CHAPTER XXX 
AUTUMN RECKONING 
WE harvested the crops in the autumn of 1896, 
and were thankful for the bountiful yield. Nearly 
sixteen hundred bushels of oats and twenty-seven 
hundred bushels of corn made a proud showing 
in the granary, when added to its previous stock. 
The corn fodder, shredded by our own men and 
machine, made the great forage barn look like 
an overflowing cornucopia, and the only extra 
expense attending the harvest was $31 paid for 
threshing the oats. 
Three important items of food are consumed 
on the farm that have to be purchased each year, 
and as there is not much fluctuation in the price 
paid, we may as well settle the per capita rate 
for the milch cows and hogs for once and all. 
At each year’s end we can then easily find the 
cash outlay for the herds by multiplying the 
number of stock by the cost of keeping one. 
My Holstein cows consume a trifle less than 
three tons of grain each per year, — about fifteen 
pounds a day. Taking the ration for four cows 
as a matter of convenience, we have; corn and 
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