166 THE FAT OF THE LAND 
for corn and 16 for oats. I had storage room 
and to spare, and I knew that I could get more 
than a third of a cent out of each pound of 
corn, and more than half a cent out of each 
pound of oats. I recalled the story of a man 
named Joseph who did some corn business in 
Egypt a good many years ago, much in this line, 
and who did well in the transaction. There was 
no dream of fat kine in my case; but I knew 
something of the values of grains, and it did not 
take a reader of riddles to show me that when 
I could buy cheaper than I could raise, it was a 
good time to purchase. 
As I said once before, there have been no se- 
rious crop failures at Four Oaks, — indeed, we 
can show better than an average yield each year ; 
but this extra corn in my cribs has given me 
confidence in following my plan of very liberal 
feeding. With this grain on hand I was able to 
cut twenty acres of oats in Nos. 10 and 11 for 
forage. This was done when the grain was in 
the milk, and I secured about sixty tons of excel- 
lent hay, much loved by horses. We got from 
No. 9 a little less than twelve tons of clover, — 
alfalfa furnished forty tons; and there was nearly 
twenty tons of old hay left over from that origi- 
nally purchased. With all this forage, good of 
its kind, there was, however, no timothy or red 
top, which is by all odds the best hay for horses. 
I determined to remedy this lack before another 
year. As soon as the oats were off lots 10 and 11, 
