DAIRYING AS A BUSINESS 147 



It is mid-July. Once again we are making the 

 hay on Hillside Farm. In the matter of hay, it is a 

 fat year. I hardly know where we shall store the 

 first crop, to say nothing of the aftermath. It is 

 only twenty-seven years ago that we built what we 

 still call the "new bam." At first it used to hold all 

 our crops with room to spare, but it does so no 

 longer. Any farm fully stocked with cows where 

 much grain is purchased and where all the manure 

 isi carefully saved and wisely used, grows ever more 

 productive. I suppose we have doubled crop pro- 

 duction since my father's youth. 



I look out across a meadow where there seems 

 hardly room for the windrows to lie. Over there 

 a half mile is the steep rough hill-pasture, — our 

 "mountain." I can see the herd as the animals 

 work back and forth across it, — ^blurs of yellow 

 and white on the brown-green background. Above 

 the upper line 'of the pasture the woods begin and 

 run to the top, green and deep, wonderfully cool 

 and refreshing to the eye. I can remember very 

 clearly when I was sure that this horizon was the 

 very place where the sky came down. 



It is hot and bright today. I can hear the 

 clattering song of the mower on my neighbor's 

 farm. I can hear the shouts of our own men as 

 they urge the straining horses to drag the heavy 

 hayloader up the grades. Every little while — two or 

 three times an hour when things are going well — 

 a swaying load of hay comes up the lane and is 



