Living The Good Life With Helen And Scott Nearing

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Under any economy, people who rent out money live on easy street without doing any productive labor. It is the borrowing producers who pay the interest or lose their property. Farmers and homeowners by the thousands lost everything they had during the Great Depression because they could not meet interest payments. We decided to buy for cash or not at all.

4. We will make our cash crop from maple syrup and will work out a cooperative arrangement wherever possible.

We made a cooperative agreement with Floyd Hurd and his family under which we would work together and divide the syrup crop in proportion to land and tools owned and the work done by each party. We began this arrangement in 1935 and continued it for six years with the Hurds, later carrying it on with other people.

5. We will put syrup production on an efficient basis, replace the old Hoard sugarhouse with a modern building and equip it with new tools.

We did this in 1935, we building the new sugarhouse and the Hurds buying a large, new evaporator. We also decided to convert part of our syrup crop into maple sugar, for which there was a ready sale.

6. So long as the income from the sale of maple syrup and sugar covers our needs we will not sell anything else from the place. Any garden or other surpluses will be shared with neighbors and friends in terms of their needs.

This latter practice was carried out generally in the valley. Rix Knight had extra pear trees. In a good season he distributed bushels to any of us who had no pears. Jack Lightfoot let us pick his spare apples and let others cut Christmas greens, free of charge. We brought firewood to those who needed it, and many garden products.

7. We will keep no animals.

We believe that all life is to be respected ... non-human as wen as human. Therefore, for sport we neither hunt nor fish, nor do we feed on animals. Furthermore, we prefer, in our respect for life, not to enslave or exploit our fellow creatures.

We thus escape the servitude and dependence which tie both farmer and animal together. The old proverb "No man is free who has a servant" could well read "No man is free who has an animal." Many a farmer, grown accustomed to his animal-tending chores and to raising food for animals instead of for himself, could thus find his worktime cut in half.

8. We will not waste time making over old buildings. We will use them as long as necessary, repair them if we must, but in general we realize they are on the skids. If they have no function, we will tear them down at the first opportunity. Only if they are useful and necessary, will we replace them.

Some of our friends and neighbors cry out in protest: "But the lines on these old houses!" Our answer is simple, and in three parts: [1] If we are worth a snap of the fingers, we can build with lines as good or better than our great-grandfathers. If we cannot, we do not deserve to live in a well-designed house. [2] The refurbishing of an old building will often cost as much, and sometimes more, in time and money than the construction of a new one. [3]

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