"Well, it is good enough for me," declared his employer, warmly. "Those fellows out there in the Northwest are under greater expense than I am for tractors, machinery, and wages. I am pretty well satisfied. If you do as well for me with the corn--" "Oh, when it comes to corn, this is just the land for it!" cried Hiram. "And with tractors instead of horses--" Hiram shook his head. "I've been figuring that out, Mr. Bronson," the young farmer said. "Nothing less than three hundred acres of corn--and as much of it in one piece as possible--would pay under tractor cultivation. Sunnyside could never be a tractor farm. The fields are too much cut up." CHAPTER XXIX EXPLOITING THE WHEAT The wheat threshing was past. The plows were going again, and following the raking and smoothing of the fields Hiram Strong put in either ensilage corn and peas, or a mixture of grass seeds for new mowing. There were more than a hundred head of young stock on Sunnyside by midsummer, for Mr. Bronson was continually adding to the herd. Sunnyside was bound to wax fat in another year with all this kine to enrich the acres. Whoever Mr. Bronson sold the farm to would get, after all, one of the most productive farms in the Pringleton district. Orrin Post (Hiram always thought of him by that name, whether it was rightfully his or not) was fairly in love with the place. He often said to Hiram: "Strong, it would be the height of my ambition to own this place. I could settle down here in happiness for life." "And marry Miss Pringle?" suggested Hiram chuckling. "Delia has her cap set for another fellow," returned Orrin, grinning widely. "Believe me, she will get him, too." "What are you talking about?" snapped Hiram, thinking the tables were being turned upon him and not liking it after all. "Nothing personal. You are not the fellow, Strong," said Orrin. "It must be Jim Larry, then, that she is after," sniffed the farm manager. "But if you like it, Orrin, I should say Sunnyside would make a mighty nice homestead. But, I tell you truly, Mr. Bronson isn't writing anything much on the credit side of the ledger yet. It takes time to bring back an abused farm like this to a paying basis. This new wheat of Battick's will put Mr. Bronson ahead of the game. Yet that ought not to be charged to the profits of the farm, for it was entirely a side issue." The prospect for a bountiful corn harvest was, however, plain. When the corn was in the cribs they might easily count a clean slate, at least, without referring to the Staff of Life Wheat. Hiram was elated when he went through the fields of early corn and examined the ears now rapidly filling out. He was confident that nobody ever grew a better corn crop on Sunnyside Farm than he was making.