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daughters, so there are at this writing fifty-four milch cows and five
yearling heifers in the herd. Most of the calves have been disposed of
as soon as weaned. I have no room for more stock on my place, and it
doesn't pay to keep them to sell as cows. Four Oaks is not a breeding
farm, but a factory farm, and everything has to be subordinated to the
factory idea.

My thoroughbred calves have brought me an average price of $12 each at
four to six weeks, sold to dairymen, and I am satisfied to do business
in that way. The nine milch cows which I bought to complete the herd
cost, delivered at Four Oaks, $1012.

All the grain fed to cows, horses, and hogs, and a portion of that fed
to chickens, is ground fine before feeding. The grinding is done in the
granary by a mill with a capacity of forty bushels an hour. We make corn
meal, corn and cob meal, and oatmeal enough for a week's supply in a few
hours. All hay and straw is cut fine, before being fed, by a power
cutter in the forage barn, and from thence is taken by teams in box
racks to the feeding rooms, where it is wetted with hot water and mixed
with the ground feed for the cows and horses, and steamed or cooked with
the ground feed for the hogs and hens.

Alfalfa is the only hay used for the hens, and wonderfully good it is
for them. Besides feed for the hogs, we have to provide ashes, salt, and
charcoal for them. These three things are kept constantly before them in
narrow troughs set so near the wall that they cannot get their feet into
them.

We carefully save all wood ashes for the hogs and hens, and we burn our
own charcoal in a pit in the wood lot. Five cords of sound wood make an
abundant supply for a year. I think this side dish constantly before
swine goes a long way toward keeping them healthy. Clean pens,
well-balanced and well-cooked food, pure water, and this medicine can
be counted on to keep a growing and fattening herd healthy during its
nine months of life.

It is claimed that it is unnatural and artificial to confine these young
things within such narrow limits, and so it is; but the whole scheme is
unnatural, if you please. The pig is born to die, and to die quickly,
for the profit and maintenance of man. What could be more unnatural?
Would he be better reconciled to his fate after spending his nine months
between field and sty? I wot not. The Chester White is an indolent
fellow, and I suspect he loves his comfortable house, his cool stone
po