RELUCTANT FARMER

by Elswyth Thane ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 26, 1949

This might be considered a companion piece to The Bird Who Made Good and subtitled, The Writer Who Made Good as a Farmer. For while Elswyth Thane and Will Beebe make no pretensions to aping Louis Bromfield in this -- for them- new departure, they have made an abandoned farm into a self-respecting, self-sustaining, reasonably modern farm. Southern Vermont drew them as remote enough for quiet- close enough to New York to provide some measure of accessibility -- and the place seemed to fill a need that the war, with England in accessible, made important. This isn't a routine back to the soil screed. It is a human interest story of how the demands of the farm made themselves felt- how the maple groves were brought back to fertility, the hay became a substantial cash crop, and the Beebe household made themselves an entity in the community. Che-Wee, ""the bird who made good"" is a very important part of that household, and the market that took him to its collective heart will want to know more of his further adventures. There's a good deal of the often painful process of being a writer. And -- without sentimentalizing- there's a pleasant sense of a home well loved, a countryside savored. Elswyth Thane paints no picture of herself as a girl with a hoe, but ""reluctantly"" found herself a competent manager and director of a Vermont farm.

Pub Date: Jan. 26, 1949

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Duell, Sloan & Pearce

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1949

Categories: NONFICTION