220 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



many at the end of another year. But the farm 

 wasn't ready to take care of a hundred at a 

 profit. We might have managed according 

 to the usual farm practice, shutting the pigs 

 up in a dry lot and pouring in corn and corn 

 and corn. That wouldn't have paid. An un- 

 comfortable, discontented pig will squeal away 

 a peck of corn in a day. The profit in pig- 

 growing is made while the animals are putting 

 on their first two hundred pounds of weight 

 on green pasture clover or peas or small 

 grain or rape. With the plantings well man- 

 aged on good land, that growth ought not to 

 cost more than two cents a pound. The "fin- 

 ishing" twenty-five or thirty pounds made on 

 corn feeding with a vigorous animal costs six 

 or eight cents a pound. If the pig is brought 

 up on corn only from the time he's weaned till 

 he's baconed, you may have four times as much 

 money tied up in him as you'll ever be able to 

 get out. Well, what about it? Isn't that a sit- 

 uation that calls for some thinking? 



We hadn't any money to lose. We cut down 

 our herd, a few head at a time, till we had it 

 trimmed to the point where our pastures would 

 carry the animals that were left. We kept 

 about twenty, besides those that were to be fat- 



