If you want to be a farmer, you have a substantial advantage if you were born on a farm, since there is so much to learn. People who take up farming later in life, even as a hobby, quickly realize that they are missing a core body of knowledge that could have been learned at the side of their parents. This book focuses more on general self-efficiency than on agricultural practice. When it was published in 1922, the state of communication and transport was such that farms had to be much more self-sufficient than today. It was expected that a farmer would be familiar with woodworking, blacksmithing, concrete work, sheet metal work, farm machinery repair, and general rope and harness work.

The book covers a daunting range of subjects, assuming that readers would not only want to be familiar with the complete range but would have to be if they expected to be competent farmers. The great value of the book (which was used in agricultural extension courses of the day) is its straightforward approach to teaching the basics in each area using a wide range of examples.