218 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



or pigs is able to keep a closer watch upon 

 possible leaks and losses than he who has half 

 a dozen irons in the fire. The average "gen- 

 eral" farm leaks like a sieve, and it's very hard 

 to discover the flaws. It needs a wizard to 

 check one operation against the other and keep 

 the reckoning straight. 



In our fourth season I tried to figure out a 

 system of accounting that would enable me to 

 strike a balance at the year's end and deter- 

 mine with a fair degree of accuracy how much 

 money I had made or lost in growing my oats 

 and corn and peas. I couldn't do it. I haven't 

 been able to do it to this day. I don't believe 

 it's possible. The cleverest method of reckon- 

 ing has something arbitrary and artificial in it 

 something that must be taken for granted. 

 The balance must be forced. On a farm one 

 gets so many things that can't be measured in 

 dollars and cents. And there are the endless 

 losses by leakage which can't be estimated. 



At the beginning of that fourth year I laid 

 out a plat of the farm on paper, with each field 

 measured in acres, and with a carefully stud- 

 ied schedule of a cropping system that would 

 cover the next three years. That was all right 

 enough, but before the middle of summer I 



