102 My Little Farm 



12 12s. at the age of seven months. Another, 

 registered, is with Mr. Walsh of Dunmore. In 

 addition to those calved for myself, I have 

 to buy some, and the average price paid for 

 these in 1914 is 315. 6d., which is not more 

 than half what I should have had to pay 

 if I had arranged the milk flow for summer 

 instead of getting my calves dropped in winter 

 and early spring, when my neighbours are hurrying 

 to sell their calves and running down their prices. 

 They will not take the trouble of winter feeding. 

 A few months later, you will find the same 

 neighbours rushing to buy and running up the 

 prices against one another. I buy no calves then. 

 In one period of six weeks this year the price of 

 calves was iully doubled, apart from the value of 

 any improvement in the animals themselves. It 

 is hardly possible at any time to pay over 3 for 

 an ordinary suckling calf and feed him at a profit, 

 but my neighbours are never in such a hurry to 

 buy as when the price is highest, and never in such 

 a hurry to sell as when it is lowest, which exactly 

 suits me both ways, buying from them at the 

 lowest price and selling to them at the highest. 

 It is largely a matter of making proper provision 

 in food and care for milk cows during winter, but 

 a farmer cannot see to this and spend half his 

 working time smoking and talking politics at his 

 neighbour's house. By immemorial precedent, 

 the agricultural process is in the main suspended 

 for three months of the year, depending on the 

 sunshine of next summer to make up for the neglect 



