FOOD, PURE FOOD, AND FRESH FOOD 33 



state, in which the profit motive has in some way been 

 legislated out of existence, the technicians who will 

 operate the creameries will eliminate some of the worst 

 of present-day mass-production evils. We, however, 

 were not only somewhat cynical about the benefits of 

 unlimited government supervision, but saw no good 

 reason why we should postpone the eating of pure and 

 fresh foods until the distant day when a social revolu- 

 tion would wipe out all the blots on present-day in- 

 dustrial production. Besides, contacts with state in- 

 stitutions hospitals, for instance prevented us from 

 sharing the sanguine hopes of socialist friends about 

 the quality of foodstuffs which would be produced in 

 a socialist heaven. 



As soon as we were well settled in the country we 

 bought a cow too good a cow, I am afraid. When 

 fresh she gave us as much as twenty quarts of milk a 

 day. Most of the time we had so much milk that it 

 seemed as if we could bathe in it. But what milk it 

 was! In spite of the fact that we drank all we desired, 

 made our own butter and pot cheese, there was still a 

 surplus of milk to be disposed of. A few neighbors 

 begged us to sell them milk, but this experience, just 

 like our experience in selling eggs and chickens, only 

 confirmed our determination not to produce for the 

 market. We were producing a quality of milk far 

 superior to that in the market; what we received for 

 it hardly paid for the labor of cleaning bottles and 

 delivering it. We wondered what we could buy with 

 the money half so precious as the milk. We needed 



