178 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



grapes; and so soon as we have some of our 

 land in perfect condition for it I shall under- 

 take the production of fancy potatoes for high- 

 class hotel trade. There are two or three other 

 things I'd like to try on a commercial scale 

 by and by. But those will be projects stand- 

 ing each on its own bottom; and before I'm 

 committed to any one of them I'll make sure 

 of the marketing end of the business. 



We didn't want our farming in its earlier 

 years to consist of a mixed lot of side-lines, 

 each independent of all the others. That is, we 

 didn't want the responsibility of managing 

 half a dozen farms until we had found out how 

 to manage one successfully. So we decided 

 to stick to our stock farming; and until we 

 would get that firmly established we would not 

 undertake the production of any crop not di- 

 rectly and intimately related to the central 

 idea of stock-growing. We saved confusion. 

 We lived in no fear of wastes through having 

 unsalable products on our hands; for every- 

 thing we grew would be staple at all times even 

 if we were not able to feed it all to animals on 

 the farm. Of great importance, stock farming 

 gave us a year practically free of periods of 

 high excitement and extraordinary demands 



