72 WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



cent, plus or minus. And the bigger the subject 

 the greater the error. 



So we keep records at Medlock Farm. In addi- 

 tion to the egg and milk records there are rec- 

 ords of flocks and herds, of breedings and births 

 and deaths, sales records, and financial records 

 of a sort. For I never was any great shakes at book- 

 keeping; I am, as it were, tone-deaf to it. When it 

 is explained to me I can understand the differ- 

 ence between debits and credits; when it comes 

 to deciding which side an entry belongs on I am 

 as the beasts that perish. Yet it is not their com- 

 plexity that make records difficult. Even the finan- 

 cial ones are as simple as tit-tat-toe. What baffled 

 me for a long time was how to get the records 

 kept, and kept up to date. So much happens on a 

 farm; there are so many things one can overlook 

 until the time comes when one wishes one had the 

 data. I found the solution was partly a matter of 

 habit-forming. But mainly it was a suggestion, con- 

 tained in a book called Around the Year in the 

 Garden, to keep a farm diary or log. Long ago I 

 conceived the idea of keeping a diary of weather 

 and other natural phenomena; it was easy to slide 

 into the way of keeping it for the farm. A typical 

 day in the diary reads: 



"Clear, still, and cold. 9 at 6 A.M. Maximum 19. 

 Checked laying hens for lice. Sold two pigs out of fall 



