No. 4.] THE AGRICULTURAL SITUATION. 79 



the live weight of an animal. Now, two per cent of three 

 hundred pounds is six pounds of food that must be consumed 

 by a hog every day to hold its weight. Now, consider how 

 much you have had to expend upon a hog that weighs three 

 hundred pounds in order to hold each pound of weight before 

 you can get a pound more. That is why we find that we 

 cannot raise and feed an eighteen-months pig and make a 

 cent of money out of it. We must get that hog to market 

 within from six to eight months from the time he is born ; 

 and we rarely find that we can make any money on a pig 

 over two hundred pounds weight. If we can get him to two 

 hundred pounds when he is in the assimilative or growing 

 period, and have him take his food eagerly when he is in 

 that condition, we can sometimes make a profit. Now, it 

 is the lack of knowledge that beats us here. It was with 

 me. I believe it was because I did not understand the right 

 principle and the law of its action as I ought to have under- 

 stood it, that has brought me most of my ill luck through 

 life. Let us be honest and courageous in facing hard facts. 

 Mr. French. I want to correct myself in regard to the 

 age of my hogs. They were raised by Mr. Cummings of 

 Woburn, and I think they were about two months old when 

 I bought them, in the spring of the year. I turned them as 

 soon as I could in the fall, and tried to turn them, as I said, 

 about the first of September, so that they could not have 

 been probably more than a year old when they were sold. I 

 am seventy-three years of age, and have been a farmer all my 

 life. My father was a minister of the Gospel for fifty years 

 in the town where I live, and they tried to make a minister 

 of me, but they did not succeed. I loved farming, and love 

 it still. . I believe in farming. I love it for its surroundings, 

 I love it for its home comforts ; and I have always stood up 

 in favor of the farmers, although I think they work harder 

 for less money than any other class in the whole community. 

 When I was a boy my father had no money, and I worked 

 many a day for a quarter of a dollar. I have got up at four 

 o'clock in the morning and gone into Hampton marsh and 

 polled hay until the bell rang for nine o'clock at night, for 

 two shillings a day ; and when I got the two shillings my 

 father would put them into the savings bank for me, so that 



