The Naturalizing of a City Man 
Editor’s Note: — The author of this narrative — begun in the December number — had refused to write the story 
of his experiences in going from business life to a farm. His objection teas that the published account taken 
from his closely zuritten diary zvould contain nothing of the joy and inspiration he felt in getting close to Nature, 
and zvould be merely a matter-of-fact list of happenings zvith their message lost. He finally consented to write 
it in his ozvn zvay, allowing memory and imagination to lend color to those days of struggle which are 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 sixth installment and deals zuith the early rezvards of 
the man's labors. Subsequent issues will shozv hozu the farm dez'cloped to a paying basis. 
T he long, warm, golden 
days of June brought 
new experiences and new de¬ 
lights to the adventurers who 
had turned their backs upon 
the city, and faced the prob¬ 
lem of digging a living out of 
a run-down New England 
farm. 
i\Iuch as they had enjoyed 
the days of late winter and 
early spring, in spite of, or 
perhaps because of, the mul¬ 
titudinous activities which 
kept them occupied incessant¬ 
ly, the opening weeks of sum¬ 
mer revealed still greater 
pleasures. Although the work 
about the farm and with the 
growing crops, especially 
those in the ever-changing garden, kept them busy as a hive of 
bees, still in the long, warm evenings they found leisure for rest, 
and for “loafing” on the veranda. With the advent of the peren¬ 
nial mosquito crop, however, they found themselves driven in¬ 
doors. This was put up with for a few hot evenings, and then 
a part of the veranda was fenced in with light pine scantlings 
and covered ‘ with mosquito netting, after which they lived in 
peace. This new “room” was decorated with a few potted plants, 
including several climbing parlor ivies from the greenhouse, a 
spare rug and a few chairs, and immediately became very popular 
with every member of the family. 
The cultivation of the potatoes and corn Mr. Mantell attended 
to almost entirely himself. It was work that he enjoyed tremen¬ 
dously, and took great pride in. To the uninitiated, such simple 
farm operations as cultivating always seem a mere matter of 
routine. He himself had always considered them so; in fact, he 
knew that this might still be the case, had it not been for his 
discovery of what scientific methods he could ai)ply. As it was, 
he took the greatest care always to set the machine so it would 
run just deep enough, and by means of the width-adjusting 
lever, kept it shaving up as close as possible to the rows without 
injuring them. 
The result was that while the Squire laughed at him for being 
“cultivation crazy,” his fields were kept clean, and there was prac¬ 
tically no hand hoeing to be done in them. The Squire still used 
an old-fashioned cultivator, which had no “depth regulator” and 
which could not be adjusted in width quickly enough to enable one 
to alter it while in operation. 
The Squire got good crops: nothing was ever allowed to be 
behind hand, or to go half done, on his place. Rut as the season 
wore on, he became more interested in Mantell’s “new-fangled” 
methods of doing some things, and cultivation was one of them. 
“I don’t know but what that machine is a little better than 
mine, Henry,” he puffed out one day, as Mantell got to the end 
of a row that widened out, and shoved the lever farther over to 
take up the extra space. 
klantell stopped to explain to him that he considered the depth 
regulator even more impor¬ 
tant, as it enabled him to ob¬ 
tain a dust-mulch on the sur¬ 
face, without danger of cut¬ 
ting and bruising the roots 
deeper down. “Wh}- don’t 
you get one like it?” he asked 
the Squire in conclusion. 
"I guess I’ll have to—an¬ 
other year,” was the reply. 
“The old one will do this year, 
I reckon.” 
Mantell smiled as he swung 
back into the next row. The 
price of the machine was 
eight dollars, a year’s interest 
on which was forty-eight 
cents, and the Squire had 
plenty of cash in the local 
bank that was not even draw¬ 
ing interest. Forty-eight cents was about the price of one-half 
bushel of early potatoes, and if better cultivation made any dif¬ 
ference at all on the Squire’s potato field, it would certainly make 
more than two pecks. But that was not Mantell’s business, and 
knowing the Squire, he let the matter drop—though as chance 
would have it that was not the end of the incident. 
The vegetable garden, under the skilful and interested care of 
Raffles, was doing splendidly. Several times a week, they had to 
load up the only wagon they had—which was quite inadequate 
for the purpose—and go to town. This task frequently fell to 
the mistress of the household, who seemed to develop quite a 
professional ability as a saleswoman. In her tan and freckles, her 
old-fashioned bonnet, and her “work-dress” very few of her 
friends wquld have recognized the wife of the erstwhile presi¬ 
dent of a big New York company; possibly it would have seemed 
that the sunny smile which greeted them belonged rather to a 
happy, simple country girl than to a lady of polished manners 
who had occupied a leading position in her “set,” and was now 
driven by poverty to a life of hard manual labor in the back- 
woods of an unheard of New England town. Mrs. Mantell, 
however, could not have been induced to change places with any 
of her former and (in their own opinions) more fortunate 
companions. She was perfectly happy on her own account, and 
doubly so in the happiness of her husband and her children. Her 
charm, courage and personality had made the several trades¬ 
people with whom she dealt deeply interested in the outcome of 
the IMantell enter])rise, and they lost no opportunity of doing 
what they could to assist her, and of recommending her products 
to their customers. 
No small part of the day’s work was the getting ready of a 
load of “truck” for market. This would consist, in general, of 
six or eight dozen heads of lettuce, four or six dozen bunches 
of beets, several dozen more of radishes and carrots, a hun¬ 
dred pounds of cabbage and a bushel of peas. The amount of 
time required to gather, wash, bunch and pack these various 
things was quite astonishing, and had it not been for the aid 
which Robert and Helen were able to give would have taken a 
Two days sufficed for getting in the hay, as it dried quickly in the hot 
sun and could be stored almost as soon as raked 
