122 WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



is reddening, to peer down into the hollow where 

 the spring rises at a solid green carpet of cress 

 floating in the icy water. There are 'coon tracks 

 at the brink; perhaps you surprise a muskrat, or 

 a bachelor quail bob-whiting his complaint that 

 this early in the season his gal has shook him for 

 another. If you stand perfectly still long enough 

 in the dusk you may glimpse one of the timid deer 

 that have lived on Medlock Farm since the drought 

 of 1931 drove them down from the northern coun- 

 ties. Then to get back into the warm house, thaw 

 your frozen hands, and return Altheus to the 

 study of seed catalogs, those last baroque flower- 

 ings of that Elizabethan prodigality which is our 

 speech's pride. 



In the home-use garden most crops stay in the 

 ground until they are used or grown too old for 

 human food. Large areas of any kitchen garden are 

 always thus occupied. The resultant superficial 

 impression is that garden truck returns a very low 

 yield per acre. On the contrary there is no more 

 profitable use to which land can be put. The dif- 

 ference here between home-use and market gar- 

 dening lies in the method of harvesting. The 

 market garden, instead of say one row of lettuce 

 in spring will be all lettuce. True enough, not 

 every head will mature at the same time. But it 

 will sell off as fast as it matures, and will all be 

 gone in a week or at the outside ten days. That 



