SELLING THE BY-PRODUCT 



me is legion. What the total loss to the nation's 

 roadside business directly chargeable to poor and 

 indifferent service may be is incalculable, but it 

 must run into billions. 



The greatest objection to a roadside market to 

 me, however, is that at present Medlock Farm could 

 not possibly keep such a stand in stock. The result 

 would be either a loss of steady trade on one hand, 

 or the temptation to do a phoney business (buy 

 wholesale produce and sell it as home-grown) on 

 the other. 



Since we have left the straight and narrow path 

 traced by personal experience and have branched 

 out, as Mark Twain somewhere says, into the 

 "glad, free realms of things we do not know any- 

 thing about," it may not be inappropriate to set 

 down some of my thoughts on ways to supplement 

 the part-time farm's money crop. The whole field 

 of cottage industry lies open before us, for once 

 the farm is organized and running it does not pre- 

 empt all one's spare time and attention. Clothing 

 and textile manufacturing, while of secondary im- 

 portance to the maintenance of the home and the 

 success of a home-use farm, nevertheless merit a 

 place there. Any social cataclysm that threw one 

 back to complete dependence on the land for sub- 

 sistence (and it must not be forgotten it was the 

 prospect of just such a possibility set me off on my 

 original experiment) would leave one distinctly 



