THE HEADMAN GENERALIZES
Jackson's prophecy came true. The old lady died, and before the ground
was fairly settled around her the improvident son accepted a cash offer
of $75 per acre for his homestead, and the farm was added to mine. This
was in November. I at once spent $640 for 2-1/2 miles of fencing to
enclose it in one field, charging the farm account with $12,640 for the
land and fence.
This transaction was a bargain, from my point of view; and it was a good
sale, from the standpoint of the other man, for he put $12,000 away at
five per cent interest, and felt that he need never do a stroke of work
again. A lazy man is easily satisfied.
In December I sold 283 hogs. It was a choice lot, as much alike as peas
in a pod, and gave an average weight of 276 pounds; but the market was
exceedingly low. I received the highest quotation for the month, $3.60
per hundred, and the lot netted $2702.
It seems hard luck to be obliged to sell fine swine at such a price, and
a good many farmers would hold their stock in the hope of a rise; but I
do not think this prudent. When a pig is 250 days old, if he has been
pushed, he has reached his greatest profit-growth; and he should be
sold, even though the market be low. If one could be certain that within
a reasonable time, say thirty days, there would be a marked advance, it
might do to hold; but no one can be sure of this, and it doesn't usually
pay to wait. Market the product when at its best, is the rule at Four
Oaks. The young hog is undoubtedly at his best from eight to nine months
old. He has made a maximum growth on minimum feed, and from that time on
he will eat more and give smaller proportionate returns. There is
danger, too, that he will grow stale; for he has been subjected to a
forcing system which contemplated a definite time limit and which cannot
extend much beyond that limit without risks. Force your swine not longer
than nine months and sell for what you can get, and you will make more
money in the long run than by trying to catch a high market. I sold in
December something more than four hundred cockerels, which brought $215.
The apples from the old trees were good that year, but not so abundant
as the year before, and they brought $337,--$2.25 per tree. The hens
laid few eggs in October and November, though they resumed work in
December; but the pullets did themselves proud. Sam said he gathered
from fourteen to twenty eggs a day from each pen of forty, which is
better than forty per cent. We sold nearly eighteen hundred dozen eggs
during this quarter, for $553. The butter account showed nearly
twenty-eight hundred pounds sold, which brought $894, and the sale of
eleven calves brought $180. These sales closed the credit side of our
ledger for the year.
Apples $337.00
Calves 130.00
Cockerels 215.00
1785 doz. eggs 553.00
2790 lb. butter 894.00
283 hogs 2702.00
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Total $4831.00
In making up the expense account of that year and the previous one, I
found that I should be able in future to say with a good deal of
exactness what the gross amount would be, without much figuring. The
interest account would steadily decrease, I hoped, while the wage
account would increase as steadily until it approached $5500; that year
it was $4662. Each man who had been on the farm more than six months
received $18 more that year than he did the year before, and this
increase would continue until the maximum wage of $40 a month was
reached; but while some would stay long enough to earn the maximum,
others would drop out, and new men would begin work at $20 a month. I
felt safe, therefore, in fixing $5500 as the maximum wage limit of any
year. Time has proven the correctness of this estimate, for $5372 is the
most I have paid for wages during the seven years since this experiment
was inaugurated.
The food purchased for cows, hogs, and hens may also be definitely
estimated. It costs about $30 a year for each cow, $1 for each hog, and
thirty cents for each hen. Everything else comes from the land, and is
covered by such fixed charges as interest, wages, taxes, insurance,
repairs, and replenishments. The food for the colony at Four Oaks,
usually bought at wholesale, doesn't cost more than $5 a month per
capita. This seems small to a man who is in the habit of paying cash for
everything that enters his doors; but it amply provides for comforts and
even for luxuries, not only for the household, but also for the stranger
within the gates. In the city, where water and ice cost money and the
daily purchase of food is taxed by three or four middlemen, one cannot
realize the factory farmer's independence of tradesmen. I do not mean
that this sum will furnish terrapin and champagne, but I do not
understand that terrapin and champagne are necessary to comfort, health,
or happiness.
Let us look for a moment at some of the things which the factory farmer
does not buy, and perhaps we shall see that a comfortable existence need
not demand much more. His cows give him milk, cream, butter, and veal;
his swine give roast pig, fresh pork, salt pork, ham, bacon, sausages,
and lard; his hens give eggs and poultry; his fields yield hulled corn,
samp, and corn meal; his orchards give apples, pears, peaches, quinces,
plums, and cherries; his bushes give currants, gooseberries,
strawberries, raspberries, blackberries; his vines give grapes; his
forests give hickory nuts, butternuts, and hazel nuts; and, best of all,
his garden gives more than twenty varieties of toothsome and wholesome
vegetables in profusion. The whole fruit and vegetable product of the
temperate zone is at his door, and he has but to put forth his hand and
take it. The skilled housewife makes wonderful provision against winter
from the opulence of summer, and her storehouse is crowded with
innumerable glass cells rich in the spoils of orchard and garden. There
is scant use for the grocer and the butcher under such conditions. I am
so well convinced that my estimate of $5 a month is liberal that I have
taxed the account with all the salt used on the farm.