PLANNING SIDE-LINE PRODUCE 13* 



stopped setting them out. Silver maples grow like 

 weeds hereabouts and reach productive age in 

 half the time it takes a sugar maple. And to my 

 taste their syrup has far more character and indi- 

 viduality. There may be, as Huck remarked on 

 a memorable occasion when he was a guest of 

 the Grangerfords, no early breakfast like cold pork 

 and greens, with corn bread, butter and butter- 

 milk. Maybe. But of a cold mid-winter morning 

 give me home-grown sausage, with whole-home- 

 ground corn batter cakes, home-made butter and 

 home-made maple syrup. 



So far we have concentrated most of our bu- 

 colic attention on food. That is as it should be 

 because it is the most important thing the land 

 produces. But it also yields a number of useful 

 non-edible things. Up to now I have given small 

 attention to them. The woodlot, for example, has 

 not gotten beyond the firewood, fence post, and 

 beanpole stage; there is a lot of lumber waiting 

 to be worked up whenever we get the equipment 

 from the mail-order house and feel the need. Year 

 for year, the experts say trees pay out better than 

 grain crops. The state stands ready to help all who 

 wish to re-forest land; many of my neighbors have 

 taken advantage of this with satisfactory results. 

 So far I have limited forestry to the six-acre wood- 

 lot and a policy of never cutting down a tree until 



