32 WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



deal of our own time to the job of self-mainte- 

 nance. What value should we put on that time? 

 Well since it was in no case time taken from other 

 gainful employment, why put any value on it at 

 all? Our objective was not time-saving; it was the 

 production of the means of life. If an hour's labor 

 produced something we wanted or needed it could 

 scarcely matter whether the product was worth five 

 cents or five dollars at retail. Also, since we already 

 had a hired man on the payroll and our secondary 

 objective was to keep him there, we decided the 

 same principle should apply to his time as long as 

 the work he did would not involve the employ- 

 ment of additional paid labor: if he had the time 

 to do a given piece of work we would not stop to 

 ask if it was warranted by his pay rate. 



There is probably no economic question under 

 the sun about which there is so much jiggery- 

 pokery, tosh-pail, and tingle-tangle as this of the 

 value of time. Consider butter. With fearfully in- 

 efficient equipment I can make three pounds of 

 butter out of eighteen quarts of milk, in seventy- 

 five to ninety minutes. Should I esteem the value 

 of the butter at the cost of the milk which is insig- 

 nificantthat goes into it, plus the value of an 

 hour and a half of my working time to my busi- 

 ness? I make butter of an evening or week-end, in 

 time that would not otherwise be gainfully em- 

 ployed. Is it not then more sensible to say the 



