"Eight-row flint," said Percy, as he took the ear in his hand and
drew a celluloid paper knife from his vest pocket with a six-inch
scale marked on one side.

"Yes, Sir, our regular Rhode Island White Cap."

"Just five inches long. Weight about three ounces?"

"Perhaps. We count on about four hundred ears to the bushel. If we
get four thousand hills to the acre one ear to the hill would give
us ten bushels per acre, so you see we only have to have four ears
to the hill to make our forty bushels. A good many hills have five
to six ears, but then of course, some hills don't have much of any,
so I suppose my corn makes an average of four ears about like that."

"I suppose you feed all of the corn you raise in order to produce as
much manure as possible."

"Feed that corn! Not much we don't. Why, corn like that brings us
close on to a dollar a bushel. No, Sir, we don't feed this corn.
It's all used for meal. It makes the best kind of corn meal. No, we
buy corn for feed; western corn. Oh, we feed lots of corn; three
times as much as we raise; but we don't feed dollar corn, when we
can buy western corn for seventy-five or eighty cents.

"I sell corn and I sell potatoes; that's all except the milk. I keep
most of my land in meadow and pasture and feed everything I raise
except the corn and potatoes. And milk is a good product with us. We
average about sixty cents a pound for butter fat, and it's ready
money every month; and, of course, we need it every month to pay for