The Fat of the Land Part 23

"And my gardens, too?"

"Yes, they are fixtures and count with the acres. You see, this, land didn't cost quite $75 an acre, but I hold it $50 better for what we've done to it; I don't believe Bill Jackson would sell his for less. I offered him $10,000 for a hundred acres, and he refused. We've put up the price of real estate in this neighborhood, Mrs. Williams."

"Well, let's get at the figures. I'm dying to see how we stand."

"I have summarized them here:--

"To additional land and development of plant $20,353.00 To interest on previous investment 4,220.00 Wages 4,662.00 Food for twenty-five people 1,523.00 Food for stock 2,120.00 Taxes and insurance 207.00 Shoeing and repairs 309.00 ---------- "Making in all $33,394.00

spent this year.

"The receipts are:--

"First quarter $1,297.00 Second quarter 1,706.00 Third quarter 3,284.00 Fourth quarter 4,831.00 --------- "Making $11,118.00

"But we agreed to pay $4000 a year to the farm for our food and shelter, if it did as well by us as the town house did. Shall we do it, Polly?"

"Why, of course; we've been no end more comfortable here."

"Well, if we don't expect to get something for nothing, I think we ought to add it. Adding $4000 will make the returns from the farm $15,118, leaving $18,276 to add to the interest-bearing debt. Last year this debt was $84,404. Add this year's deficit, and we have $102,680. A good deal of money, Polly, but I showed you well over $100,000 in a.s.sets,--at our own price, to be sure, but not far wrong."

"Will you ever have to increase the debt?"

"I think not. I believe we shall reduce it a little next year, and each year thereafter. But, supposing it only pays expenses, how can you put on as much style on the interest of $100,000 anywhere else as you can here? It can't be done. When the fruit comes in and this factory is running full time, it will earn well on toward $25,000 a year, and it will not cost over $14,000 to run it, interest and all. It won't take long at that rate to wipe out the interest-bearing debt. You'll be rich, Polly, before you're ten years older."

"You are rich now, in imagination and expectation, Mr. Headman, but I'll bank with you for a while longer. But what's the use of charging the farm with interest when you credit it with our keeping?"

"There isn't much reason in that, Polly. It's about as broad as it is long. I simply like to keep books in that way. We charge the farm with a little more than $4000 interest, and we credit it with just $4000 for our food and shelter. We'll keep on in this way because I like it."

CHAPTER LIII

THE MILK MACHINE

In opening the year 1898 I was faced by a larger business proposition than I had originally planned. When I undertook the experiment of a factory farm, I placed the limit of capital to be invested at about $60,000. Now I found that I had exceeded that amount by a good many thousand dollars, and I knew that the end was not yet. The factory was not complete, and it would be several years before it would be at its best in output. While it had cost me more than was originally contemplated, and while there was yet more money to be spent, there was still no reason for discouragement. Indeed, I felt so certain of ultimate profits that I was ready to put as much into it as could possibly be used to advantage.

The original plan was for a soiling farm on which I could milk thirty cows, fatten two hundred hogs, feed a thousand hens, and wait for thirty-five hundred fruit trees to come to a profitable age. With this in view, I set apart forty acres of high, dry land, for the feeding-grounds, twenty acres of which was devoted to the cows; and I now found that this twenty-acre lot would provide an ample exercise field for twice that number. It was in gra.s.s (timothy, red-top, and blue gra.s.s), and the cows nibbled persistently during the short hours each day when they were permitted to be on it; but it was never reckoned as part of their ration. The sod was kept in good condition and the field free from weeds, by the use of the mowing-machine, set high, every ten or twenty days, according to the season. Following the mower, we use a spring-tooth rake which bunched the weeds and gathered or broke up the droppings; and everything the rake caught was carted to the manure vats.

Our big Holsteins do not suffer from close quarters, so far as I am able to judge, neither do they take on fat. From thirty minutes to three hours (depending on the weather), is all the outing they get each day; but this seems sufficient for their needs. The well-ventilated stable with its moderate temperature suits the sedentary nature of these milk machines, and I am satisfied with the results. I cannot, of course, speak with authority of the comparative merits of soiling _versus_ grazing, for I have had no experience in the latter; but in theory soiling appeals to me, and in practice it satisfies me.

When I found I could keep more cows on the land set apart for them, I built another cow stable for the dry cows and the heifers, and added four stalls to my milk stable by turning each of the hospital wards into two stalls.

The ten heifers which I reserved in the spring of 1896 were now nearly two years old. They were expected to "come in" in the early autumn, when they would supplement the older herd. The cows purchased in 1895 were now five years old, and quite equal to the large demand which we made upon them. They had grown to be enormous creatures, from thirteen hundred to fourteen hundred pounds in weight, and they were proving their excellence as milk producers by yielding an average of forty pounds a day. We had, and still have, one remarkable milker, who thinks nothing of yielding seventy pounds when fresh, and who doesn't fall below twenty-five pounds when we are forced to dry her off. I have no doubt that she would be a successful candidate for advanced registration if we put her to the test. For ten months in each year these cows give such quant.i.ties of milk as would surprise a man not acquainted with this n.o.ble Dutch family. My five common cows were good of their kind, but they were not in the cla.s.s with the Holsteins. They were not "robber"

cows, for they fully earned their food; but there was no great profit in them. To be sure, they did not eat more than two-thirds as much as the Holsteins; but that fact did not stand to their credit, for the basic principle of factory farming is to consume as much raw material as possible and to turn out its equivalent in finished product. The common cows consumed only two-thirds as much raw material as the Holsteins, and turned out rather less than two-thirds of their product, while they occupied an equal amount of floor s.p.a.ce; consequently they had to give place to more competent machines. They were to be sold during the season.

Why dairymen can be found who will pay $50 apiece for cows like those I had for sale (better, indeed, than the average), is beyond my method of reckoning values. Twice $50 will buy a young cow bred for milk, and she would prove both bread and milk to the purchaser in most cases. The question of food should settle itself for the dairyman as it does for the factory farmer. The more food consumed, the better for each, if the ratio of milk be the same.

My Holsteins are great feeders; more than 2 tons of grain, 2-1/2 tons of hay, and 4 or 5 tons of corn fodder, in addition to a ton of roots or succulent vegetables, pa.s.s through their great mouths each year. The hay is nearly equally divided between timothy, oat hay, and alfalfa; and when I began to figure the gross amount that would be required for my 50 Holstein gourmands, I saw that the widow's farm had been purchased none too quickly. To provide 100 tons of grain, 125 tons of hay, and 200 or 300 tons of corn fodder for the cows alone, was no slight matter; but I felt prepared to furnish this amount of raw material to be trans.m.u.ted into golden b.u.t.ter. The Four Oaks b.u.t.ter had made a good reputation, and the four oak leaves stamped on each mould was a sufficient guarantee of excellence. My city grocer urged a larger product, and I felt safe in promising it; at the same time, I held him up for a slight advance in price. Heretofore it had netted me 32 cents a pound, but from January 1, 1898, I was to have 33-1/3 cents for each pound delivered at the station at Exeter, I agreeing to furnish at least 50 pounds a day, six days in a week.

This was not always easily done during the first eight months of that year, and I will confess to buying 640 pounds to eke out the supply for the colony; but after the young heifers came in, there was no trouble, and the purchased b.u.t.ter was more than made up to our local grocer.

It will be more satisfactory to deal with dairy matters in lump sums from now on. The contract with the city grocer still holds, and, though he often urges me to increase my herd, I still limit the supply to 300 pounds a week,--sometimes a little more, but rarely less. I believe that 38 to 44 cows in full flow of milk will make the best balance in my factory; and a well-balanced factory is what I am after.

I am told that animals are not machines, and that they cannot be run as such. My animals are; and I run them as I would a shop. There is no sentiment in my management. If a cow or a hog or a hen doesn't work in a satisfactory way, it ceases to occupy s.p.a.ce in my shop, just as would an imperfect wheel. The utmost kindness is shown to all animals at Four Oaks. This rule is the most imperative one on the place, and the one in which no "extenuating circ.u.mstances" are taken into account. There are two equal reasons for this: the first is a deep-rooted aversion to cruelty in all forms; and the second is, _it pays_. But kindness to animals doesn't imply the necessity of keeping useless ones or those whose usefulness is below one's standard. If a man will use the intelligence and attention to detail in the management of stock that is necessary to the successful running of a complicated machine, he will find that his stock doesn't differ greatly from his machine. The trouble with most farmers is that they think the living machine can be neglected with impunity, because it will not immediately destroy itself or others, and because it is capable of a certain amount of self-maintenance; while the dead machine has no power of self-support, and must receive careful and punctual attention to prevent injury to itself and to other property. If a dairyman will feed his cows as a thresher feeds the cylinder of his threshing-machine, he will find that the milk will flow from the one about as steadily as the grain falls from the other.

Intensive factory farming means the use of the best machines pushed to the limit of their capacity through the period of their greatest usefulness, and then replaced by others. Pushing to the limit of capacity is in no sense cruelty. It is predicated on the perfect health of the animal, for without perfect condition, neither machine nor animal can do its best work. It is simply encouraging to a high degree the special function for which generations of careful breeding have fitted the animal.

That there is gratification in giving milk, no well-bred cow or mother will deny. It is a joyous function to eat large quant.i.ties of pleasant food and turn it into milk. Heredity impels the cow to do this, and it would take generations of wild life to wean her from it. As well say that the cataleptic trance of the pointer, when the game bird lies close and the delicate scent fills his nostrils, is not a joy to him, or that the Dalmatian at the heels of his horse, or the foxhound when Reynard's trail is warm, receive no pleasure from their specialties.

Do these animals feel no joy in the performance of service which is bred into their bones and which it is unnatural or freakish for them to lack?

No one who has watched the "bred-for-milk" cow can doubt that the joys of her life are eating, drinking, sleeping, and giving milk. Pushing her to the limit of her capacity is only intensifying her life, though, possibly, it may shorten it by a year or two. While she lives she knows all the happiness of cow life, and knows it to the full. What more can she ask? She would starve on the buffalo gra.s.s which supports her half-wild sister, "northers" would freeze her, and the snow would bury her. She is a product of high cow-civilization, and as such she must have the intelligent care of man or she cannot do her best. With this care she is a marvellous machine for the making of the only article of food which in itself is competent to support life in man. If my Holsteins are not machines, they resemble them so closely that I will not quarrel with the name.

What is true of the cow, is true also of the pork-making machine that we call the hog. His wild and savage progenitor is lost, and we have in his place a sluggish animal that is a very model as a food producer. His three pleasures are eating, sleeping, and growing fat. He follows these pleasures with such persistence that 250 days are enough to perfect him.

It can certainly be no hardship to a pig to encourage him in a life of sloth and gluttony which appeals to his taste and to my profit.

Custom and interest make his life ephemeral; I make it comfortable. From the day of his birth until we separate, I take watchful care of him.

During infancy he is protected from cold and wet, and his mother is coddled by the most nourishing foods, that she may not fail in her duty to him. During childhood he is provided with a warm house, a clean bed, and a yard in which to disport himself, and is fed for growth and bone on skim-milk, oatmeal, and sweet alfalfa. During his youth, corn meal is liberally added to his diet, also other dainties which he enjoys and makes much of; and during his whole life he has access to clean water, and to the only medicine which a pig needs,--a mixture of ashes, charcoal, salt, and sulphur.

When he has spent 250 happy days with me, we part company with feelings of mutual respect,--he to finish his mission, I to provide for his successor.

My early plan was to turn off 200 of this finished product each year, but I soon found that I could do much better. One can raise a crop of hogs nearly as quickly as a crop of corn, and with much more profit, if the food be at hand. There was likely to be an abundance of food. I was more willing to sell it in pig skins than in any other packages. My plan was now to turn off, not 200 hogs each year, but 600 or more. I had 60 well-bred sows, young and old, and I could count on them to farrow at least three times in two years. The litters ought to average 7 each, say 22 pigs in two years; 60 times 22 are 1320, and half of 1320 is 660.

Yes, at that rate, I could count on about 600 finished hogs to sell each year. But if my calculations were too high, I could easily keep 10 more brood sows, for I had sufficient room to keep them healthy.

The two five-acre lots, Nos. 3 and 5, had been given over to the brood sows when they were not caring for young litters in the brood-house.

Comfortable shelters and a cemented basin twelve feet by twelve, and one foot deep, had been built in each lot. The water-pipe that ran through the chicken lot (No. 4) connected with these basins, as did also a drain-pipe to the drain in the north lane, so that it was easy to turn on fresh water and to draw off that which was soiled. Through this device my brood sows had access to a water bath eight inches deep, whenever they were in the fields. My hogs, young or old, have never been permitted to wallow in mud. We have no mud-holes at Four Oaks to grow stale and breed disease. The breeding hogs have exercise lots and baths, but the young growing and fattening stock have neither. They are kept in runs twenty feet by one hundred, in bunches of from twenty to forty, according to age, from the time they are weaned until they leave the place for good. This plan, which I did not intend to change, opened a question in my mind that gave me pause. It was this: Can I hope, even with the utmost care, to keep the house for growing and fattening swine free from disease if I keep it constantly full of swine?

The more I thought about it the less probable it appeared. The pig-house had cost me $4320. Another would cost as much, if not more, and I did not like to go to the expense unless it were necessary. I worked over this problem for several days, and finally came to the conclusion that I should never feel easy about my swine until I had two houses for them, besides the brood-house for the sows. I therefore gave the order to Nelson to build another swine-house as soon as spring opened. My plan was, and I carried it out, to move all the colonies every three months, and to have the vacant house thoroughly cleaned, sprayed with a powerful germicide, and whitewashed. The runs were to be turned over, when the weather would permit, and the ground sown to oats or rye.

The new house was finished in June, and the pigs were moved into it on July 1st with a lease of three months. My mind has been easy on the question of the health of my hogs ever since; and with reason, for there has been no epizootic or other serious form of disease in my piggery, in spite of the fact that there are often more than 1200 pigs of all degrees crowded into this five-acre lot. The two pig-houses and the brood-house, with their runs, cover the whole of the lot, except the broad street of sixty feet just inside my high quarantine fence, which encloses the whole of it.

CHAPTER LIV

BACON AND EGGS

Each hog turned out from my piggery weighing 270 pounds or more, has eaten of my substance not less than 500 pounds of grain, 250 pounds of chopped alfalfa, 250 pounds of roots or vegetables, and such quant.i.ties of skimmed milk and swill as have fallen to his share. I could reckon the approximate cost of these foods, but I will not do so. All but the middlings and oil meal come from the farm and are paid for by certain fixed charges heretofore mentioned. The middlings and oil meal are charged in the "food for animals" account at the rate of $1 a year for each finished hog.

The truth is that a large part of the food which enters into the making of each 300 pounds of live pork, is of slow sale, and that for some of it there is no sale at all,--for instance, house swill, dish-water, b.u.t.ter-washings, garden weeds, lawn clippings, and all sorts of coa.r.s.e vegetables. A hog makes half his growth out of refuse which has no value, or not sufficient to warrant the effort and expense of selling it. He has unequalled facilities for turning non-negotiable scrip into convertible bonds, and he is the greatest moneymaker on the farm. If the grain ration were all corn, and if there were a roadside market for it at 35 cents a bushel, it would cost $3.12; the alfalfa would be worth $1.45, and the vegetables probably 65 cents, under like conditions, making a total of $5.22 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 a.s.sets 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 c.o.c.kerels being fattened for market.