t, let me go over the statement for the last quarter of
the year. The sales were: apples, from 150 old trees at $3 per tree,
$450; 10 calves, $115; 360 hens and 500 cockerels, $430; 5 cows (the
common ones, to Jackson) at $35 each, $175; eggs, $827; butter, $1311;
and 281 hogs, rushed to market in December when only about eight months
old and sold for $3.70 per hundred to help swell this account, $2649;
making a total for the fourth quarter of $5957.

"The items of expense for the year were:--

"Interest on investment $5,132.00
New hog-house 4,220.00
10,000 bu. of grain 2,450.00
Food for colony 5,322.00
Food for stock 1,640.00
Seeds and fertilizers 2,155.00
Insurance and taxes 730.00
Shoeing and repairs 349.00
Replenishments 450.00

"Total $22,760.00

"The credit account reads: first quarter, $2030; second quarter, $2221;
third quarter, $5387; fourth quarter, $5957; total, $15,595.

"If we take out the $6670 for the extra piggery and the grain, the
expense account and the income will almost balance, even leaving out the
$4000 which we agreed to pay for food and shelter. I think that's a fair
showing for the three years, don't you?"

"Possibly it is; but what a lot of money you pay for wages. It's the
largest item."

"Yes, and it always will be. I don't claim that a factory farm can be
run like a grazing or a grain farm. One of its objects is to furnish
well-paid employment to a lot of people. We've had nine men and two lads
all the year, and three extra men for seven months, three women on the
farm and five in the house,--twenty-two people to whom we've paid wages
this year. Doesn't that count for anything? How many did we keep in the
city?"

"Four,--three women and a man."

"Then we give employment to eighteen more people at equally good wages
and in quite as wholesome surroundings. Do you realize, Polly, that the
maids in the house get $1300 out of the $5300,--one quarter of the
whole? Possibly there is a suspicion of extravagance on the home forty."

"Not a bit of it! You know that you proved to me that it cost us $5200 a
year for board and shelter in the city, and you only credit the farm
with $4000. That other $1200 would more than pay the extra wages. I
really don't think it costs as much to live here as it did on
B----Street, and any one can see the difference."

"You are right. If we call our plan