142 THE FAT OP THE LAND 



to spare, but will it be so fifty or a hundred 

 years hence? Our arid lands will be made 

 fertile by irrigation, but they will add only a 

 small percentage to the amount already in quasi- 

 cultivation. Our future food supplies must be 

 drawn largely from the six million farms now 

 under fences. These farms must be made to 

 yield fourfold their present product, or they 

 will fall short, not only of the demands made 

 upon them, but also of their possibilities. That 

 is why I preach the gospel of intensive farming, 

 for grain, hay, market, and factory farm alike. 



I will put the chickens out of the way for the 

 present, referring to them from time to time and 

 indicating their general management, the cost 

 of their houses and food, and the amount of 

 money received for eggs and fowls. I do not 

 think my plant would win the approval of fan- 

 ciers, and it is not in all ways up to date ; but 

 it is clean, healthy, and commodious, and the 

 birds attend as strictly to business as a reason- 

 able owner could wish. I shall be glad to show 

 it to any one interested enough to search it out, 

 and to go into the details of the business and 

 show how I have been able to make it so 

 remunerative. 



Sam is with me no longer. For three years 

 he did good service and saved money, and the 

 lurid nose grew dim. There is, however, a 

 limit to human endurance. Like victims of other 

 forms of circular insanity, the dipsomaniac com- 



