rch, his back yard to dig in, his neighbors across the wire fence to
gossip with, and his well-balanced, well-cooked food served under his
own nose three times a day. At least he looks content in his piggery,
and grows faster and puts on more flesh in his 250 days than does his
neighbor of the field. If the hog's profitable life were twice or thrice
as long, I would advocate a wider liberty for the early part of it; but
as it doesn't pay to keep the animal after he is nine months old, the
quickest way to bring him to perfection is the best. One cannot afford
to graze animals of any kind when one is trying to do intensive farming.
It is indirect, it is wasteful of space and energy, and it doesn't force
the highest product. Grazing, as compared with soiling, may be
economical of labor, but as I understand economics that is the one
thing in which we do not wish to economize. The multiplication of
well-paid and well-paying labor is a thing to be specially desired. If
the soiling farm will keep two or three more men employed at good wages,
and at the same time pay better interest than the grazing farm, it
should be looked upon as much the better method. The question of
furnishing landscape for hogs is one that borders too closely on the
aesthetic or the sentimental to gain the approval of the factory-farm
man. What is true of hogs is also true of cows. They are better off
under the constant care of intelligent and interested human beings than
when they follow the rippling brook or wind slowly o'er the lea at their
own sweet pleasure.

The truth is, the rippling brook doesn't always furnish the best water,
and the lea furnishes very imperfect forage during nine months of the
year. A twenty-acre lot in good grass, in which to take the air, is all
that a well-regulated herd of fifty cows needs. The clean, cool, calm
stable is much to their liking, and the regular diet of a first-class
cow-kitchen insures a uniform flow of milk.

What is true of hogs and cows is true also of hens. The common opinion
that the farm-raised hen that has free range is healthier or happier
than her sister in a well-ordered hennery is not based on facts. Freedom
to forage for one's self and pick up a precarious living does not always
mean health, happiness, or comfort. The strenuous life on the farm
cannot compare in comfort with the quiet house and the freedom from
anxiety of the well-tended hen. The vicissitudes of life are terrible
for the uncooped