BACON AND EGGS
Each hog turned out from my piggery weighing 270 pounds or more, has
eaten of my substance not less than 500 pounds of grain, 250 pounds of
chopped alfalfa, 250 pounds of roots or vegetables, and such quantities
of skimmed milk and swill as have fallen to his share. I could reckon
the approximate cost of these foods, but I will not do so. All but the
middlings and oil meal come from the farm and are paid for by certain
fixed charges heretofore mentioned. The middlings and oil meal are
charged in the "food for animals" account at the rate of $1 a year for
each finished hog.
The truth is that a large part of the food which enters into the making
of each 300 pounds of live pork, is of slow sale, and that for some of
it there is no sale at all,--for instance, house swill, dish-water,
butter-washings, garden weeds, lawn clippings, and all sorts of coarse
vegetables. A hog makes half his growth out of refuse which has no
value, or not sufficient to warrant the effort and expense of selling
it. He has unequalled facilities for turning non-negotiable scrip into
convertible bonds, and he is the greatest moneymaker on the farm. If
the grain ration were all corn, and if there were a roadside market for
it at 35 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 products and making of them finished assets which can 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 1300 pullets and hens, and I instructed
Sam to run his incubator overtime that season, so as to fill our houses
by autumn. I should need 800 or 900 pullets to make our quota good, for
most of the older hens would have to be disposed of in the autumn,--all
but about 200, which would be kept until the following spring to breed
from.
I believe that a three-year-old hen that has shown the egg habit is the
best fowl to breed from, and it is the custom at Four Oaks to reserve
specially good pens for this purpose. The egg habit is unquestionably as
much a matter of heredity as the milk or the fat producing habit, and
should be as carefully cultivated. With this end in view, Sam added
young cockerels to four of his best-producing flocks on January 1, and
by the 15th he was able to start his incubators.
Breeding and feeding for eggs is on the same principle as feeding and
breeding for milk. It is no more natural for a hen to lay eggs for human
consumption than it is for the robin to do so, or for the cow to give
more milk than is sufficient for her calf. Man's necessity has made
demands upon both cow and hen, and man's intelligence has converted
individualists into socialists in both of these races. They no longer
live for themselves alone. As the cow, under favorable conditions, finds
pleasure in giving milk, so does the hen under like conditions take
delight in giving eggs,--else why the joyous cackle when leaving her
nest after doing her full duty? She gloats over it, and glories in it,
and announces her satisfaction to the whole yard. It is something to be
proud of, and the cackling hen knows it better than you or I. It can be
no hardship to push this egg machine to the limit of its capacity. It
adds new zest to the life of the hen, and multiplies her opportunities
for well-earned self-congratulation.
Our hens are fed for eggs, and we get what we feed for. I said of my
hens that I would not ask them to lay more than eight dozen eggs each
year, and I will stick to what I said. But I do not reject voluntary
contributions beyond this number. Indeed, I accept them with thanks, and
give Biddy a word of commendation for her gratuity. Eight dozen eggs a
year will pay a good profit, but if each of my hens wishes to present me
with two dozen more, I slip 62 cents into my pocket and say, "I am very
much obliged to you, miss," or madam, as the case may be. Most of my
hens do remember me in this substantial way, and the White Wyandottes
are in great favor with the Headman.
The houses in which my hens live are almost as clean as the one I
inhabit (and Polly is tidy to a degree); their food is as carefully
prepared as mine, and more punctually served; their enemies are fended
off, and they are never frightened by dogs or other animals, for the
five-acre lot on which their houses and runs are built is enclosed by a
substantial fence that prevents any interloping; book agents never
disturb their siestas, nor do tree men make their lives hideous with
lithographs of impossible fruit on improbable trees. Whether I am
indebted to one or to all of these conditions for my full egg baskets, I
am unable to say; but I do not purpose to make any change, for my egg
baskets are as full as a reasonable man could wish. As nearly as I can
estimate, my hens give thirty per cent egg returns as a yearly
average--about 120 eggs for each hen in 365 days. This is more than I
ask of them, but I do not refuse their generosity.
Every egg is worth, in my market, 2-1/2 cents, which means that the
yearly product of each hen could be sold for $3. Something more than two
thousand dozen are consumed by the home colony or the incubators; the
rest find their way to the city in clean cartons of one dozen each, with
a stencil of Four Oaks and a guarantee that they are not twenty-four
hours old when they reach the middleman.
In return for this $3 a year, what do I give my hens besides a clean
house and yard? A constant supply of fresh water, sharp grits, oyster
shells, and a bath of road dust and sifted ashes, to which is added a
pinch of insect powder. Twice each day five pounds of fresh skim-milk is
given to each flock of forty. In the morning they have a warm mash
composed of (for 1600 hens) 50 pounds of alfalfa hay cut fine and soaked
all night in hot water, 50 pounds of corn meal, 50 pounds of oat meal,
50 pounds of bran, and 20 pounds of either meat meal or cotton-seed
meal. At noon they get 100 pounds of mixed grains--wheat and buckwheat
usually--with some green vegetables to pick at; and at night 125 to 150
pounds of whole corn. There are variations of this diet from time to
time, but no radical change. I have read much of a balanced ration, but
I fancy a hen will balance her own ration if you give her the chance.
Milk is one of the most important items on this bill of fare, and all
hens love it. It should be fed entirely fresh, and the crocks or earthen
dishes from which it is eaten should be thoroughly cleansed each day.
Four ounces for each hen is a good daily ration, and we divide this into
two feedings.
Our 1600 hens eat about 75 tons of grain a year. Add to this the 100
tons which 50 cows will require, 200 tons for the swine, and 25 tons for
the horses, and we have 400 tons of grain to provide for the stock on
the factory farm. Nearly a fourth of this, in the shape of bran, gluten
meal, oil meal, and meat meal, must be purchased, for we have no way of
producing it. For the other 300 tons we must look to the land or to a
low market. Three hundred tons of mixed grains means something like
13,000 bushels, and I cannot hope to raise this amount from my land at
present.
Fortunately the grain market was to my liking in January of 1898; and
though there were still more than 7000 bushels in my granary, I
purchased 5000 bushels of corn and as much oats against a higher market.
The corn cost 27 cents a bushel and the oats 22, delivered at Exeter,
the 10,000 bushels amounting to $2450, to be charged to the farm
account.
I was now prepared to face the food problem, for I had more than 17,000
bushels of grain to supplement the amount the farm would produce, and to
tide me along until cheap grain should come again, or until my land
should produce enough for my needs. The supply in hand plus that which I
could reasonably expect to raise, would certainly provide for three
years to come, and this is farther than the average farmer looks into
the future. But I claim to be more enterprising than an average farmer,
and determined to keep my eyes open and to take advantage of any
favorable opportunity to strengthen my position.
In the meantime it was necessary to force my trees, and to secure more
help for the farm work. To push fruit trees to the limit of healthy
growth is practical and wise. They can accomplish as much in growth and
development in three years, when judiciously stimulated, as in five or
six years of the "lick-and-a-promise" kind of care which they usually
receive.
A tree must be fed first for growth and afterward for fruit, just as a
pig is managed, if one wishes quick returns. To plant a tree and leave
it to the tenderness of nature, with only occasional attention, is to
make the heart sick, for it is certain to prove a case of hope deferred.
In the fulness of time the tree and "happy-go-lucky" nature will prove
themselves equal to the development of fruit; but they will be slow in
doing it. It is quite as well for the tree, and greatly to the advantage
of the horticulturist, to cut two or three years out of this
unprofitable time. All that is necessary to accomplish this is: to keep
the ground loose for a space around the tree somewhat larger than the
spread of its branches; to apply fertilizers rich in nitrogen; to keep
the whole of the cultivated space mulched with good barn-yard manure,
increasing the thickness of the mulch with coarse stuff in the fall, so
as to lengthen the season of root activity; and to draw the mulch aside
about St. Patrick's Day, that the sun's rays may warm the earth as early
as possible. Moderate pruning, nipping back of exuberant branches, and
two sprayings of the foliage with Bordeaux mixture, to keep fungus
enemies in check, comprise all the care required by the growing tree.
This treatment will condense the ordinary growth of five years into
three, and the tree will be all the better for the forcing.
As soon as fruit spurs and buds begin to show themselves, the treatment
should be modified, but not remitted. Less nitrogen and more phosphoric
acid and potash are to be used, and the mulch should _not_ be removed
in the early spring. The objects now are, to stimulate the fruit buds
and to retard activity in the roots until the danger from late frosts is
past. As a result of this kind of treatment, many varieties of apple
trees will give moderate crops when the roots are seven, and the trunks
are six years old. Fruit buds showed in abundance on many of my trees in
the fall of 1897, especially on the Duchess and the Yellow Transparent,
and I looked for a small apple harvest that year.