WHAT SHALL WE ASK OF THE HEN? 109 



definite knowledge of what it costs to keep a hen, 

 a hog, or a cow ; nor do I care. Such data are 

 greatly influenced by location, method of getting 

 supplies, and market fluctuations. I furnish 

 most of my food, and my own market. My 

 crops have never entirely failed, and I take little 

 heed whether they be large or small. They are not 

 for sale as crops, but as finished products. I am 

 not willing to sell them at any price, for I want 

 them consumed on the place for the sake of the land. 

 Corn has sold for eighty cents a bushel since I 

 began this experiment, yet at that time I fed as 

 much as ever and was not tempted to sell a 

 bushel, though I could easily have spared five 

 thousand. When it went down to twenty-eight 

 cents, I did not care, for corn and oats to me are 

 simply in transition state, not commodities to 

 be bought or sold. They cost me, one year with 

 another, about the same. An abundant harvest 

 fills my granaries to overflowing ; a bad harvest 

 doesn't deplete them, for I 'do not sell my surplus 

 for fear that I, too, may have to buy out of a 

 high market. I have bought corn and oats a few 

 times, but only when the price was decidedly be- 

 low my idea of the feeding value of these grains. 

 I can find more than twentj^-eight cents in a 

 bushel of corn, and more than eighteen cents in 

 thirty-two pounds of oats. But I am away off 

 my subject. I began to talk about the hen plant, 

 and have wandered to my favorite fad, the 

 factory farm. 



