HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 79 



the disposition of the old farmer to spend no 

 money in farming unless he thinks he'll get 

 it back again out of the current year's harvest. 

 That's what you might call slot-machine farm- 

 ing. A plan of operations that postpones 

 profits for two or three years, even though it 

 makes profits more certain in the end, isn't 

 popular with the old-time practical farmer. 

 But that was our plan. 



Our idea, carefully worked out, was that 

 every dollar spent in cleaning up and smooth- 

 ing out our land would not only guarantee bet- 

 ter crop yields in the years to come, but would 

 give us our money back through increased 

 value of the land itself. The cost of hauling 

 a load of stone from the fields and building it 

 into a retaining wall to check the washing of 

 our soil we looked upon as a part of our perma- 

 nent investment. Besides, we argued, the effi- 

 ciency of labor applied to crop-growing on the 

 cleaned fields must be greatly increased. We 

 should have the greater efficiency of modern 

 implements, which couldn't be used on those 

 stone patches ; and we must inevitably get bet- 

 ter harvests. It wasn't a one-year game we 

 were playing ; but we couldn't see how we could 

 possibly lose. 



