134 WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



the labor content of linen would be as high as 

 or higher than that of wool. Dyeing would not be 

 so bad: the woods and fields are full of good 

 natural dyestuffs. Spinning, or weaving, from 

 boughten raw materials I cannot see as a paying 

 proposition. One enthusiast for the loom tells of 

 a home-woven suit: "The yarn cost $4.50, the 

 tailoring $30. I had it appraised by various so- 

 called experts at the time, and they valued it all 

 the way from $60 to $90." Fine if you are accus- 

 tomed to buying sixty- or ninety-dollar suits. But 

 "at the time" I read that my ready-made suits 

 were costing something nearer thirty-four; and I 

 was not buying them in dozen lots. Clothing even 

 in a seventy-five per cent feminine household is 

 relatively so small a part of the total essential 

 budget that it seems to me time spent on it is 

 almost as ill-advised a reversion as it would be to 

 take out the gas furnace and try to heat and cook 

 by open fires. 



On the other hand there would be both rhyme 

 and reason in the production of soap. The farm 

 uses a lot of it. I have kept book on kitchen soap 

 and find the general average, which rises in a 

 sharp peak during pork butchering, is a pound 

 and one-half to two pounds a week. This is almost 

 all bought as boxed flakes or chips that cost about 

 sixteen cents a pound, retail. With lard, beef-, or 

 mutton-tallow and a can of commercial lye you 



