the soil create incalculable wealth; by rights they should be the nation’s healthiest, happiest, most comfortable, and most independent citizens.  Their lives should be long, free from care and distress, and no more strenuous than is wholesome.  That this condition is not general is due to the fact that the average farmer puts muscle before mind and brawn before brains, and follows, with unthinking persistence, the crude and careless traditions of his forefathers.

Conditions on the farm are gradually changing for the better.  The agricultural colleges, the experiment stations, the lecture courses which are given all over the country, and the general diffusion of agricultural and horticultural knowledge, are introducing among farming communities a more intelligent and more liberal treatment of land.  But these changes are so slow, and there is so much to be done before even a small percentage of our six millions of farmers begin to realize their opportunities, that even the weakest effort in this direction may be of use.  This is my only excuse for going minutely into the details of my experiment in the cultivation of land.  The plain and circumstantial narrative of how Four Oaks grew, in seven years, from a poor, ill-paying, sadly neglected farm, into a beautiful home and a profitable investment, must simply stand for what it is worth.  It may give useful hints, to be followed on a smaller or a larger scale, or it may arouse criticisms which will work for good, both to the critic and to the author.  I do not claim experience, excepting the most limited; I do not claim originality, except that most of this work was new to me; I do not claim hardships or difficulties, for I had none; but I do claim that I made good, that I arrived, that my experiment was physically and financially a success, and, as such, I am proud of it, and wish to give it to the world.

I was fifty-three years old when I began this experiment, and I was obliged to do quickly whatever I intended to do.  I could devote any part of $60,000 to the experiment without inconvenience.  My desire was to test the capacity of ordinary farm land, when properly treated, to support an average family in luxury, paying good wages to more than the usual number of people, keeping open house for many friends, and at the same time not depleting my bank account.  I wished to experiment in intensive farming, using ordinary farm land as other men might do under similar or modified circumstances.  I believed that if I fed the land, it would feed me.  My plan was to sell nothing from the farm except finished products, such as butter, fruit, eggs, chickens, and hogs.  I believed that best results would be attained by keeping only the best stock, and, after feeding it liberally, selling it in the most favorable market.  To live on the fat of the land was what I proposed to do; and I ask your indulgence while I dip into the details of this seven years’ experiment.