THE EXPECTATION OF PLENTY 31 



cannot be credited without experience is enough 

 to neutralize monotony. It is hard to tire of really 

 good food. 



With the foreknowledge of what crops are 

 ripening one can conscientiously abstain from its 

 dishes and thus whip up an appetite for them. Al- 

 though here a certain sweet reasonableness is de- 

 sirable. We have never put yearling steers on the 

 place to fatten for beef, but we have grown our 

 own beef from dairy calves. We did not forego beef 

 the whole four years it took to mature the first 

 beef critter (real beef: not the tasteless two-year- 

 old stuff, scarcely more than overgrown veal, cur- 

 rently purveyed in Eastern stores and restaurants 

 as beef). But we ate our last bough ten roast in 

 November and did not have home-grown beef 

 until January. If you wonder what four people 

 could do with a half ton or more of beef-on-the- 

 hoof I can only assure you none of it went to waste. 

 Part of it, of course, was canned and corned. But 

 we cut thirty-six sirloin steaks of varying size off 

 that carcass and four of us ate thirty-three of them. 

 For me it meant the realization of a thirty years' 

 dream: reversion to the ' 'standard American break- 

 fast [vide Tramp Abroad] of beefsteak and coffee." 



Although I was dubious, it seemed to me if we 

 were to farm for use successfully we must revise 

 the values of human labor fostered by unions and 

 the time clock. We expected to contribute a good 



