramp around the place. 
Finally he took Raffles away with him one afternoon to the 
brush-grown lot down the road. The manager of the Garden 
Department protested strongly that there was plenty of work to 
be done at home, but Mantell was in one of his streaks of bossing, 
and argument was useless. 
They measured off in the lower part of the waste land an exact 
quarter acre and spent the rest of the afternoon chopping down 
the biggest of the scrub oaks and birches growing thereon. Some 
of these were large enough to trim up for stove wood, but the 
biggest part was just waste. Mantell soon discovered that they 
did not have the proper sort of tools to work with, and ’phoned 
in to the hardware store that night from the Squire’s for a 
bush-hook and a brush scythe. The next day, much to Raffles’ 
dismay, was also 
spent on the "crazy 
scheme,” but it 
showed a good deal 
of progress, for the 
two men worked with 
unabated energy 
— Raffles because he 
wanted to be done 
with it and get back 
to his garden; Man¬ 
tell because his imag¬ 
ination was fired and 
his blood stirred with 
that feeling of get¬ 
ting “something start¬ 
ed,” which always 
was like wine to him. 
The good-humored 
Squire came down to 
sit on a rock and 
mop his broad, 
tanned brow and laughed at this latest wild undertaking. With 
coats, vests and outer shirts off, the two men toiled, dripping 
wet, in the hot sunshine. 
“You boys certainly do love work,” chaffed the Squire, feeling 
in his rear trousers’ pocket for a dry handkerchief. “Why, I 
have some stout gentlemen, weighin’ about 200 pounds apiece, 
up to the house that would just love to do that work for you, 
just — just for their board an’ lodgin’; no washin’ — ho! ho! — 
they wouldn’t take no washin!” boomed the Squire. 
“What do you mean?’’ asked Mantell, pausing to wipe the 
sweat and dirt from his eyes. 
“Mean? — why I mean my heavyweight porkers,” said the 
Squire; “they’d root that place up till there wasn’t a stump left.” 
At first Mantell though he was joking, but the Squire soon 
convinced him that he spoke in earnest, and the upshot of the 
argument was that he agreed to take six of the Squire’s pigs to 
board and feed every day, the Squire to furnish a tight fence and 
the grain required. 1 hese pigs were to be turned loose on a 
second quarter acre of the brush lot. Mantell was still stubborn 
about getting the hrst section cleared for this season. 
1 he following day Raffles al)solutely insisted on turning all 
hands into the onion-bed, wdiich was now ready for the first hand 
weeding — and a tedious task it was. Robert begged so hard to 
stay home for this great event that he was allow'ed to do so. 
ty noon IMi. Alantell and Robert were both so lame they 
could hardly w'alk back to the house, but fully a quarter of the 
field was done. They w^ent at it again after dinner, and were 
holding out bravely, but Raffles persuaded them to knock off and 
work on the "reclamation project,” as the brush lot had come to 
be called, to get some of the stiffness out of their joints. 
The followdng day they went at the onions again, and stuck to 
it all day long, with the result that that night saw the job finished 
— and their few friends who planted onions barely had them 
above ground yet. 
Every hour that could be spared from the garden and green¬ 
house work was put 
into the work on the 
new field — not a very 
large one, but it was 
causingmore talk than 
any other field in the 
neighborhood. The 
enterprises of the 
INIantell C o m p a n y 
certainly added to the 
gaiety of the natives, 
if not to that of na¬ 
tions. 
The days slid by 
rapidly enough, and 
the Squire’s potatoes 
were in almost a 
week before Mantell 
— owing to the de¬ 
lays he had been put 
to in getting his field 
for corn and potatoes 
plowed and ready — could even begin planting. 
Mantell had done another thing to set the tongues awagging 
at the village store—right in the middle of the busiest season he 
had not only taken a day off himself, to travel the long journev 
that lay between Priestley Junction and the State Experiment 
Station, but he had taken his “hired man” with him. They in¬ 
vited the Squire, but he was too busy to take a whole day “away 
on a lark” just then, he said. That trip cost the company just 
$7.39 from a sorely depleted treasury, but Mantell always felt 
afterward that it was one of the best investments he ever made. 
They not only gathered up many points of information that were 
of immediate use to them, but received a stimulation and a re¬ 
establishment of his faith in agriculture which^gaye a new im¬ 
pulse to the whole undertaking, and their' worfc^ was already 
keyed up far beyond the average. ' > 
One of the results of his visit was that- their potatoes were pud 
{Continued on page 59) 
The waste land in the brush lot worried Mantell until he and Raffles had cleared it 
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