INTRODUCTION. 29 



compound a ration with wheat bran, oilmeal, corn 

 and mixed timothy and clover hay. He had too little 

 alfalfa hay yet to make much show in the feeding 

 barn. The lambs throve; they became very fat in- 

 deed and in May weighed 108y 2 Ibs. In fact in all 

 the years that lambs have been fed on Woodland 

 Farm no such gain has since been secured, which 

 simply shows that a greenhorn may do as well as 

 an expert, if he has his heart in it and is earnest 

 and careful. The boy had kept careful account of 

 what the lambs had eaten so he knew what the gain 

 had cost him. When he had figured it all up he 

 found that he had made a clear profit from feeding 

 these lambs of $115, the first real profit from 

 Woodland Farm since his new venture in manage- 

 ment. It was a small sum, yet mightily it encour- 

 aged him. And then he dreamed another dream, out 

 there on the sunny side of the barn. Thinking it 

 over, he said: "Some day we'll feed a thousand 

 lambs on this farm." But he told no one that, not 

 even his wife, for all would have smiled in derision, 

 for had he not bought part of the hay that he had 

 fed this first 200? 



But there was more manure to haul out than ever 

 before, and it was put where corn would be grown 

 and where alfalfa might be expected to succeed, 

 and more alfalfa was sown. Wherever the manure 

 had been put out and the drains laid the alfalfa suc- 

 ceeded. Inoculation took care of itself on Woodland 

 Farm after the first start, because of the use of 

 manure made from alfalfa hay perhaps, and every 



