232 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



chance when we plant so late as the first of 

 July. 



The way we look at it, we can't afford not 

 to take that chance. If we allowed our fields 

 to lie idle through the long summer months, 

 we'd simply be betting on a dead certainty of 

 losing. As a matter of fact, our midsummer 

 cropping hasn't proved a risk. In five years 

 we've failed only once in getting a crop of pea 

 vines heavy enough to cut for hay. That fail- 

 ure was on one small field which wasn't seeded 

 until mid- July; and on that we got our money 

 back by pasturing and plowing under the 

 stubble for wheat in September. If we got 

 nothing from the peas but the new nitrogen 

 stored at their roots, we'd keep on planting 

 them. If we gained no advantage but the finer 

 tilth the plowing and harrowing and dragging 

 give for the crop to come after, still we'd keep 

 on planting them. Considering the practically 

 unfailing hay crop on top of these benefits, 

 don't you think we'd be taking a foolish chance 

 if we didn't plant? 



Most of the cases of this sort on the farms, 

 with the farmers declining such chances, have 

 their root in shiftlessness and not in good busi- 

 ness prudence. "I've worked enough for this 



