26 WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



and home ground. This vast array of new and 

 improved farm machinery cost me altogether about 

 one hundred and ninety-eight dollars. It was not 

 all bought at once. My original poultry investment 

 was seven dollars for an oil-burning incubator, a 

 gallon of kerosene, and a setting of eggs. I could 

 give you the price paid for each article in the 

 list, but all prices have varied up or down since 

 I bought them; if you are interested the current 

 prices may be obtained from a mail-order catalog. 

 There you will see there is nothing in the way 

 of farm tools and machinery even prefabricated 

 barns and outbuildings that you can not buy 

 from the mail-order houses, and buy on time, if 

 you are, like Sary Gamp, so dispoged. 



It would probably pay me to buy a lot of new 

 equipment, even on time; neither my dairy barn 

 nor poultry housing are of the finest. But my dis- 

 position is to take the slow, cautious way. It has 

 worked well enough so far. We were less than two 

 years getting substantial results, and we have taken 

 almost no risk at all. Thus, I might have spent a 

 hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars for a flock 

 of laying hens and while I was learning the mod- 

 ern way to feed and handle them, rubbed them 

 out by an ignorant mistake. 



In the spring of 1932 I finished setting out an 

 acre of young orchard. I had taken three years to 

 do it, at a cost of about $150. An acre of orchard, 



