PLANNING SIDE-LINE PRODUCE 133 



farmer. Custom tanning will produce fine leather 

 but is too costly to be of practical use. 



Where there are hides there also are hair and 

 wool. Most freshly transplanted urbanites, or 

 countrymen of the nuts-and-berries school, are in- 

 trigued by the textile side of home farming. I 

 have a spinning machine, and I have wool. I have 

 tried washing, carding, and spinning. Without 

 proper equipment the time that can be expended 

 on the first two operations is out of all proportion 

 to the possible return-in-kind. I was once offered 

 a dollar a pound for home-grown, washed, and 

 carded wool. It sounded like a lot of money. With 

 zeal and a considerable quantity of spare time to 

 consume, I set to work. At the end of an afternoon 

 and a long evening my study was two to three feet 

 deep in the little cigar-shaped rolls of wool that 

 come off the carding bats. Perhaps it would be a 

 good idea to weigh it up no use doing more right 

 then than the customer would take. I packed all 

 that wool in a tailor's box and put it on the scales. 

 There were four ounces of wool in it. My time 

 was being repaid at something less than a nickel an 

 hour. 



Spinning time and weaving time might pay 

 if done with home-grown materials, providing 

 some efficient means of preparing these were de- 

 vised. We can grow flax as well as wool here. But 

 from what I read of its preparation for the loom 



