John Shuttleworth, Founder of Mother Earth News, Interview Part I
(Page 5 of 17)
January/February 1975
By John Shuttleworth
We became dairy farmers so we'd have a lot of manure to put back on the land every year. We paid to have humus in the form of corncobs that nobody else wanted hauled to our place from the grain elevators in neighboring towns. We even had cinders brought out from the factory where Dad worked to get the money we needed to revive that farm.
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Damn, it was hard work. Dad worked in town and Mom milked 35 cows by herself, morning and evening. They'd both be out in the fields on weekends and until dark every day, and then stay up half the night remodeling the house and rebuilding the barn and toolsheds. My sister and I were too little to be much real help in the beginning, but we always had our chores and we grew into the bigger jobs as time went on. Still, I never knew either of my parents to take a vacation — or even stay away from home overnight, except when hospitalized once or twice — until I was in my mid-20s. They just worked day and night.
And it paid off. My folks' farm is one of the best in the area now. As a matter of fact, it's a lot better than some that were good farms when they bought the place. While the big agribiz boys were pulling the life out of their soil, Dad and Mom were putting life into the land they had.
Of course the economics of "modern" farming finally caught up with them and, in recent years, the folks have been forced to pay the taxes and hold onto the place by pouring on the chemical fertilizers and weed killers. Funny thing, though. They don't raise alfalfa like they used to, and they've been losing calves for no apparent reason. And last summer some pesticide blew across the road from a neighbor's field and made all of Mom and Dad's cows sick.
So, as a result of what I've seen with my own eyes and done with my own hands, I'm convinced that the natural way is the best way. Take care of your land and it'll take care of you. There ain't no free lunch. You can't pull more out of the soil in the long run than you put in.
This is something else I know down in my gut from firsthand experience and, although it's frequently reflected in the pages of Mother Earth News, I can't take any real credit for it. Once more, I'm just my parents' child.
PLOWBOY: All right. It's obvious that your early upbringing is reflected in the pages of the magazine. But how did you get from away back there to where you are now? What happened in between?
SHUTTLEWORTH: Well, you know how it is with young bucks. You can hand them the wisdom of the world on a platter — and, in many respects, that's exactly what I was handed — but they can't recognize it for what it is until they go out and make a few comparisons on their own. It's a matter of developing judgment and everyone has to do that for him or herself.
After high school I went to a local college for just under two years and then, in 1958, I kicked over the traces and began to roam. Each generation tends to do the opposite of the one just before, you know, and — since my folks were such homebodies — I guess it was only natural that I hit the road like my grandfathers.
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