THE HOUSEHOLD CHORES 149 



of this work it is sometimes more fun to be not 

 too efficient; especially if inefficiency can be con- 

 doned by the reassurance that spoilage is never 

 all waste: what the household can not use, the pigs 

 and chickens will. 



All this talk about food has doubtless created 

 the illusion Medlock farmers are prodigies of glut- 

 tony. It must be remembered we are, throughout 

 this book, talking of food in terms of a year's sup- 

 ply. While we have healthy appetites, perhaps bet- 

 ter than average for the whole United States, yet 

 we do not pretend to approach even remotely the 

 merest novice at such a board as, say, the hotel 

 in Shartlesville "up behine't Reading" where the 

 frailest will work through twenty or thirty differ- 

 ent dishes at a "pick-up" supper. Two hundred 

 pounds of pork, or two hundred quarts of toma- 

 toes, sounds like a lot; spread out over a year it 

 is not ten or twenty ounces a day. 



An important point is how the wife and 

 mother feels about all this. How does she like can- 

 ning and preserving? How does she like having to 

 create meals out of what happens to be around? 



Mrs. Tetlow and I have discussed this aspect 

 of farming for home use, backwards and forwards 

 and up and down, not only with particular respect 

 to ourselves but also as it might apply to others. 

 Our first and major conviction is that if home- 

 farming is to work for two, then two must work 



