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Streeter, John Williams

"The Fat of the Land The Story of an American Farm"

Our friends are of
like opinion; and I am therefore justified in crediting Four Oaks with a
considerable sum for food and shelter. We have bettered our condition
without foregoing anything, and without increasing our expenses. That is
enough.


CHAPTER XXX
AUTUMN RECKONING

We harvested the crops in the autumn of 1896, and were thankful for the
bountiful yield. Nearly sixteen hundred bushels of oats and twenty-seven
hundred bushels of corn made a proud showing in the granary, when added
to its previous stock. The corn fodder, shredded by our own men and
machine, made the great forage barn look like an overflowing cornucopia,
and the only extra expense attending the harvest was $31 paid for
threshing the oats.
Three important items of food are consumed on the farm that have to be
purchased each year, and as there is not much fluctuation in the price
paid, we may as well settle the per capita rate for the milch cows and
hogs for once and all. At each year's end we can then easily find the
cash outlay for the herds by multiplying the number of stock by the cost
of keeping one.


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