HOW TO DO THINGS A TIMELESS GUIDE TO A SIMPLER LIFE EDITED BY WILLIAM CAMPBELL FOREWORD BY BRIAN BARTH Compilation copyright © 2019 by Maria Atkinson. | Based on articles formerly Ribas Literary, LLC. published in the Farm journal. Identifiers: LCCN 2018019520 | ISBN All rights reserved. No part of this book may 9781452171678 (hardcover : alk. paper) | be reproduced in any form without written ISBN 9781452171746 (epub, mobi) permission from the publisher. Subjects: LCSH: Agriculture—Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Home economics— Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Formulas, recipes, Publication Data etc.—Handbooks, manuals, etc. Classification: LCC S501.H815 2019 | DDC Names: Campbell, William (Journalist), 635—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn. editor. | Atkinson, Wilmer, 1840–1920, editor. loc.gov/2018019520 Title: How to do things / edited by William Campbell ; foreword by Brian Barth. Design by Sara Schneider Other titles: Farm journal. Description: San Francisco : Chronicle Books, Chronicle Books LLC [2019] | Lightly edited version of a work 680 Second Street originally published in Philadelphia by The San Francisco, CA 94107 Farm journal in 1919 and edited by Wilmer www.chroniclebooks.com For Brian Braun, a man who knows how to do things. A FARM JOURNAL FARM Our Folks—by which is meant the fôur million subscribers and readers of "The Farm Journal"— live in homes such as the one picrured above. They are the cream of the agricultural people of America. They have solid, substantial homes, big barns with tight roofs, money in bank, fertile land, the best stock, the biggest apples, the richest milk. It is for their benefit that "The Farm Journal" is published, and to them this volume "How To Do Things" is offered. (cid:13)(cid:10)AND HERE WE HAVE— PETER TUMBLEDOWN'S FARM No one can read "The Farm Journal" and br a Peter Tumbledown too. Many have tried, but they have to give up one or the other. PART III CONTENTS ••• In the KITCHEN PAGE 87 FOREWORD PART IV ••• ••• PRACTICAL, AROUND the HOUSE not fancy, LIVING PAGE 125 PAGE 10 PART V ••• INTRODUCTION ••• OUT in the INTERESTING and WORKSHOP IMPORTANT PAGE 221 MATTERS PAGE 14 INDEX ••• PAGE 254 PART I ••• DOWN on the FARM ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PAGE 17 ••• PAGE 262 PART II ••• AUTHORS AROUND the YARD ••• PAGE 43 PAGE 263 HOW TO DO THINGS FOREWORD: PRACTICAL, not fancy, LIVING I am a writer and a journalist, which means I spend most of my waking hours staring at a screen. I tap away on my phone fol- lowing the daily news cycle on Twitter. I fire off dozens of emails each day to my editors and sources. I comb the webscape to the point of exhaustion in search of any nuggets of information that might prove useful for whatever story I’m working on. I occa- sionally write early drafts by hand, but it’s hard to resist the allure of Microsoft Word—cutting and pasting, the backspace key, hyperlinks, and Track Changes aren’t an option when working with pen and paper. Like most folks in the modern world, I am deeply, absurdly, worrisomely entrenched in the virtual abyss. Which is why on a daily basis I must—must—command my hands to stop typing and maneuver the plastic, hairless mouse over to the sleep key on my monitor. Then I swivel in my office chair toward the door and bolt for that alternate reality where the earthworms still dwell, where things smell of wood- smoke, where milk comes from animals in a hay-scented barn out back, where time is measured in lambing seasons and frost dates, not news cycles and deadlines, and where mice are creatures of flesh and blood. This is the world of How to Do Things, and it is alive and well. Most Americans left this world behind over the course of the last century, but it did not cease to exist. Those who did not leave it are regarded, at best, as charmingly eccentric; backward,naïve, andboring are other adjectives often hurled. I wonder if those 10