LOOKING BACKWARD 399 



sold for $8.25 a hundred, and my twenty-cent 

 corn made pork just as fast as eighty-cent corn 

 would have done, and a great deal cheaper. 



Once I sold some timothy hay, but it was to 

 " discount the season," just as I bought grain. 



On July 18, 1901, a tremendous rain and wind 

 storm beat down about forty acres of oats be- 

 yond recovery. The next day my mowing ma- 

 chines, working against the grain, commenced 

 cutting it for hay. Before it was half cut, I sold 

 to a livery-stable keeper in Exeter fifty tons of 

 bright timothy for $600. The storm brought me 

 no loss, for the horses did quite as well on the 

 oat hay as they ever had done on timothy, and 

 $600 more than paid for the loss of the grain. 



During the first three years of my experiment 

 hogs were very low, lower, indeed, than at any 

 other period for forty years. It was not until 



1899 that prices began to improve. During that 

 year my sales averaged $4.50 a hundred. In 



1900 the average was $5.25, in 1901 it was $6.10, 

 and in 1902 it was just $7. It will be readily 

 appreciated that there is more profit in pork at 

 seven cents a pound than at three and a half cents ; 

 but how much more is beyond me, for it cost no 

 more to get my swine to market last year than 

 it did in 1896. I charge each hog $1 for bran 

 and shorts ; this is all the ready money I pay 

 out for him. If he weighs three hundred pounds 

 (a few do), he is worth $10.50 at $3.50 a hundred, 

 or $21 at $7 a hundred ; and it is a great deal 



