CHAPTER VI.

OUR PIGS.

We had every reason to be satisfied with the profit we had derived
from our dairy, and next proceeded to examine the accounts we had kept
of our pigs for six months.

We commenced by purchasing, on the 14th of July, one for which we paid
$7 50. For the first month it had nothing but the wash from the house,
the skim-milk from the dairy, and greens from the garden. When we
began to dig the potatoes, we found we could not hope to save the
whole crop from the disease; we had, therefore, a quantity boiled and
put in the pig-tub, and upon these it was fed another month. At the
end of that time we began to give it a little meal and a few peas. It
was killed three months after we had purchased it, and the cost for
meal and peas was just $250. Thus, altogether, we paid for it $10, and
when killed it weighed thirteen stone (182 pounds). This we reckoned
worth $1 37½ the stone, which made the value of the meat $17 87½; we
had, therefore, a clear profit of $7 87½. Of course, it would have
been very different had we bought all the food for it; but the
skim-milk, and vegetables from the garden would have been wasted, had
we been without a pig to consume them: as it was, the profit arose
from our "farm of four acres."

These particulars are given for the reason that the writer has
frequently heard her friends in the country say, "Oh, I never keep
either pigs or poultry: the pork and the fowls always cost twice the
price they can be purchased for." This we could never understand, when
the despisers of home-cured hams and home-fed poultry used to assert