A SELF-SUFFICING HOME.
Now a good many countrymen as well as industrialists are feeling ' after this idea. One of the more interesting endeavours has been made in the Eastern Counties by a country dweller, whose circumstances are in no need of bolstering, for the mere satisfaction of the thing, as well as for demonstration. Like some of the old Scottish crofters, he keeps sheep principally for the sake of providing his own wool for his own clothes. In almost every variety of food, from ham to jam, from honey to flour, he is entirely self- sufficing. A quite peculiar sensation of satisfaction belongs to the triumph of being a self-sufficing unit, of sitting down to a table on which the bulk of the food comes off the premises, of eating home-made jams and home-cured ham ; and there must be a real thrill attached to the wearing of clothes made from wool produced on the home paddock ! There are 'some brave persons who extract pleasure even from the consumption of home-made wines, ciders, and other beverages ; and, indeed; some cottagers in the Home Counties still com- pound a sort of mead which has genuine virtues—virtues, I must confess, not easily perceptible in their home-made currant and 'rhubarb wines.
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