CHAPTER EIGHT 

 CAPITAL 



JUST what to say about the capital needed to establish 

 a homestead is one of the most difficult matters with 

 which I find that I have undertaken to grapple. Yet 

 it is one question about which I am asked more fre- 

 quently than almost any other by those who express 

 a liking for the way of living with which the Borsodi 

 family has been experimenting. Before attempting to 

 deal with the matter, however, I think it important 

 to dispel an illusion under which many people who 

 have heard about our experiment seem to labor. Typ- 

 ical of these people is one man, connected with one 

 of our agricultural schools, who assumed that because 

 the houses, land, machinery, and livestock comprising 

 our homestead represented an investment of at least 

 $15,000 (according to his estimate), that therefore 

 the capital with which I began the experiment must 

 have been $15,000. "With $15,000,'* he wrote me, "I 

 would not need such a homestead in order to make 

 myself independent. Invested in stocks and bonds, 

 that sum would furnish a comfortable living without 

 going to all the trouble of producing everything for 

 one's own use on a small farm. For most people who 



desire independence and security the problem is how 



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