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and my barn is well situated for one ; but then it would cost, 

 besides what work I should do with my own team, full fifty 

 dollars to make one. 



Do you keep cows ? 



Yes ; I keep some just to eat up our coarse fodder ; but our 

 women-folks do not like dairy work, so we buy our butter and 

 sell some milk to the milk man for eleven cents a gallon. 



Do you keep swine ? 



Only one or two for our own pork. We do not have any 

 skim-milk or butter-milk for them. Besides there is no great 

 profit in fatting hogs. They will not much more than pay for 

 what feed they will eat. I know they will make a large quan- 

 tity of manure, but then you must cart in a great deal of stuff 

 into their pens, or else they can't make any. But come ! I 

 must show you a sow I have got ; she is only fifteen months 

 old, and I sold her pigs for more than forty dollars. I suppose 

 I shall make her weigh four hundred in the fall. 



Do you raise your own grain and potatoes? 



Not all. I raise about three acres of corn and about as much 

 rye, and about six hundred bushels of potatoes. We sell hay 

 and buy Genesee flour. We have tried wheat, but sometimes 

 it is blasted ; and it don't make white flour ; and our women- 

 folks say they cannot make handsome pie-crust or white bread 

 with it. 



How many have you in your family ? 



1 have a wife and eight children, and my father lives with 

 me. 



Have you any trade ? 



No ; I have nothing but my farm. 



Does your farm support your family and pay your labor? 



Why, yes ! I have nothing else, excepting a little interest 

 that comes from some money which I received for the sale of 

 wood from the farm, some time ago, which came to about five 

 hundred dollars, and which I put out at interest. We sell 

 enough produce from the farm to pay our hired labor, which 

 costs about a hundred dollars per year, and our store bills and 

 taxes. 



