142 THE FAT OF THE LAND 
to spare, but will it be so fifty or a hundred 
years hence? Our arid lands will be made 
fertile by irrigation, but they will add only a 
small percentage to the amount already in quasi- 
cultivation. Our future food supplies must be 
drawn largely from the six million farms now 
under fences. These farms must be made to 
yield fourfold their present product, or they 
will fall short, not only of the demands made 
upon them, but also of their possibilities. That 
is why I preach the gospel of intensive farming, 
for grain, hay, market, and factory farm alike. 
I will put the chickens out of the way for the 
present, referring to them from time to time and 
indicating their general management, the cost 
of their houses and food, and the amount of 
money received for eggs and fowls. I do not 
think my plant would win the approval of fan- 
ciers, and it is not in all ways up to date; but 
it is clean, healthy, and commodious, and the 
birds attend as strictly to business as a reason- 
able owner could wish. I shall be glad to show 
it to any one interested enough to search it out, 
and to go into the details of the business and 
show how I have been able to make it so 
remunerative. 
Sam is with me no longer. « For three years 
he did good service and saved money, and the 
lurid nose grew dim. There is, however, a 
limit to human endurance. Like victims of other 
forms of circular insanity, the dipsomaniac com- 
2 
Pm peu nis 
oe iia a algal 
