PLANNING SIDE-LINE PRODUCE 135 



can make good soap for a cent a pound or less for 

 boughten material. Or you can save and slake 

 wood ashes and make it without any money out- 

 lay. If fresh animal fat should be lacking, a grease 

 trap on the sewage system would salvage more than 

 enough that could be reclaimed and used for soap 

 to the benefit of the disposal plant. 



Tobacco is another non-edible product (in 

 most parts of the country) that promises to pay 

 out in a big way, though I am not yet prepared 

 to speak dogmatically. The proper way to bring 

 tobacco from the stalk up to good smoking con- 

 dition is one of those things about which directions 

 are hard to find. After the leaves have been stripped 

 from the plant and air dried in the barn or 

 attic they have to be packed away in a keg or 

 crock and fermented. In the spring they ferment 

 again, like wine. Thereafter as near as I can learn, 

 they are ready to use. I fetched my first crop up 

 through the second fermentation then acciden- 

 tally lost it. Meantime a season had come and gone 

 without my planting a second crop. This year's 

 planting, however, promises well. I reckon there 

 should be enough finished goods to keep my pipes 

 hot a twelvemonth all from ten cents worth of 

 seed. With just a little more care in setting out 

 and tending the plants there would have been 

 twice as much. 



There are still a lot of things in the realm of 



