the country! There are nearly six million farms in this nation, and four
millions of them would be greatly benefited by the addition of another
man to the working force. There is a comfortable living and a minimum of
$180 a year for each of four million men, if they will only seek it and
honestly earn it. Seven hundred millions in wages, and double or treble
that in product and added values, is a consideration not unworthy the
attention of social scientists. To favor an exodus to the land is, I
believe, the highest type of benevolence, and the surest and safest
solution of the labor problem.

Besides engaging Thompson, I tentatively bespoke the services of his
wife and son. Mrs. Thompson was to come for $15 a month and a
half-dollar raise for each six months, the son on the same terms as the
father.

The other man whom I engaged that day was William Johnson, a tall, blond
Swede about twenty-six years old. Johnson had learned gardening in the
old country, and had followed it two years in the new. He was then
employed in a market gardener's greenhouse; but he wanted to change from
under glass to out of doors, and to have charge of a lawn, shrubs,
flowers, and a kitchen garden. He spoke brokenly, but intelligently, had
an honest eye, and looked to me like a real "find." Polly, who was to be
his immediate boss, was pleased with him, and we took him with the
understanding that he was to make himself generally useful until the
time came for his special line of work. We now had two men engaged (with
a possible third) and one woman, and my _venire_ was exhausted.

Two days later I again advertised, and out of a number of applicants
secured one man. Sam Jones was a sturdy-looking fellow of middle age,
with a suspiciously red nose. He had been bred on a farm, had learned