Dirk Van Loon

I've lived on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia for more than 40 years in an old farm house with barn and outbuildings. E.B. White called his farmstead on the Maine coast a saltwater farm. Maybe that's what I found in 1970. I know I was inspired by descriptions of life on his farm by the author of "Charlotte's Web," through his series of "Letters from Down East" written for The New Yorker magazine.

While not from a farm, I was raised in farm country with corn fields and pastures of dairy cattle all around. In high school, I spent many weekends farming.

For all of that, formal education leading to a BS from the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell did not prepare me to raise pigs or any livestock for that matter. The BSc was in Wildlife Management, a profession left behind upon graduation. Medical research and a stint in the Peace Corps (Colombia 12) were side trips on the way to three years in journalism, working for daily newspapers in Missouri and Colorado. Freelance writing and a children's book published by Lippincott were next, followed by the move to Nova Scotia. To live out White's dream? Perhaps. It was but a matter of months before the back-to-the-land movement - inspired by another Mainer, Scott Nearing ("Living the Good Life") - swept across Canada's maritime provinces.

Before long I had my own small pastures and barns overlooking the ocean and soon had a cow. Then came pigs, followed a few years later by how-to books, "The Family Cow" and "Small Scale Pig Raising," which were intended as management guides for newcomers to farming. These were published by Garden Way Publishing in Charlotte, Vermont. At that time the company, along with Troy-Bilt, was owned by Lyman Wood, with Walter Hard Jr. retired editor of Vermont Life serving as editor. Quite a team. It was a pleasure working with them.

Now, these many years later, it is a pleasure to have the chance to work with Echo Point Books bringing "Small Scale Pig Raising" up to date.