Notes
Farmer in the Sky, a Heinlein juvenile novel.

First published in condensed form as a serial in Boys' Life (August, September, October and November 1950 issues) under the title Satellite Scout.

The image opposite and the blurb below are from the 1969 printing of the Victor Gollancz hardback edition. Cover illustration by Alan Breese.

Publisher’s Blurb – Lower Cover
Imagine that you and your family are setting off, with many others, on the spaceship Mayflower. Food has become increasingly scarce on Earth in the 21st century, and you are going to try scientific farming on Ganymede, one of the moons of Jupiter. This is what happens to Bill, and he tells the story of the two months' flight to Ganymede through interstellar space, of hardships that the new colonists have to endure on arrival and how in the end he wins a plot of barren land of his own to cultivate. The process of planetary farming is fascinating: soil has to be newly created and even insects must be imported from Earth. Life on Ganymede is hard, but it has its compensations – not the least of which is the beauty of Jupiter's many moons – and, through trial and error, the soil is made to provide fruitful crops.

Then comes the Great Disaster. Can the colonists survive and stay on Ganymede, or should they cut their losses and return again to Earth?