“I never wanted a job so keenly as when I found myself in a small city apartment without enough to do to keep me busy.  After I’d swept and dusted and prepared meals for two, I had hours of time on my hands.  The corner bakeshop, the laundry, and modern conveniences had thrust upon me more leisure than I could use.  Mr. Tupper is a young engineer whose work takes him to various parts of the Southwest.  In his absence I felt strongly the need of filling up my idle hours in some interesting, useful way.

“I didn’t quite like the idea of spending all my spare time on cards, calling, women’s clubs, and social pleasures.  I longed to be a real partner to my husband and to share in making the family income as well as spending it.

“We had a few thousand saved for a home, and were trying to decide where to build.  One day it flashed upon me:  ’Why invest in city property?  Why not a little farm?  Then we’ll have a home; I’ll have a job, and can make our living.’”

The idea materialized into a modern bungalow on a 10-acre farm in Westdale, Missouri, an hour’s drive from Kansas City.  Mr. Tupper’s salary furnished working capital for the enterprise and Mrs. Tupper has found congenial work as farmer-in-chief.

Poultry, bees, and a vegetable garden are Mrs. Tupper’s specialities.  Her side lines are a pig and a registered Jersey cow.  She looks after the poultry, works in garden and apiary, and milks the cow herself.  She employs very little help.

    “It wasn’t difficult to get a start in learning to farm,” Mrs.
    Tupper explained.  “I visited farms and studied the methods of
    farmers and their wives.  I asked lots of questions.

“I didn’t have any old fogyisms to unlearn, and I didn’t acquire any.  I went straight to the agricultural college and the state poultry experiment station for instructions.  While I was living in the country supervising the building of the bungalow, I read and digested every bulletin I could get.  I’m still studying bulletins.  I subscribe for several farm papers and a bee journal.

“Of course, I learned a great deal from the practical experience of the people about me, but I checked up everything to the rules and directions of government and state agricultural experts, which may be had for the price of a postage stamp.  I tried to take orders intelligently.  I ignored old rules for poultry and bee-keeping.”

Mrs. Tupper’s chickens are hatched in incubators, hovered in a coal-heated brooder house, fed according to experiment-station directions, and reared in poultry houses built from experiment-station designs.  From the first they have been practically free from lice and disease.  She gets winter eggs.  Even in zero weather and at times when feed is most costly, her spring pullets more than pay their way.

    “Bees responded as readily to proper treatment,” she said.  “My
    second season I harvested $265 worth of comb honey from twenty
    working swarms.  And I was stung not a half-dozen times at that.”