Why We Moved to the Country and What We Set Out to
(Page 6 of 7)
March/April 1970
By the Mother Earth News editors
2. Modern appliances and methods have eliminated much of the really hard, work in keeping house and raising food for the family. The pressure cooker and the home freezer, for example, have made preserving far easier than it used to be. The short work week (30-48 hrs.) leaves plenty of spare time for work at home plus plenty of spare time for play. To add work at home on top of a 6 day, 70 hour week was one thing. To do the same work at home on top of a 5 day, 40 hour week is an entirely different thing. What was work actually becomes fun.
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3. It is easy to learn to raise plants and livestock successfully today. Methods are simpler, more scientific. Seeds and plants are better, surer to grow, more productive. Fertilizers are better. Livestock breeds are better - they produce more per hen, per goat or per pig. Feeds you buy are better, more scientifically prepared. Disease and pest control is far more sure and specific. For example, what the famous sulfa drugs are doing for sick people, they are also doing for sick chickens.
4. Low-cost, long-term federal and private financing now bring the possibility of home and land ownership within the means of people who couldn't have even dreamed of it not so many years ago. Mass production of appliances, furnishings, tools, even houses has brought the cost o f getting started down to a low figure. Both of these points well be even more true in the post war years. Home freezing equipment, for instance, which before the war was priced in hundreds of dollars will be priced in tens of dollars.
Everything we tell you about in our Plan has been tried out by us personally, or by people we trust. We believe we can make it all work just as well as we've said it would. Of course, nobody can guarantee what results other people in other places will get. But I've made a sincere effort to give you honest and frank answers in the plainest language I know how to use.
And I hardly need to remind you that various parts of the country have differing climate and soil conditions. We are telling what we've been doing here in Connecticut (a fine state, by the way) and you will realize what allowances you must make for your own local conditions.
You don't have to spend as much on buildings as we did. We happen to think this a good investment, but are the first to admit that you can get along fine with less expensive buildings.
Building a small barn for your livestock, buying a couple of acres of land instead of simply a lot big enough to set a house on, or shelling out fifteen dollars for a pressure canner is different from the same amount of money spent on a trip to Florida or an expensive dinner and theatre party. Money invested in productive capital will bring you a great deal for a good long time to come.
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