COST OF FARM-PRODUCE. 85 



and it stands this away : We have sold milk amounting 

 to $900. The fruit and vegetables and chickens and 

 eggs have come to just enough to balance the mate, the 

 grocery, and the grain bill. As the incomes and the out- 

 goes are of a bigness we'll let them go together, and say 

 no more about them. When I had got this far without 

 stopping to think, I said, ' Mary, the milk-money is all 

 clear gain ; ' Mary says to me, ' I don't see it : where is 

 the money ? ' I began to think again ; says I, " there is 

 the $7,000 in the farm. The year before we bought it 

 we got $420 inthrust, that we would have had if we had 

 had no farm, so that is no profit belonging to the farm ; 

 take that from the $900, and there is only $480 left: 

 Thin there was the wagis of one hired man, $15 a month 

 and board worth $10 a month, that for nine months is 

 $225, that laves only $255; thin there is the taxes, $60, 

 the insurance, $10, thin the depraciation in the stock 

 and farming-tools, tin per cent on $1,500, $150; thin 

 the repairs on the buildings, 2\ percent on $2,000, 

 $50, making $270. Taking that out of $255, all that 

 was left of the milk money, and I find mesilf in debt to 

 mesilf $15, and nary a cint of wagis for Mary or mesilf. 

 ' Mary,' says I, * we have been working hard as iver we 

 could work the whole year for our board, and have paid 

 $15 for the privilege, and clothed oursilves. All the 

 year we have been working hard arning our own in- 

 thrust money, and giving $15 for the right to do it.' Now, 

 docther, what I wants to know is this : ain't there no way 

 for a farmer to do, 'cepting to work for nothing and 

 clothe himself?" I was very much amused while Syl- 

 vester was explaining his figures, and wondered how 

 many farmers there are who have kept as accurate an 

 account as he has, and could tell whether they were 

 making any thing or were really working for nothing. 



