230 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



laborers thought to-day. But as I think of it, 

 it doesn't strike me that way. 



Farming is a gamble only when the farmer 

 takes gambling chances. We might have tak- 

 en one to-day. Maybe we'd have won, maybe 

 we'd have lost. It was a toss-up. We made 

 it less of a gamble when we cut down the loss 

 chance. It's only when he refuses to take any 

 loss chance at all he can avoid that the farmer 

 dare call himself scientific. Isn't that right? 



If there's any doubt in your mind, look over 

 the farms of the men who take chances and 

 those who don't. There's a case in point in 

 our neighborhood right now. One of our 

 neighbors grew twenty acres of oats. His 

 land was in bad condition in spring full of 

 stones and stumps, as ours was six years ago. 

 He couldn't make a real seed bed, of course; 

 he just scratched his seed into the surface. 

 Chance number one. He got a poor stand. 

 The recent drought caught his crop and made 

 it certain that the grain wouldn't mature, so 

 he cut it for hay while it was in the milk. He 

 tore a mowing machine to bits in the cutting 

 he thought he could dodge the stumps and 

 bowlders, but he ran into them every once in a 

 while. Chance number two. He lost lots of 



