ound for the house late in May, and Nelson said that we
should be in it by Thanksgiving Day. Soon after the plans were settled
Polly informed me that she should not spend much money on the stable.

"Can't do it," she said, "and do what I ought to on the house. I will
give you room for six horses; the rest, if you have more, must go to the
farm barn. I cannot spend more than $1100 or $1200 on the barn."

Polly was boss of this department, and I was content to let her have her
way. She had already mulcted me to the extent of $436 for trees, plants,
and shrubs which were even then grouped on the lawn after a fashion that
pleased her. I need not go into the details of the lawn planting, the
flower garden, the pergola, and so forth. I have a suspicion that Polly
has in mind a full account of the "fight for the home forty," in a form
greatly better than I could give it, and it is only fair that she should
tell her own story. I am not the only one who admires her landscape, her
flower gardens, and her woodcraft. Many others do honor to her tastes
and to the evidence of thought which the home lot shows. She disclaims
great credit, for she says, "One has only to live with a place to find
out what it needs."

As I look back to the beginning of my experiment, I see only one bit of
good luck that attended it. Building material was cheap during the
months in which I had to build so much. Nothing else specially favored
me, while in one respect my experiment was poorly timed. The price of
pork was unusually low. For three years, from 1896, the price of hogs
never reached $5 per hundred pounds in our market,--a thing
unprecedented for thirty years. I never sold below three and a half
cents, but the showing would have been wonderfully bettered could I have
added another cent or two per pound for all the pork I fattened. The
average price for the past twenty-five years is well above five cents a
pound for choice lots. Corn and all other foods were also cheap; but
this made little difference with me, because I was not a seller of
grain.

In 1896 I was, however, a buyer of both corn and oats. In September of
that year corn sold on 'Change at 19-1/2 cents a bushel, and oats at
14-3/4. These prices were so much below the food value of these grains
that I was tempted to buy. I sent a cash order to a commission house for
five thousand bushels of each. I stored this grain in my granary,
against the time of need, at a total expense of $1850,-