l86 WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



have to be made to indicate income-in-kind re- 

 ceived from the farm, without which the total cash 

 income of seventy cents as shown above would not 

 be worth much more in real income than the forty- 

 six cents of 1932; it might not be worth as much. 

 The alternative to operating a part-time farm 

 back there in 1932 was to discharge my man, and 

 reduce all outside expenses to an absolute mini- 

 mum. It would hardly be fair to say I might have 

 sold the farm and moved into cheaper living quar- 

 ters altogether; in that year it would have been 

 almost impossible to sell it at any price, whereas 

 it would be essential to the success of such a move 

 to get a good part of my capital investment back 

 out of the place. To pursue a policy of minimum 

 expense and consequent neglect would have pro- 

 duced a further deterioration in the value of the 

 property. Even, however, if it could have been 

 maintained at something like the then level at, let 

 us say, only one quarter the cost, the rise in food 

 prices has been such that by 1936 the total expense 

 for food and the farm would be, instead of thirty- 

 one cents of the Medlock Dollar, something like 

 forty or forty-five cents. Almost all the other sav- 

 ings we managed to make would have gone to 

 naught. A large chunk of capital investment would 

 have gone the primrose way of erosion down 

 Stoney Creek; and a good man would possibly be 

 looking for a job. 



