30 WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



know not of. There is the thing that should give 

 us pause if we are to make the homestead pay off. 

 If you happen to fancy green corn a week or two 

 before yours is ripe, it is no good to go buy it as 

 long as other ripe and edible vegetables are stand- 

 ing in the ground. The point sticks deep in animal 

 as well as human nature. Dr. Stefansson's Arctic 

 studies demonstrate that food habits are among 

 the most difficult in nature to alter. 



We had been eating little but store food for 

 ten years. We were not above buying fruit and vege- 

 tables that we could and did raise, merely because 

 they appeared in the stores out of season. Could 

 we adapt our tastes and appetites to fit the farm 

 and "the latitude of Philadelphia"? We could. We 

 did. The change is not so hard as you might sup- 

 pose. It means that when you butcher a pig you 

 must eat pork; when the calf is eight weeks old 

 you must eat veal. But, you may object, it is not 

 easy to eat the same things three times a day for 

 weeks. Possibly it is not. We would not know. We 

 do not do it. For while pork is pork and veal is 

 veal, yet both subdivide into a wide variety of 

 cuts and dishes: chops, hams, bacon, sausage, and 

 scrapple; cutlet, sweetbread, stewing meat, kid- 

 ney, and liver. All these can always be varied with 

 eggs, poultry, lamb, and game in season. Yet even 

 without variety the superior quality and flavor 

 of home-grown foods a superiority that simply 



