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 epizooetic 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 quantities
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,
butter-washings, garden weeds, lawn clippings, and all sorts of coarse
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 roads