BACON AND EGGS 329 
convertible bonds, and he is the greatest money- 
maker on the farm. If the grain ration were all 
corn, and if there were a roadside market for it 
at 85 cents a bushel, it would cost $3.12; the 
alfalfa would be worth $1.45, and the vegetables 
probably 65 cents, under like conditions, making 
a total of $5.22 as a possible gross value of the 
food which the hog has eaten. The gross value 
of these things, however, is far above their net 
value when one considers time and expense of 
sale. The hog saves all this trouble by tucking 
under his skin slow-selling remnants of farm prod- 
ucts and making of them finished assets which 
_ ean be turned into cash at a day’s notice. 
To feed the hogs on the scale now planned, I 
had to provide for something like 7000 bushels 
of grain, chiefly corn and oats, 100 tons of 
alfalfa, and an equal amount of vegetables, chiefly 
sugar beets and mangel-wurzel. Certainly the 
widow’s land would be needed. 
The poultry had also outgrown my original 
plans, and I had built with reference to my larger 
views. There were five houses on the poultry 
lot, each 200 feet long, and each divided into ten 
equal pens. Four of these houses were for the 
laying hens, which were divided into flocks of 
40 each; while the other house was for the 
growing chickens and for cockerels being fattened 
for market. 
There were now on hand more than 1800 
pullets and hens, and I instructed Sam to run 
