HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 53 



if he has to rustle to make up a deficit every 

 year, though it's only a small one, he's on the 

 anxious seat. Running a farm is exactly like 

 any other business in that particular : Once it 

 has started downhill and has begun to eat up 

 more than it produces, it's time to consider. A 

 badly managed farm can produce a deficit with 

 greater ease than the average farmer himself 

 seems to understand. 



We weren't going at our farming indifferent 

 to the outcome. Neither did we intend to trust 

 to luck. We meant to make farming pay if 

 we could, for we needed the money; and we 

 knew well enough that to get the result we 

 wanted we should have to practice good farm- 

 ing. To get results that would appear to us 

 satisfactory, we should have to beat the aver- 

 age farmer. 



We had taken the precaution to study a 

 soil-survey map of the Fayetteville section. 

 The map showed that our land was naturally 

 of a good type not of the highest fertility, 

 but a good sandy loam with a strong red clay 

 subsoil. The abuses of bad farming had put 

 it in a condition that would make it hard to 

 handle for a while, until it might be smoothed 

 out; but abuse could not altogether destroy 



