iftons

aron Von Lodge was the head of a small country known as Lilliland near Switzerland. The time was the early 1900s.

To keep close to the people of Lilliland the Baron would hold a Wednesday noontime town meeting for everyone to come and voice their concerns and opinions. During the last two town meetings there was a public concern about the Tiftons, a group of people who lived by themselves on the opposite side of Castle Lake. They were very private and independent people. The objection was that the men often had more than one wife. The people of Lilliland objected to this practice.

The Baron consulted with Professor Hamblin, his chief advisor, as to what might be done, if anything. The Professor took a trip over to the side of the lake where the Tifton village was located. The Professor knew one of the members of the village who was one of the Professor's former students at Cambridge University in England.

The Professor reaffirmed that the Tiftons were a religious group that believed in being very self-providing. Twenty years earlier they were a community of over 300 people but due to poor crops many moved away and the group was now down to only 30 people. The Professor quickly discovered that they were planting crops that were wrong for the soil and they did not practice crop rotation. The marriage arrangement was more for survival of the Tifton village. Having more than one wife was not against their religion but it was not widely practiced until people started moving away and the crop failure continued year after year.

The Professor returned to Lilliland Castle and made his report to Baron Von Lodge. With this information the Baron realized that his town's people did not have all the facts about the Tiftons. The Baron decided not to do anything about the marriage situation and instead offered the leaders of the organization the opportunity to attend a seminar on crop growing, fertilization, rotation and farmland management, which might help them survive. Their decision to live a life of privacy would be honored but if they needed any help, all they would need to do is request it.

Years later, the Tiftons were accepted as a regular part of life in Lilliland, and their bountiful harvests were enjoyed by everyone.