The next day my mowing machines, working
against the grain, commenced cutting it for hay. Before it was half cut,
I sold to a livery-stable keeper in Exeter fifty tons of bright timothy
for $600. The storm brought me no loss, for the horses did quite as well
on the oat hay as they ever had done on timothy, and $600 more than paid
for the loss of the grain.
During the first three years of my experiment hogs were very
low,--lower, indeed, than at any other period for forty years. It was
not until 1899 that prices began to improve. During that year my sales
averaged $4.50 a hundred. In 1900 the average was $5.25, in 1901 it was
$6.10, and in 1902 it was just $7. It will be readily appreciated that
there is more profit in pork at seven cents a pound than at three and a
half cents; but how much more is beyond me, for it cost no more to get
my swine to market last year than it did in 1896. I charge each hog $1
for bran and shorts; this is all the ready money I pay out for him. If
he weighs three hundred pounds (a few do), he is worth $10.
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