Some of the neighbors wanted to buy milk; “Comfort” was giving sixteen quarts a day. So four neighboring families were supplied each with one quart of milk a day, and after a week’s trial Mary reported she had made five pounds of butter that was worth twenty cents per pound, grocery price. They had sold twenty-eight quarts of milk at six cents a quart, butter and milk amounting to two dollars and sixty-eight cents, and they had used all the sweet milk, cream, sour milk and butter-milk they needed, and the pig had been kept on the surplus of the last two. Joseph was now feeding “Comfort” as Mr. Mason advised, with corn meal and bran, two-thirds of the former and one-third of the latter by weight, giving three quarts of the mixture night and morning. Corn meal cost one cent per pound, bran cost two-thirds of a cent a pound, the cost of the feed per day being a fraction over seven cents. He also gave her a little hay—to the value of say ten cents a week—pasture cost twenty-five cents a week, so the expense of her keeping was eighty-five cents a week, the work offsetting the milk used, left a profit of one dollar and eighty-three cents. There was another item not to be overlooked. The manure that was accumulating, the value of which was largely increased by the ground feed given the cow, and the oat shuck bedding. Of the acre of land about one-quarter was occupied with buildings, walks, shrubbery, a small lawn in front, and flower garden at the side of the house, but every foot of intervening space was well seeded to grass, so it really made quite a little mowing. Another quarter had been set out to fruit trees five years, and was now well stocked with red clover, the remaining one-half acre had been used as a garden and potato patch. With the exception of a few loads of manure, obtained at different places, no fertilizer had been used on this acre of land. But now having gone into the stock business, Joseph began to read and think about such things. He frequently brought home an agricultural paper from Mr. Mason’s to read in the evening, and began also to feel he must have one of his own. He found considerable in the papers about commercial fertilizers, so he asked Mr. Mason if he had ever used any of them. He said he had experimented with them considerably, and thought them excellent helps. “I have never,” said he, “paid out money for anything that came back as quickly with as good profit, as superphosphates. These and other fertilizers must be used with judgment to get the best returns, but on gravelly soil, with a clay subsoil like ours here, it pays well.” Joseph also asked Mr. M. what he could raise on his lot to the best advantage for his cow. “I should say sowed corn and mangel wurzels. You see this little lot at the back of the barn, it is ten square rods, and very rich ground. CORN FODDER.