DISCOUNTING THE MARKET
We broke ground for the house late in May, and Nelson said that we
should be in it by Thanksgiving Day. Soon after the plans were settled
Polly informed me that she should not spend much money on the stable.
"Can't do it," she said, "and do what I ought to on the house. I will
give you room for six horses; the rest, if you have more, must go to the
farm barn. I cannot spend more than $1100 or $1200 on the barn."
Polly was boss of this department, and I was content to let her have her
way. She had already mulcted me to the extent of $436 for trees, plants,
and shrubs which were even then grouped on the lawn after a fashion that
pleased her. I need not go into the details of the lawn planting, the
flower garden, the pergola, and so forth. I have a suspicion that Polly
has in mind a full account of the "fight for the home forty," in a form
greatly better than I could give it, and it is only fair that she should
tell her own story. I am not the only one who admires her landscape, her
flower gardens, and her woodcraft. Many others do honor to her tastes
and to the evidence of thought which the home lot shows. She disclaims
great credit, for she says, "One has only to live with a place to find
out what it needs."
As I look back to the beginning of my experiment, I see only one bit of
good luck that attended it. Building material was cheap during the
months in which I had to build so much. Nothing else specially favored
me, while in one respect my experiment was poorly timed. The price of
pork was unusually low. For three years, from 1896, the price of hogs
never reached $5 per hundred pounds in our market,--a thing
unprecedented for thirty years. I never sold below three and a half
cents, but the showing would have been wonderfully bettered could I have
added another cent or two per pound for all the pork I fattened. The
average price for the past twenty-five years is well above five cents a
pound for choice lots. Corn and all other foods were also cheap; but
this made little difference with me, because I was not a seller of
grain.
In 1896 I was, however, a buyer of both corn and oats. In September of
that year corn sold on 'Change at 19-1/2 cents a bushel, and oats at
14-3/4. These prices were so much below the food value of these grains
that I was tempted to buy. I sent a cash order to a commission house for
five thousand bushels of each. I stored this grain in my granary,
against the time of need, at a total expense of $1850,--21 cents a
bushel 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 serious 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 excellent
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 originally 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, they were ploughed and crossed with the disk harrow. From
then until September 1, these fields were harrowed each week in half
lap, so that by the time we were ready to seed them they were in
excellent condition and free from weeds. About September 1 they were
sown to timothy and red top, fifteen pounds each to the acre,
top-dressed with five hundred pounds of fertilizer, harrowed once more,
rolled, and left until spring, when another dose of fertilizer was used.
I wished to establish twenty acres of timothy and as much alfalfa, to
furnish the hay supply for the farm. With one hundred tons of alfalfa
and sixty of timothy, which I could reasonably expect, I could get on
splendidly.
From the first I have practised feeding my hay crop for immediate
returns. The land receives five hundred pounds of fertilizer per acre
when it is sown, a like amount again in the spring, and, as soon as a
crop is cut, three hundred pounds an acre more. This usually gives a
second crop of timothy about September 1, if the season is at all
favorable. The alfalfa is cut at least three times, and for each cutting
it receives three hundred pounds of plant food per acre. In the course
of a year I spend from $10 to $12 an acre for my grass land. In return I
get from each acre of timothy, in two cuttings, about three and a half
tons; worth, at an average selling price, $12 a ton. The alfalfa yields
nearly five tons per acre, and has a feeding value of $10 a ton. I have
sold timothy hay a few times, but I feel half ashamed to say so, for it
is against my view of justice to the land. I find oat hay cheaper to
raise than timothy, and, as it is quite as well liked by the horses, I
have been tempted to turn a part of my timothy crop into money directly
from the field.