38 
Me 
IN A FARMER'S DIARY 

Sunday — We set the calendar back 
about 40 years and joined some friends 
and neighbors on an old-fashioned 
sleigh ride. Yes, we had the big old 
flat-bedded bobsled, and straw and 
warm bricks wrapped in sacking and 
plenty of jingling bells on the har- 
ness. 
One of the farmers hereabouts has a 
four-horse hitch of handsome straw- 
berry roan Belgians and as long as 
snow is on the ground he’s kept busy 
taking parties for sleigh rides. 
There were 20 of us and we in- 
cluded what is called a “‘progressive 
kitchen supper’ scheme in our out- 
ing. First we all met at the bobsled 
owner's place and packed ourselves 
in with the bricks and straw. We 
rode a mile or so to the home of our 
first hosts and there we had cream of 
pea soup, hot as could be. You don’t 
take off your boots or coats in a 
kitchen party for sleigh-riders — just 
stand around casually with a cup of 
soup in your hands. 
Another short ride and we feasted 
on country sausages in big home- 
made buns, which, by the way, put 
some Eastern States flour to very fine 
use. Here also we had servings of 
squash and baked onions on paper 
plates . . . and milk in paper cups. 
Lest this account become too heart- 
ily devoted to the good food — 
which certainly grew in importance 
with every minute we were out there 
in the crisp winter air — let me point 
out that such an occasion has other 
charms. 
For one thing, you see folks relaxed 
and merry . . . folks you see from 
time-to-time too busy to more than 
say “‘How’'d-do.”’ And you discover 
that the fellow who never talked to 
you about much else than how he 
worried over the way the country 
was run could sing “‘Jingle Bells’’ 
like nobody’s business. And people 
who seemed so shy and stiff at public 
socials that you couldn’t imagine 
their being anything but awkward 
hosts at home, were exactly the oppo- 
site across their own doorsteps where 
the very walls seemed to reflect the 
warmest, friendliest hospitality. 
Deep inside you your heart sort of 
warms up to all these pleasant revela- 
tions . . . and the clump-clump of 
the horses’ feet on the snowy road, 
the squeak and hiss of the runners, 
the jing-jing of the bells, the rich 
blackness of the sky and the bright 
beauty of the stars . . . all do your 
soul some good. 
Well, we halted further on for a 
buffet of salads and pickles and snacks 
. . and again for hot chocolate or 
coffee and hot scones with raspberry 
jam. 
What will country folks do to 
equal this in the days of jet propul- 
sion? 
Monday — Either my grandparents 
knew some tricks we have lost or 
they endured some vexations with so 
little fuss that this problem made no 
impression on me in my boyhood. 
Anyway I can’t recall seeing Grand- 
father’s bacon get as moldy as ours 
does. Possibly his methods made the 
““cure’’ more thorough than cus- 
tom processors give us today . . . or 
maybe he knew how to prevent mold- 
ing. I’d like to know how! 
Tuesday — George, our cackleberry 
squire, whose pessimism is always 
verbal while his optimism shines 
through all his actions, is busy trying 
to adjust his plant for maintaining. 
what he calls his ‘‘normal’’ egg out- 
put with 15 percent fewer hens than 
he used three or four years ago. He 
and his son, Bob, are ‘‘smoking out”’ 
their less productive families by prog- 
eny test records. Their idea is to oper- 
ate with quicker turnover of their 
laying pens while meat prices are 
relatively good. This speeds up the 
sorting out of the better families and 
forces the poorer stock to give way 
sooner to replacements bred from the 
better birds. It involves lots of rec- 
ords and plenty of desk work which 
Bob likes and does very well. George 
figures they are sacrificing some now 
in market egg income by marketing 
birds long before they taper off in 
production, but he figures they will 
more than make it up later when 
the going is rougher and only the 
best flocks will maintain a profitable 
pace. 
Wednesday — Talking with an old- 
timer in Guernsey breeding brought 
out some ideas to ponder. He said it 
was his observation that commercial 
milk making rarely gave a farmer 
anything more than a hard-earned 
living, but that persistence in breed- 
ing up a quality purebred herd, even 
though the beginning was humble 
and the progress hobbled by very 
little means to buy fine bloodlines, 
there would be a time or two in most 
decades when even the farmer-breeder 
banks some money from breeding 
stock sales. And, he says, he can’t 
think of a better way for a farmer to 
try to build up an estate than to plug 
steadily at improvement of his herd. 
He tells me that 35 years ago his 20 
stanchions had a line-up of $50 cows 
. . . and he believes today he could 
empty those same stanchions at an 
average price of $500 a cow. 
Thursday — Our freezer has made 
our farm garden a year-around proj- 
ect. Molly is busy planning our vari- 
ety selections and planting schedule 
to take advantage of our experience 
in both appetite and convenience. 
Although the vegetables for any 
single meal may seem too trivial to 
deserve concern, when you think of 
the year-long possibilities of each 
row of vegetables, our garden be- 
comes a major factor in giving us 
better living within the modest lim- 
its of our income. 
Friday — Most of the zeal to pro- 
duce one’s own meat has gone from 
the community with the end of food 
rationing. But, surprisingly, there 
are some folks who still have it. They 
tell us they are not so much concerned 
whether their pig or steer or flock of 
fryers save them money now, but 
they like the satisfaction they get 
from having well-stocked larders and 
the feeling of accomplishment at hav- 
ing produced a quality product for 
themselves. But as one expressed it: 
“We live like kings now without the 
pain of passing cash over a counter 
to do it.”’ 
Saturday — Now is the time when 
we reap our harvest of woe from little 
details which should have been taken 
care of in balmy weather. Today I 
started a list of aggravations about 
water connections that weren’t prop- 
erly winterized, gates that need re- 
designing to contend with snow, 
soggy spots in lanes where grading 
and gravelling would keep us from 
bad words during the mud season. 
