She called out for particular merit A. C. Barton and his “Show You Farm” in nearby Mountain Grove. A former Methodist preacher, Barton had restored his poor soil by practicing crop rotation, eschewing commercial fertilizers, hoeing corn by hand, and condemning the robbery of soil nutrients as “a sin.”129 She praised his “agricultural theology,” having long ago taken such advice as gospel: don’t go looking for a better place “but MAKE one.”
