Frying Pan Farm

“Cows and hens and milk trucks did not take holidays.” In Fairfax County, a farmer’s day could begin at four in the morning—and the first task was only the start.

In the 1920s and ’30s, small farms still shaped life across Fairfax County, Virginia, even as new machinery and specialized agriculture began to change the work. Elizabeth Brown Pryor brings that world close: milk cans clanging at the Herndon depot, horses turning the fields, and families tending crops and livestock through every season. A dairy farmer might milk dozens of cows before breakfast, then get the milk chilled and onto a train bound for Washington. Using local records and residents’ recollections, Pryor traces the routines that held farm life together—and the pressures beginning to unsettle them. What did it take to keep a family farm going as the world around it changed?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.