been without this privilege we could have mown only two acres, and as
hay was $21 the load, the additional acre was worth $50 to us, with
the exception of $3 75 for making it. We were advised to have an
after-crop, but did not; it would have made the land very poor for the
next year, so that what we gained in hay we must have expended in
manure.

We were well satisfied with the profit we derived from our pigs during
this second six months. All the summer we kept four, at an expense of
fifty-eight cents weekly, which was expended for two bushels of fine
pollard (bran and meal).

We had such an abundance of vegetables from the garden and orchard,
that we must have wasted cartloads, if we had not kept pigs to consume
them. As soon as the hay was carried they were turned into the
meadows, and suffered to remain there till they were put up to fatten;
a process which pigs must go through, though ducks can dispense with
it. I have already stated the expense of fattening them, and we never
found it vary more than a shilling or two in a pig.

We always found for our family that a bacon pig of sixteen stone (244
pounds) was the best size, and for porkers about eight (112 pounds).

Our fruit was as plentiful as our vegetables,--indeed we might have
sold the surplus for many dollars; but we soon found that to do so was
to lose _caste_ in the neighborhood. One piece of extravagance we were
guilty of the first winter and spring we passed at A. The gardener had
a little fire in the grapery during the severe weather, because he had
placed some plants in it. We were told we could continue it till the
grapes ripened for a "mere nothing." Now "mere nothings" mount up to a