—Lancaster Farming: Saturday. July I
12
ORGANIC LIVING
By
Robert Rodolo
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New Towns Take People
Back To Nature
“We need people! We are a non-profit association working
to establish a cooperative community. We’ve just acquired
over 900 acres of beautiful rolling contryalde. We especially
need skilled people carpcnteres, farmers, teachers. Come
and help us create! We need your talent and energy.”
Classified advertisements like that are cropping up
frequently nowadays as more and more idealistic people try
to establish new back-to-the-land communities. Some of the
projects are well-thought-out and financed. Others prove to
be impractical, pie-ln-the-aky dreams. But the planners
generally share certain common goals.
Most are disillusioned with urban and suburban living as
we know it. They want to get away from the bad effects of our
technological society: pollution, greed, crime and the nine
to-five rat race. They’re betting that by starting with a clean
slate, they won’t repeat the same mistakes.
Residents of the new communities are seeking self
sufficiency in food, energy and even education.. They’ve seen
enough of energy crunches and food shortages to distrust our
highly-centralized economy. They want to raise their own
livestock, grow their own food, and generate their own power
from the wind or methane gas.
Honest labor, even if it means hard physical toil, is
welcomed. Fanning, gardening and handcraft cottage in
dustry usually form the economic core of new communities.
Dutch School
Natural Foods
LARGEST SELECTION OF
NATURAL FOODS AND VITAMINS
IN CENTRAL PENNA.
RT. 222, AKRON. PENNA.
PH. 859-2339
FREY FREE STALL
LIFETIME FREE STALL HOUSING
Cut bedding costs 75 per cent, reduce labor for
barn cleaning and cow washing; reduce teat and
udder injury to the minimum house your
milking herd in free stall housing. Each cow
provided a stall for loafing. She won't be stepped
on, the rear curb forces manure out into alley for
mechanical cleaning or washing. A few minutes
twice a day cleans the stalls and curbs, bedding
lasts almost forever if your stalls fit the cows.
Popular sizes are 6’6”, 7’ and 7’6”. Size ’em by
breed.
Our free stall partition may be mounted on wooden head
boards or we make a steel 'hvider Set the legs in 8 to 10”
concrete curbs to hold and retain bedding Stall floor can
be soil, sand or gravel Bedding straw, sawdust,
peanut hulls, ground corn cobs, etc Should be installed
with paved alley surface 8 feet wide for mechanical
cleaning or washing
- 8 Models all steel welded farm and feedlot gates
- 2 Models all steel welded head catch gate
For prices, contact: Fred Frey, Mgr.
(717)786-2146
FREY BROS.
R.D.2
Quarryville, Penna. 17566
What I really think the young people especially are trying
to do is recereate a peasant style of life in a modern,
enlightened way. They have seen file damage to body and
soul that machine living has done to their parents’
generation. They find real freedom to exercise their minds
while tilling the soil, or while reveling in the good feeling that
manual work can give.
“You know, some kids today wish the Depression would
happen all over again!” a student told me. “We want to test
ourselves, to see if we can measure up. We read about the
way people lived in the Depression, and it doesn’t sound all
bad to us.”
These “new peasants” are also vitally concerned about the
environment. They want to live close to nature without
destroying it. Many new communities put strict limits on
their population density right at the outset.
One of file most ambitious and carefully-planned new town
projects is the Pahana Town Forum, 629 State St., Santa
Barbara, Calif. Since 1971 it has attracted about 2,900
members who have indicated a desire to build a town from
scratch. The Forum has acquired a 1,400 acre site in a
beautiful forested valley in western Oregon, and construction
is expected to begin soon.
Pahana is anything but a refuge for dissatisfied youths
seeking to “drop out.” Engineers, salesmen, teachers,
housewives, and retired people have all expressed an interest
in file new town. And they’ve been sending in their
suggestions for how the community should be structured
right from the beginning.
They’ve planned a village where automobile traffic will be
virtually eliminated. Industries are to be small and non
polluting. An natural open space and wildlife will be carefully
preserved.
Garden Way, Inc., in Charlotte, Vt., is planning a series of
unique new communities built around gardening. Residents,
HOG PRODUCERS)
Sold in sorted lots the auction way. See them
weighed and sold and pick up your check.
SALE EVERY MONDAY 9:00 A.M.
NEW HOLLAND SALES STABLES, INC.
Phone 717-354-4341
Abe Diffenbach, Manager
from all walks of life, would still commute to jobs in-tha
outside world; But they wpuld shine end m large, garden
plots right atthelrddorsieps.' ' '
Don’t get the idea, though, that you must move to the
country to participate in a new community. Communities Is a
Washington, D.C., organization that is building a more
natural, self-sufficient community in a square-mile urban
neighborhood. ' _ 9 I
So far, the multiracial and mixed income group has
established several collectively-owned retell food outlets and
a trucking cooperative.
Urban gardening and, agriculture wilKplay a teg part in
the future of Communltas. One member has already raised
one thousand pounds of rainbow trout in ins basement, at an
estimated cost of about 85 cents a pound. The system could be
adopted by other residents. "We have calculated, using load
retail figures, that we could easily supply the entire com
munity’s fish needs," says a Communltas publication.
Also on the drawing board is a neighborhood treatment
plant for fertilizer production and methane gas generation.
"A family of four.can amost generate enough methane from
its own wastes to cook its foods, and if we add garbage and
trash-of the, average family, it is more than enough," ac
cording to Communltas.
One thing is for usre. No matter how the new towns fare in
coming years, any setbacks won’t be for lack of enthusiasm.
"It’s going to take a lot of hard work and we can depend upon
being met with difficulties and disappointments," says Chris
Canfield of the Pahana Town Forum. "But the opportunity is
here and now!"
Want to be more self-sufficent? “How to live on Less and
Love It More” is a 50-page guide to putting your house and
ground to work for you—naturally. To get a copy, send fifty
cents to Robert Rodale, Organic Living, in care of this
newspaper. Please ask for the booklet by name and allow at
least three weeks for delivery.
<c) 1974 by The Chicago Tribune. World Rights Reserved.
HAY WANTED
Kaolin Mushroom
Farms Inc.
CALL
1-215-268-2262
HOLLAND
STACKLINER k
MIIOMITIC HIE DUN *
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CALL US FOR
PROMPT, EXPERT SERVICE!
A.BX. Groff, Inc. L H. Brubaker
110 S. Railroad Ave. 350 Strasburg Pike
New Holland
354-4191 397-5179
C. E. Wfley & Son, Inc. Roy A. Brubaker
101 S. Lime St. , " 700WoodcrestAve
' Quarryville Litib, Pa.
7t6-2t95 626-7766
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