Twelve Cows And We’re in Clover by George Rehm

Description

This is a high-quality facsimile reprint of the 1951 edition of “Twelve Cows – and We’re In Clover”:

This is the practical, warm-hearted, inspiring story of a city man who wanted to make his living from the land and learned how to do it.

George Rehm was 53 when he quit his 30-year career as a newspaperman and decided to become a farmer — not as a result of any traumatic experience, but just because he wanted to. In beautiful Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, for $6,250 he became the owner of 155 acres, a house, a barn, sheds, a horse — and a herd of cows.

Mr. Rehm was not immediately in clover. He was completely inexperienced, had never milked a cow in his life and didn’t especially want to. But the cows came with the place, it had always been a dairy farm and it was taken for granted that the new owner would conform.

So, painstakingly, Mr. Rehm conformed. Now even his farmer neighbors think he’s pretty good. He Found a new and remunerative career that also provides the leisure for an eminently satisfactory way of life.

Anyone who has ever longed to undertake the operation of a small, one-man working farm will find countless invaluable tips in George Rehm’s story and the would-be dairy farmer will find it a primary source for the rudiments of dairy farming.

Here we can give you only the barest hint of the richly rewarding contents of the book. You must read it yourself to find what great personal charm is in its pages, made lively with anecdote and humor. In addition to all else, it is an extraordinary revelation of personality — even to the cows themselves.

George Rehm nearly bought a farm in Provence before settling in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. He had lived for many years in France, working as a newspaperman for the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune, the Paris Times, and the Paris Edition of the New York Herald Tribune. During World War II he was with the O.W.I. but returned to France at war’s end to take over the Marseilles bureau of the U.S. Information Service. That office was closed in 1947 and Mr. Rehm thought about farming.

For a brief period only he considered buying a farm in France where he and his wife and son would live in an old stone house in the lovely Var region of Provence. Then he decided against it. His roots were in America and he came home.

This story of George Rehm’s trials, mistakes and achievements as a dairy farmer is earthy, intelligent, appealing and just about the most inspiring success story we have ever come across.