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Streeter, John Williams

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

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.


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