AUTUMN RECKONING 175 
cob meal, three tons, and oatmeal, three tons, 
both kinds raised and ground on the farm, and 
not charged in this account; wheat bran, three 
tons at $18, $54; gluten meal, two tons at $24, 
$48; oil meal, one ton, $26; total cash outlay 
for four cows, $128, or $32 per head. This esti- 
mate is, however, about $2 too liberal. We will, 
hereafter, charge each milch cow $30, and will 
also charge each hog fattened on the place $1 for 
shorts and middlings consumed. This is not 
exact, but it is near enough, and it greatly sim- 
plifies accounts. 
As I kept twenty-six cows ten months, and 
ten more for an average of four and a half 
months, the feeding for 1896 would be equivalent 
to one year for thirty cows, or $900. To this 
add $120 for swine food and $25 for grits and 
oyster shells for the chickens, and we have $1045 
paid for food for stock. Shoeing the horses for 
the year and repairs to machinery cost $157. 
The purchased food for eight employees for 
twelve months and for two additional ones for 
eight months, amounted to $734. The wage 
account, including $50 extra to Thompson, was 
$2358. 
A second hen-house, a duplicate of the first, 
was built before October. It was intended that 
each house should accommodate four hundred 
laying hens. We have now on the place five of 
these houses ; but only two of them, besides the 
incubator and the brooder-house, were built in 
