68 WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



for a phenomenon with which I have been familiar 

 from childhood: namely, that the quantity of any 

 given food an individual or family will consume 

 is one thing when that food must be bought; it 

 is something else again when it is produced in 

 superabundance at home. I have told of all the 

 sirloin steak we went through when we had it. 

 Everything else goes the same way; such staples 

 as eggs, milk, cream, and butter melt away like 

 the onion snow under an April sun, when you 

 have enough and to spare. Conversely, the opti- 

 mum diet described by government is by no means 

 the best that can be had at any price but is hedged 

 and limited in every direction by price consid- 

 erations. 



After the food lists were written they still had 

 to be translated into production schedules, which 

 again called for many readjustments. Production 

 so often interlocks. Thus, assuming we should 

 need a certain minimum number of eggs per year, 

 we next calculate the number of hens needed to 

 produce them. The laying flock should be replaced 

 every three years, so one-third its number in pul- 

 lets should be grown annually. Since eggs hatch 

 about equal numbers of cocks and hens we can 

 therefore anticipate an annual production of broil- 

 ing and roasting birds. So the matter of egg sup- 

 ply impinges directly on the problem of total meat 



