“The Long Island Railroad. The president of the road, Mr. Ralph Peters, found on investigation that his road ran through territory which was without value, as the average American sees it--without lumber, without coal or minerals, without any great water power, without any opportunities for developing industrial plants of any sort. Half of this territory, lying within fifty or sixty miles of New York City, was a howling wilderness, selling at three or possibly six dollars an acre, and no one buying it. “In 1905 he decided that the one hope of this part of Long Island lay in agricultural development. In the offices of his railroad was a man named H. B. Fullerton, who was in charge of the general advertising, taking photographs, issuing booklets of scenery, and so on. Such work had taken Mr. Fullerton practically all over the railroad’s territory. Also, Mr. Fullerton had traveled all over America, and he said that the Long Island land showed the same undergrowth as he had seen in Cuba, New Mexico and sections of South America, where vegetables grow luxuriantly. He believed that Long Island could grow beans, asparagus, peas, potatoes, cauliflower and other vegetables, instead of loblolly pines. The upshot of this discussion was that the Long Island Railroad Company bought ten acres of scrub oak waste, practically considered the worst land in middle Long Island, with the avowed intention of providing the fresh food for which New York City had been starving, from the countryman’s point of view. “In September, 1905, Fullerton and his hands dynamited out the first scrub oak stump. The next year they raised three hundred and eighty-one varieties of food on the poorest land of Long Island.” “And that is the man we are to meet?” asked Claire. “Yes, together with his wife and daughters.” Just beyond the Medford railway station the motor road cut its clean way through the arbor leading from the railroad to the farmhouse of the Demonstration Farm. Three concrete steps afforded the only “station” for railway passengers. The framework of the arbor was hidden by grape-vines and banked on either side by masses of garden flowers. Beyond the farmhouse, a two-story, wide-porched bungalow, lay the barns and outbuildings and the cottages of the farm hands. Mr. and Mrs. Fullerton, who had been advised of Mrs. Larry’s adventures in thrift, were more than hospitable, and after a tour of the grounds, they explained to their interested visitors many phases of merchandising in foodstuffs which are a mystery to the average city dweller.